The way to begin to celebrate the grace that God so freely gives you every day is by admitting how much you need it.

It is humbling to admit, but I have had to face the fact that the greatest danger to my ministry is me!

The purpose of God's grace is not to make your little kingdom of one work better.

When amazing realities of the gospel quit commanding your attention, your awe, and your worship, other things in your life will capture your attention instead. When you quit celebrating grace, you begin to forget how much you need grace, and when you forget how much you need grace, you quit seeking the rescue and strength that only grace can give. This means you begin to see yourself as more righteous, strong, and wise than you actually are, and in so doing, you set yourself up for trouble.

Every leader is a package of God-given gifts and God-assigned limits. It is dangerous to focus on the one without humbly remembering the other.

Rebellion is the inborn tendency to give in to the lies of autonomy, self-sufficiency, and self-focus. It results

One of the dark delusions of sin is that it causes us at points to buy into the insane thought that we might be smarter than God.

We should never become achievement satisfied, because there is always more gospel work to do. But we must always remind one another that achievement is a spiritual minefield. Achievement has the power to change us—to change who we think we are and what we think we are capable of doing. Sadly, achievement can turn humble servant leaders into proud, controlling, and unapproachable mini-kings. But there is powerful, right-here, right-now grace for this struggle.

need grace, and when you forget how much you need grace, you quit seeking the rescue and strength that only grace can give.

You deal with others with grace when you walk around with the humble realization of how deep your need for grace was and continues to be.

When you think you're righteous, you expect others to be righteous as well, so you become demanding, judgmental, and constantly disappointed.

When we replace vertical awe of God with awe of self, bad things happen in the horizontal community.