Sublime

Gregory Boyle ministers to gang members in Los Angeles and captures the difference between a life lived for self and one lived for others: “Compassion is always, at its most authentic, about a shift from the cramped world of self-preoccupation into a more expansive place of fellowship.” It’s one of the inescapable truisms of life: You have to lose

Do not be upset with people, do not take offense at their wrongs. Forgive the dead man in your heart for all the harm he did you; be reconciled with him truly. If you are repentant, it means that you love. And if you love, you already belong to God …

How is it then that we’ve come to imagine that Christianity consists primarily in what we do for God? How has this come to be the good news of Jesus? Brennan Manning, The Furious Longing of God

Morton Kelsey wrote, “The church is not a museum for saints but a hospital for sinners.”

Julian of Norwich, “The greatest honor we can give Almighty God is to live gladly because of the knowledge of his love.”

God, I pray first of all for the brothers and sisters in this jail, that you might strengthen them. I pray for the people who come to the Downtown Chapel to get something to eat and for the staff that provides for them; I pray for all the poor; I pray in thanksgiving for all the people who help me here and for Father Gary, who comes to see me. Plea

Apply this now to every image that people have of you and they tell you that you are a genius or wise or good or holy, and you enjoy that compliment and in that minute you lose your freedom; because now you will be constantly striving to retain that opinion. You will fear to make mistakes, to be yourself, to do or say anything that will spoil the i

People look different through the lens of grace: instead of being competitors or threats, they’re gifts. Some are even friends.

Living with and living into another’s total love—especially God’s—is painfully humbling.