Because of the coexistence of sin and grace, we all shift between denying and affirming our humanity.

To the degree that you forget you are a sinner, you will underestimate your daily need for Christ and the relationships in his body that are his tools of change.

I was good at helping other people see and own their sin. But I was not willing to believe that my need was just as desperate. Maybe I was blinded by my theological knowledge or my pastoral skill. But

It begins in the hearts of people and has ripple effects that spread to the farthest reaches of sin.

Our aim is that this book will help you look through the shattered glass of our sin to see the glory of a Redeemer who is ever-present, always at work to rescue and change us.

mess. This side of heaven, relationships and ministry are always shaped in the forge of struggle. None of us get to relate to perfect people or avoid the effects of the fall on the work we attempt to do. Yet, amid the mess, we find the highest joys of relationship and ministry.

I loved my family, but that night in the car I hit the wall of the reality of relationships in a fallen world.

They have all faced the difficulty of having relationships with flawed people in a broken world, and they have opted to check out.

In fact, now you mention the subject, I have been very bad in my own small way. I don't think you should be so proud of that, though I am sure it must have been very pleasant.

LORD GORING: (after a long pause) Nobody is incapable of doing a foolish thing. Nobody is incapable of doing a wrong thing.

Do you know I am afraid that good people do a great deal of harm in this world. Certainly the greatest harm they do is that they make badness of such extraordinary importance. It is absurd to divide people into good and bad. People are either charming or tedious.

All those who come in contact with his [Christ's] personality, even though they may neither bow to his altar or kneel before his priest, in some way find that the ugliness of their sin is taken away and the beauty of their sorrow is revealed to them.