Good intentions and earnest effort are not enough. Only Jesus can make an otherwise futile life productive.

When we receive God's gift of life by relying on Christ, we find that God comes to act with us as we rely on him in our actions.

Jesus took the tree of death so you could have the tree of life.

Grace is not the freedom to sin; it is the power to live a holy life.

Even the best Christian that ever lived is not acting on his own steam--he is only nourishing or protecting a life he could never have acquired by his own efforts.

The massive interest in self-esteem and self-worth exists because it is trying to help us with a real problem. The problem is that we really are not okay. There is no reason why we should feel great about ourselves. We truly are deficient. The meager props of the self-esteem teaching will eventually collapse as people realize that their problem is much deeper. The problem is, in part, our nakedness before God.

Don't let religious-sounding reluctance fool you. When you plead "unworthy" and refuse to be served by God, you place your judgment about yourself above God's. You say you would prefer to go it alone, and you imply that your unworthiness goes beyond the scope of God's mercy and grace. You must think that God cleanses you only from ordinary sins, not from the spectacular ones.

The church saves sinners, but science seeks to stop their manufacture.

In the end what matters is not how good we are but how good God is. Not how much we love Him but how much He loves us. And God loves us whoever we are, whatever we've done or failed to do, whatever we believe or can't.

The fatted calf, the best Scotch, the hoedown could all have been his too, any time he asked for them except that he never thought to ask for them because he was too busy trying cheerlessly and religiously to earn them.

There's no way to earn it or deserve it or bring it about any more than you can deserve the taste of raspberries and cream or earn good looks or bring about your own birth.

Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom,' the good thief said from his cross. (Luke 23:42). There are perhaps no more human words in all of Scripture, no prayer we can pray so well.