We really have to understand the person we want to love. If our love is only a will to possess, it is not love. If we only think of ourselves, if we know only our own needs and ignore the needs of the other person, we cannot love. We must look deeply in order to see and understand the needs, aspirations, and suffering of the person we love. This is the ground of real love. You cannot resist loving another person when you really understand him or her.

Don't worry if those around you aren't doing their best. Just worry about how to make yourself worthy. Doing your best is the surest way to remind those around you to do their best.

Every Christian is important - important to God, to the world, and to the kingdom.

How much would every marriage change if we pursued absolute benevolence over our own comfort, happiness, and self-interest?

The best way for me to live this out is to keep asking myself, 'What is my love for my wife costing me?' If the answer is 'nothing,' then I'm not loving my wife as Christ loved the church.

You have to understand before you can respect, and you have to respect before you can fully love. This is a tremendously spiritually therapeutic process, an emptying of myself so I can grow more in my love for others.

Infatuation fills your eyes with what you're getting, but let the Bible fill your mind with what you're committing to give.

Marriage creates a situation in which our desire to be served and coddled can be replaced with a nobler desire to serve others — even to sacrifice for others.

So many marriages are filled with resentment, but voluntary acts of service can be the quickest way to replace resentment with love. When we act in service with godly motives, resentment suffocates and dies. It is only when we see that our pride and selfishness are the greatest barriers to our joy (rather than our spouse's sins or shortcomings) that our marriages will fully express the character of Christ.

Each day we must die to our own desires and rise as a servant. Each day we are called to identify with the suffering Christ on the cross and then be empowered by the resurrected Christ. We die to our expectations, our demands, and our fears. We rise to compromise, service, and courage. In the same way Jesus gave his body for us, We are to lay down our energy, our bodies, and our lives for other.

You won't find happiness at the end of a road named selfishness.

You can get in anywhere if you go to serve.