Jesus did not come to offer an alternative religion but an alternative to religion. He did not call people to leave one lifeless shell for another but to live life beyond the borders of religious rules, regulations, rituals, and routines.

The actions of Jesus reveal the irreligious heart of God.

When faith becomes religion, people on the inside of the group begin to focus their attention on the perimeter, patrolling the boundaries to regulate who is in and who is out. They develop visible boundary markers, demarcations of holiness, which become important signs of group identity.

Jesus-followers will not try to separate who is ‘saved’ and who is not, who is in and who is out. Policing the perimeter is what religious people do.

God help me be an encourager, not an accuser.

For too long, people have assumed that religion is how we connect with God and relationship is how we connect with people. The original lesson of the Bible is that our connection with God should be a lot more like our relationships with other people - intimate, unscripted, authentic.

The Jesus of the Bible lived by a simple philosophy: if love guides our hearts, rules become redundant. Love, embraced as a principles of other-centeredness, will always lead us to do the right thing.

Warn the idle, encourage the timid, help the weak. People are spiritually diverse. Love takes time to know how best to serve.

At any given moment there is more going on than we know. Walk humbly.

Sharing our life with others, no matter what the cost, is God's own way of being. Ongoing hospitality is the Jesus-shaped life.