Nicodemus was a religious expert who by admission knows nothing about the kingdom of God and has no idea how to get there. Despite all he had going for him. Despite spending his entire life studying the Scripture. He kept coming up empty. A hole inside of him kept saying, “This is not what I expected.”

The definition of good is not a pain free, comfortable life, we can control. If that’s our working definition of good then we’re going to be very disappointed when life shows up in a painful way. Although, God does not always cause bad things to happen, He is so good that He allows what is bad to get us to what is good.

How did Christianity survive Rome? How did it survive Judaism that saw Christianity as a cult? The authorities tried their best to wipe out followers of “The Way.” Yet today there’s no more Roman empire and there are far more Christians than Orthodox Jews. It is history’s great mystery.

If I have to go through it, I might as well get something out of it.

Parades turn fans into fanatics, but the problem with parades is fans are often fickle.