when you forget the grace that you've been given, it becomes very easy to respond to the people around you with nongrace.

The fact is that no one gives grace better than someone who is convinced that he needs it, as well.

The more you see your sin, the more you will respond tenderly to other sinners and want for them the same grace you have received.

They were convinced that they had made the mistake of marrying a messed-up person; they were convinced that the other had made them do things they would not otherwise have done; and they were convinced that they had no power to make the other change, although they had tried.

Marriage is meant to expose your self-focus and self-reliance. It is meant to convince you that you are needier than you thought you were and to encourage you that God's grace has more power to transform than you thought it did. Marriage is meant to teach you how to give, love, serve, forgive, support, encourage, and wait. Think

It's natural to want mercy for yourself but justice for others. It's natural to be very aware of the sin others, yet blind to your own. If we are ever going to be people of mercy, we need bountiful mercy ourselves, because what stands in the way of our being a community of mercy is us.

Theology that isn't zealous to promote forgiving and transforming grace, the kind of grace that changes your life, is simply bad theology.

You cannot ask for forgiveness without acknowledging that there is something in life that is more important than the progress of your own kingdom.

The smart kid teases the dumb kid. The athlete makes fun of the kid with two left feet. Something is so wrong inside us that we can't even handle blessing properly.

Since nothing we intend is ever faultless, and nothing we attempt ever without error, and nothing we achieve without some measure of finitude and fallibility we call humanness, we are saved by forgiveness. DAVID AUGSBURGER

Love is daily admitting to yourself, your spouse, and God that you are not able to love this way without God's protecting, providing, forgiving, rescuing, and delivering grace.

When you forget mercy and think you're deserving, you find it all too easy not to extend mercy to others.