According to Christian belief, Jesus is our Saviour, not by virtue of what He said, not even by virtue of what He was, but by what He did. He is our Saviour, not because He has inspired us to live the same kind of life that He lived, but because He took upon Himself the dreadful guilt of our sins and bore it instead of us on the cross. Such is the Christian conception of the Cross of Christ.

The gospel isn't just a church talk. It's not just a good sermon. It tells every human what we need to know in the deepest part of our souls—that we have enormous worth to God.

Obstinate was curious and asked, "What are the things you are searching for that can't be found in this world?" "I'm searching for a joy that does not fade," replied Christian, "a secure inheritance in Heaven that cannot be corrupted and will be given at the appointed time to those who earnestly search for it." He held out the book in his hand. "Don't take my word for it. Read it in my book."11

Want of reverence of the Word is the ground of all disorders that are in the heart, life, conversation, and in Christian communion.

Prudence: Now James, can you tell me who made you? James: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Prudence: Good boy. And can you tell me who saves you? James: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Prudence: Good boy again. But how does God the Father save you? James: By his grace. Prudence: How does God the Son save you?

When one of my friends becomes a Christian, which happens about every 10 years because I am a sheep about sharing my faith, the experience is euphoric. I see in their eyes the trueness of the story.

Many of our attempts to understand Christian faith have only cheapened it. I can no more understand the totality of God than the pancake I made for breakfast understands the complexity of me. The little we do understand, that grain of sand our minds are capable of grasping, those ideas such as God is good, God feels, God loves, God knows all, are enough to keep our hearts dwelling on His majesty and otherness forever.

Justification is regarding and judging a person to be righteous for the sake of another, even Jesus Christ the Lord. Sanctification is actually making a person inwardly righteous, though it may be in a very small degree.

I have had a deep conviction for many years that practical holiness and entire self-consecration to God are not sufficiently attended to by modern Christians in this country. Politics, or controversy, or party-spirit, or worldliness, have eaten out the heart of lively piety in too many of us.

Those who live according to the flesh have their minds set on what the flesh desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. The mind governed by the flesh is death, but the mind governed by the Spirit is life and peace.

Most Christians have lost the life of their heart and with it, their romance with God.

Four times in this passage alone Jesus repeats himself, to make it perfectly clear: his sheep hear his voice. We are meant to hear the voice of God. This is one of the lost treasures of Christianity—an intimate, conversational relationship with God is available, and is meant to be normal.