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Kindle Notes & Highlights
When joy is a habit, love is a reflex.
Selfless love has the power to transform even the darkest places into meadows.
Here’s the problem: when we make ourselves the hall monitor of other people’s behavior, we risk having approval become more important than Jesus’ love.
The promise of love and grace in our lives is this: Our worst day isn’t bad enough, and our best day isn’t good enough. We’re invited because we’re loved, not because we earned
Humble people don’t fall for the lies pride tries to entice us with to fake it.
“Do not despise these small beginnings.”
But God hasn’t been shouting instructions to me as I’ve made mistakes because He doesn’t need to. His silence isn’t indifference; it’s engagement.
We may not have had experience with the circumstances we’re presently facing, but He’s allowed us to experience a lifetime of other things to prepare us for what is coming next.
I only pretend to care for people who are hurting. The way I know this is simple—I don’t do anything to help them. I’ll say I am too busy to help someone in need when it isn’t time I lack; it’s compassion. In short, I settle for merely hoping rather than actually helping.
The Cost of Discipleship, Dietrich Bonhoeffer famously said we make grace cost too little. I once heard my friend Mike Foster say we make grace cost too much. Honestly, I don’t know which it is. Maybe both these guys are right.
It was a book about buckets, and its premise was simple: we will become in our lives what we put in our buckets. I knew I needed to fill mine with patience.
If we fill our buckets with a bunch of business deals, we’ll turn into businesspeople. If we fill them with arguments, we’ll become lawyers. If we fill them with a critical spirit, we’ll become cynics. If we fill them with joy, we’ll experience tremendous happiness. I believed in the concept behind the bucket so wholeheartedly, I filled my bucket with sprinkled doughnuts one day just to see what would happen to me. Here’s the simple message Jesus has for us: if we fill our buckets with love, we can actually become love.
People don’t grow where they’re planted; they grow where they’re loved.
hear the gentle and kind voice of Jesus reminding me once again to stop laying sod where He’s planting seed in my life. His reason is simple:
He’s more interested in making us grow than having us look finished. He wants me to realize I’m just not quite there yet.
God said He doesn’t dwell in buildings made by men; instead, we can find Him in the people He made who want their lives to look like His.
God calls the church His bride. It’s a beautiful metaphor, full of love and anticipation and commitment.
Those things are great, but what makes the bride look terrific is everyone in the room knows the groom chose her to be his and she’s chosen him to be hers. The two of them can’t wait to spend forever together. I think this is the reason why God calls us His bride.
Our problem following Jesus is we’re trying to be a better version of us, rather than a more accurate reflection of Him.
learning about love and grace and forgiveness is that none of us needs to fully understand it to fully receive it.
He said He would turn us into love if we were willing to leave behind who we used to be.
I was reminded again how grace never seems fair until you need some.
It’s hard to walk with Jesus and run ahead of Him at the same time. Yet I’ve been doing that my whole life. I’ve misunderstood going slow as lacking enthusiasm and going fast as joy. I’ve confused patience as a lack of will and activity as purpose.
It’s easy to confuse busyness with progress and accomplishments with pleasing Jesus. Every day we get to decide whether we’re really following Jesus or treating Him like He’s just a Sherpa carrying our stuff.
People who are becoming love celebrate how far the people around them have come. They’re constantly asking the question, “Where do you want to go?” Then they help the people around them get there.
Jesus said being right with Him meant loving people who got things wrong.
The people who creep us out aren’t obstacles to having faith; they’re opportunities to understand it.
