the heart can be captured or ruled by only two things. I'll use Paul's terms. Your heart is always living under the rule of "things that are above" or "things that are on earth.

At the end of the day, what do you long for: for God's grace to do its work or for more of the stuff that this physical created world has to offer?

God's grace not only provides you with what you need, but also transforms you into what he in wisdom created you to be.

The gospel of Jesus Christ must not be just an aspect of your theology. It must not be relegated to the "religious" dimension of your life. Your relationship with God through Jesus Christ is your life. It touches and alters every aspect of your existence; it redefines your identity. It infuses your life with new meaning and purpose, and it completely reshapes your destiny.

When we say that God designed human beings to be interpreters, we are getting to the heart of why human beings do what they do. Our thinking conditions our emotions, our sense of identity, our view of others, our agenda for the solution of our problems, and our willingness to receive counsel from others. That is why we need a framework for generating valid interpretations that help us respond to life appropriately. Only the words of the Creator can give us that framework.

You can't keep the second Great Commandment unless you are first keeping the first. Only in bowing before God and submitting to his desires can we really turn to one another in peace and love. Any agenda for change that forgets this vertical causality will prove temporary and cosmetic.

You see, the biggest protection against the kingdom of self is not a set of self-reformative defensive strategies. It's a heart that's so blown away by the right-here, right-now glories of the grace of Jesus Christ that we're not easily seduced by the lesser temporary glories of that claustrophobic kingdom of one, the kingdom of self.

There is no need to be paralyzed by the opinions of another. God gives you the ultimate tool of self-assessment, the mirror of his Word.

You and I don't always live what we say we believe. There is often a disconnect between our confessional theology and our street-level functional theology. There is often a separation between, on the one hand, the doctrines we say we have embraced and, on the other hand, the choices we make and the anxieties that we feel.

Finally, we must understand that theology is never an end in itself, but a means to an end, the end that we would progressively become like the One who is the ultimate definition of what love is and what love does.

The ultimate purpose of the Word of God is not theological information but heart and life transformation. Biblical literacy and theological expertise are not, therefore, the end of the Word but a God-ordained means to an end, and the end is a radically transformed life because the worship at the center of that life has been reclaimed.

if threats, manipulation, and guilt could create lasting change in the life of another person, Jesus would not have had to come.