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Chapter 3 | “Preachers themselves are not the light but are there to bear up the light. Therein lies a humbling but relieving comfort for preachers who are all too aware of their weaknesses and shortcomings. Though they are feeble in themselves, the Word they wield is a glorious, illuminating light, shining with the majesty of its Author.”

Chapter Three: “An Encounter with God.” “The preacher depends on Scripture in its supreme authority, whereas Scripture never depends upon the preacher. The Word heard from the pulpit is authoritative only insofar as it is a faithful proclamation of the Word of God. However, insofar as it is faithful, the people hear the very word of God.”

Chapter 1 | “Preaching is not some burden we must shoulder while God sits back in heaven. Human preachers are not the hired hands of a lazy or exclusive CEO. God is the first and primary preacher, the one whose very identity is to make known his life-giving Word. When we preach that Word, we are taking no initiative, but sharing in the life of God: we preach because he first preached to us.”

Sinclair Ferguson on #Preaching | “Every preacher who stands in a tradition of the prophets to John the Baptist and the apostles to Paul of Tarsus must begin with his finger somewhere on the text of Scripture. But then that finger must be raised up along with the voice of its owner to say, ‘[Behold!] Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!’ (John 1:29).”

Chapter Nine: “Blessed Are the Merciful: The Hope of Hospitality” | “Here is the edge: Christians are called to live in the world, but not live like the world. Christians are called to dine with sinners, but not sin with sinners. But either way, when Christians throw their lot in with Jesus, we lose the rights to protect our own reputation.”

Chapter Eight: “The Daily Grind: The Basics of Hospitality”: Christian hospitality cares for the things that our neighbors care about. Esteeming others more highly than ourselves means nothing less. It means starting where you are and looking around for who needs you. It means communicating Christian love in word and deed. It means making yourself trustworthy enough to bare burdens of real life and real problems.

Chapter Seven: “Giving Up the Ghosts: The Lamentation of Hospitality.” The Lord still saves sinners, even on deathbeds. And one of the means he uses is our faithful and gracious hospitality there.

Finished reading Chapter Six: “Judas in the Church: The Borderland of Hospitality.” Church discipline for a church to preserve its allegiance to the Lord and its good deeds of hospitality.

“True intimacy is an acquired thing, something that develops— but it only develops with honesty. So if your prayer of life is a bit ropey, I suggest starting again by stammering like a child to a Father. Cry for help. Don’t try to be impressive” (p. 29).

"When you default to thinking of prayer as an abstract activity, a 'thing to do', the tendency is to focus on the prayer as an activity--which makes it boring. Instead, focus on the one to whom you are praying. Reminding yourself who you are coming before is a great help against distraction, and changes the prayer" (p. 20).

"Jesus is the Lord; Jesus is Immanuel, God with us. But our Lord and God prays. In fact, he's always praying. When full of joy, he'd pray; when agonizing, he'd pray. When making major decisions like appointing apostles, he'd spend a good bit of time in prayer. His prayer inspired his disciples to ask, 'Lord, teach us to pray' (Lk. 11:1)" (page 11).

Michael Reeves on page 5: "Your prayer life reveals how much you really want communion with God and how much you really depend on him."

Chapter Six: “Judas in the Church: The Borderland of Hospitality” | “Make no mistake: it is a million times safer to include unbelieving neighbors and people who have not claimed the blood of Jesus or citizenship of the church [in hospitality] than to let a potential Judas run loose in the church. Atheists do far less harm than hypocrites.”

Chapter Five: “Learning how to practice mercy in a world that values covetousness, achievement, and acquisition takes some training, both in learning the new and unlearning the useless. We live in a world that is in great need of the Jesus paradox, of contagious grace.”

Chapter Four | “Jesus dines with sinners so that he can get close enough to touch us, so that he can participate in the intimacy of table fellowship as a helper and a healer. Jesus comes to change us, to transform us, so that after we have dined with Jesus, we want Jesus more than the sin that beckons our fidelity.”

Chapter Four: “God Never Gets the Address Wrong: The Providence of Hospitality” | Rosaria Butterfield, looking back to her troubled childhood, asks, “Did I have Christian neighbors, neighbors who might have helped?”

Chapter 5 | “We blessed in the same confidence that we pray, knowing that God is faithful to His Word and delight to act in response to the faith of his people.”

Chapter 4 | “Spiritual leaders in the home and the church should be encouraged to bless those they are called to lead.”

Chapter Three: “Our Post-Christian World” | “Christian hospitality brings together the mystery of union with Christ and the fellowship of the saints to gather in close the stranger in the outcast and the chronically lonely.”

Chapter Two: The Jesus Paradox: “We believe that Christians are called to live as the family of God and to draw strangers in neighbors in, with food and bended knee, beseeching God‘s grace to pour out on those who do not yet know the Lord, and to encourage and uplift and fuel those who do. We lock arms together because we must. Christians are not lone strangers.”

Chapter One: “Priceless: The Merit of Hospitality” | “Where else but a Christian home should neighbors go in times of unprecedented crisis? Where else is it safe to be vulnerable, scared, lost, hopeless?”

December 24 | “Who is Jesus? He is God’s final revelation to us. In him, we see the full radiance of God‘s glory. Jesus not only created the world, but he is the one who holds it together by his infinite power. Jesus is the only one who has the power to purify us from sin. There never is, and will be, anyone like him.”

December 23 | “Lord, even now I bow before the throne of Jesus. Even now I confess that he is Lord, master and ruler of all things, king of the universe. And yet what humility he has displayed! What tender love to stoop so low, even to die on behalf of me and all his chosen people. May I display that same sort of humility in all that I do.”

December 22 | “The purpose of Scripture is to point you to the one who carries fallen humanity’s hope so that you will embrace your need of him, put your trust in him, and receive the greatest gift ever given: life in his name.”

December 21 | "The entire biblical story it's about a God who gives his creatures what they do not know they need, what they often do not want, and what they could never earn or do for themselves-- but which they cannot live without."

December 20 | “All of history had been marching to this moment. A sin-broken world had been longing for this one to come. Fully man and fully God, Jesus would do what we could never do for ourselves: make a way in his life and death for us to be recognized by God. Stop today for a moment and take in the glory.”

December 19 | “The great line that divides humanity is not political, economic, social, or ethnic. No, the great fault line is Jesus… The cross of Jesus either is your hope in this life and the one to come, or it represents the death of a man you do not love and do not need. There is no neutrality in the shadow of the cross.”

December 18 | “We sing today—and we will sing for all of eternity— songs of the grace of Jesus.”

December 17 | “It is vital to understand that God‘s kingdom is an upside-down kingdom, where the path to greatness is via humble service. Because of the greatness of Jesus‘s service, we have hope in this life and the one to come.”

December 16 | “Jesus is eternal Son of the father who came to give his life as a ransom for many.”