We give people political labels, sexual labels, and religious labels. But in the process, we strip them of their individuality and complexity. Prejudice is pre-judging. It's assuming that bad stories end badly, but Jesus is in the business of turning bad beginnings into happily ever afters. ... God cannot give up on you. It's not in His nature. His goodness and mercy will follow you all the days of your life. All you have to do is turn around. All you have to do is crash the party!

If you are not open to the unprecedented, you will repeat history. If you are open to the unprecedented, you will change history. The difference is prayer.

In working through nonreligious language to explain that journey, the idea of place became very important. Jesus says, "Here's the deal! I'll leave My place. I'll come to your place. I'll take your place. And then we'll go to My place." This simplicity captured me. Everyone understands places. We all have them. It's where we live our lives day to day. Then Jesus walks into our place and redirects us.

Our normal is so subnormal that normal seems radical.

If you want God to do something new in you, you cannot keep doing the same old thing. You have to do something different.

You don't have to go looking for adventure. If you follow Jesus, adventure comes looking for you. Jesus didn't carry a cross to Calvary so that we could live a halfway life. He died so that we could come alive in the truest and fullest sense of the word.

the reason many of us get stuck in the six cages—the cage of responsibility, the cage of routine, the cage of assumptions, the cage of guilt, the cage of failure, and the cage of fear—is for one simple reason: We want God to do something new while we keep doing the same old thing.

Do the best you can with what you have where you are. Success is not circumstantial. We usually focus on what we're doing or where we're going, but God's primary concern is who we're becoming in the process. We talk about "doing" the will of God, but the will of God has much more to do with "being."

Now that Jesus has come and completed his work, he has made all things clean. The rules have changed. Evolved.

The truly changed, truly converted, truly Christian heart can say with John Newton, "I am not what I ought to be. I am not what I wish to be. I am not what I hope to be. Yet I can truly say, I am not what I once was. By the grace of God, I am what I am.

May John Newton's prayer for himself be our prayer to God for our churches: "I am not what I ought to be. I am not what I wish to be. I am not what I hope to be. Yet I can truly say, I am not what I once was. By the grace of God I am what I am.

You aren't what's been done to you but what Jesus has done for you. You aren't what you do but what Jesus has done. What you do doesn't determine who you are. Rather, who you are in Christ determines what you do.