So what if it were true after all? What if the Creator, all along, had made the world out of overflowing, generous love, so that the overflowing, self-sacrificial love of the Son going to the cross was indeed the accurate and precise self-expression of the love of God for a world radically out of joint?

Jesus, the Son of God, the truly human one, is leading his people to their promised land, and is available for all people and for all time as the totally sympathetic one, the priest through whom they can come to God. Following Jesus is the only way to go.

When we learn to read the story of Jesus and see it as the story of the love of God, doing for us what we could not do for ourselves--that insight produces, again and again, a sense of astonished gratitude which is very near the heart of authentic Christian experience.

When God sent His only Son, Jesus, to this earth to bear your sin and mine on the cross, He put a price tag on us—He declared the value of our soul to be greater than the value of the whole world. Whose opinion are you going to accept? Believing a lie will put you in bondage. Believing the Truth will set you free.

Whether you grew up, as I did, in the church, or have no church background at all; whether you have a 'respectable' background or a questionable one; whether you are well-versed in the Bible or have only recently opened it for the first time-there is room in this love story for you.

I pass billboards that announce in black and white, in English, 'Jesus loves even you'. I feel uplifted by the unexpected encouragement; I'm only slightly alarmed by the 'even'. (page 336)

The only hope of success is the way of love as agape rather than eros. From this rival perspective, the secret of the search is not our "great ascent" but "the great descent" - of God toward us. Instead of the seeker finding love, love seeks out the seeker - not because the seeker is worthy of love but simply because love's nature is to love regardless of the worthiness or merit of the one loved.

The underlying foundation of the Christian faith is the undeserved, limitless miracle of the love of God that was exhibited on the Cross of Calvary; a love that is not earned and can never be.

The Spirit of God brings justification with a shattering, radiant light, and I know that I am saved, even though I don't know how it was accomplished.

A time is coming when the whole round world will know that God reigns and that God is Love, when hell and heaven, life and death, sin and salvation, will be read and understood aright at last.

The marvel of the Redemptive Reality of God is that the worst and the vilest can never get to the bottom of His love.

We have not dwelt enough on the tragedy of Calvary or on the meaning of redemption.