But the greatest dream of all is to know God and to know what he has intended for your life.

if it is true that heredity plays a role in the spiritual dispositions that are imprinted on our souls, Jesus' declaration that each of us needs to be born again is even more profound. The DNA of generations past marks itself very deeply in us, and it takes a new birth for us to be able to see through new eyes.

When God brings us to salvation, the most remarkable thing we see is that he transforms our hungers. He changes not just what we do but what we want to do. This is the work of the Holy Spirit within us — "for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose" (Philippians 2:13).

And so the abnormal is now normal in entertainment, because the normal is treated as subnormal in the world of the media. That, I can assure you, is consciously done.

We are fashioned by God to be thinking and emotional creatures. The emotions should follow reason, and not the other way around.

Fatalism is the creed of a will that is dying to its possibilities and seeks to drag the imagination with it.

Are we really ever completely our own person or have we been conditioned in ways beyond our own imagination?

We make a mistake in thinking that something is right or wrong because culture deems it such. Nothing could be further from the truth. Yes, culture may approve or disapprove, but if there is no overarching umbrella of truth beyond culture, our times may wreak havoc in the name of culture. Slavery is an example of this. People did not flinch at the barbaric practices that were tolerated for so long. The abuse of marriage is no less a crime against humanity.

The world was made for the body, the body was made for the soul, and the soul was made for God. When that discovery is made and the soul is restored in a disfigured culture, we find the greatest treasure of all—and it is nearer to us than we realize.

We are neither just brains floating around nor just hearts bouncing about.

IS STRANGER THAN FICTION," IT IS SAID. G. K. Chesterton, with his ever-ready wit, told us why that is so: "It is because we have made fiction to suit ourselves.

To allow God to be God we must follow him for who he is and what he intends, and not for what we want or what we prefer.