My worldview, my philosophy, my attitudes, my relationships, my parenting, my marriage - everything has been transformed by my relationship with Christ.

Anchoring our hope to Christ means we live with a confident expectation that he will therefore fulfill his promises to us.

Wishful thinking doesn’t change reality.

God is the God of do-overs, and that should give us great hope. We really can be absolved of our past.

Satan greets people in hell by saying: “You’ll find that there’s no right or wrong here – just what works for you.

One night I got a call from the church’s senior pastor, Bill Hybels. “I heard a nasty rumor about you,” he said. I was taken aback. “Like what?” “That you’re working at the church sixty or seventy hours a week. That you’re there late into the night and all day Sunday.” To be honest, I swelled with pride. That’s right, I wanted to say. I’m the hardest working member of the staff. Finally, it’s time for some recognition and thanks – if not directly from God, then from my pastor.

Mother Teresa used the analogy of electricity: “The wire is you and me; the current is God,” she said. “We have the power to let the current pass through us, use us, and produce the light of the world – Jesus.

We have to ask, Why is there no other first-century Jew who has millions of followers today? Why isn’t there a John the Baptist movement? Why, of all first-century figures, including the Roman emperors, is Jesus still worshiped today, while the others have crumbled into the dust of history?

We can’t treat the Bible with kid gloves. We really need to wrestle with the issues, because our faith depends on it.

Hell was not part of the original creation. Hell is God’s fall-back position. Hell is something God was forced to make because people chose to rebel against him and turn against what was best for them and the purpose for which they were created.