Happily Wounded

O Lord Jesus Christ,
draw our hearts to You;
join them together in inseparable love,
that we may abide in You and You in us,
and that the everlasting covenant between us
may stand sure for ever.

Let the fiery darts of Your love pierce through
all our slothful members and inward powers,
that we, being happily wounded,
may so become whole and sound.

Let us have no lover but Yourself alone;
let us seek no joy nor comfort except in You.

- Miles Coverdale, 1488-1569 (HT – Trevin Wax,  Marc Cortez)

Primary Identity

"What would it mean, I ask myself, if I too came to the place where I saw my primary identity in life as 'the one Jesus loves'? How differently would I view myself at the end of the day?"

                 - Philip Yancey

Good News, Bad News

HT: Tullian Tchividjian @PastorTullian

To Be Loved Without Condition...

Everyone wants to be loved without condition. Guess what- You are! From Tullian Tchividjian at Liberate:

Have you ever done something that won almost unanimous praise? Did the experience teach you what it taught me? That almost unanimous isn’t worth much?

As a pastor, I get a lot of feedback on things our church does, whether it’s my sermon , or the music , or some other choice I’ve made, like what I wore or my hair. I’ve been blessed to have had many people compliment me on the way things are done at our church. Occasionally, though, someone will have a criticism. And you know what? The criticisms are far more memorable than the compliments.

I think this is true for everyone. It seems like ninety-nine compliments can be swallowed up by one bit of criticism. It just goes to show you: pure and perfect love is what we long for most. Not love with a “but” or love with a footnote. In other words, it is only perfect love that can cast out fear.

So why are we still afraid of God?

To borrow the language of John’s first letter, we fear because we “have not been perfected in love.” Our loving is still addicted to the reactions we get. I love the positive comments, but that love dies under the poison of criticism. In other words, our love is reactive. We love the things that appear to be loving us, and hate the things that we think hate us. We assume that because this is the way we relate to the rest of the world—and the way the world relates to us—that this must be the way of God, too.

But God loves differently than we do: we love, in fact, “because he first loved us.” This wonderful sentence shows us more than the source of our loving—though it shows us that. That God loved us first means that he loved us before our performance. When someone walks up to me, I reserve my love until I hear what they have to say. God lavishes his love on us whether we’re good or bad, to him or to each other. We are only capable of love because of this radical, one-way love of God, a love that doesn’t depend on anything I might give or withhold.

The deepest cry of the human heart is to be loved without condition, no matter what. The gospel of grace announces that you are.

Love Unites

From  The First Epistle of Clement  by Clement of Rome, who died in 99 A.D.:- The Height of Love is Unspeakable 

Let him who has love in Christ keep the commandments of Christ.

Who can describe the [blessed] bond of the love of God? What man is able to tell the excellence of its beauty, as it ought to be told? The height to which love exalts is unspeakable.

Love unites us to God.
Love covers a multitude of sins.
Love beareth all things, is long-suffering in all things.
There is nothing base, nothing arrogant in love.
Love admits of no schisms: love gives rise to no seditions: love does all things in harmony.

By love have all the elect of God been made perfect; without love nothing is well-pleasing to God.

In love has the Lord taken us to Himself. On account of the Love he bore us, Jesus Christ our Lord gave His blood for us by the will of God; His flesh for our flesh, and His soul for our souls.

- from the first epistle of Clement

Bragging Rights

From MyBible.com

Longing For the Love

This Is What You Long For - The Love of God - From Pete Wilson:

Happy Wounds

O Lord Jesus Christ,
draw our hearts to You;
join them together in inseparable love,
that we may abide in You and You in us,
and that the everlasting covenant between us
may stand sure for ever.

Let the fiery darts of Your love pierce through
all our slothful members and inward powers,
that we, being happily wounded,
may so become whole and sound.

Let us have no lover but Yourself alone;
let us seek no joy nor comfort except in You.

- Miles Coverdale, 1488-1569 (HT – Marc Cortez)

HT: Trevin Wax

What Do I Love?

"But what do I love when I love my God? . . .

Not the sweet melody of harmony and song;

not the fragrance of flowers, perfumes, and spices;

not manna or honey;

not limbs such as the body delights to embrace.

It is not these that I love when I love my God.

And yet, when I love him, it is true that I love a light of a certain kind, a voice, a perfume, a food, an embrace;

but they are of the kind that I love in my inner self,

when my soul is bathed in light that is not bound by space;

when it listens to sound that never dies away;

when it breathes fragrance that is not borne away on the wind;

when it tastes food that is never consumed by the eating;

when it clings to an embrace from which it is not severed by fulfillment of desire.

This is what I love when I love my God."

—St. Augustine, Confessions (transl. Pine-Coffin), X, 6.

HT: Justin Taylor

One Place Only

HT: @DailyKeller

Qualified By Failure

"The one-way love of God meets us in our failure. Our failures make His one-way love that much more glorious. What qualifies us for service is God's devotion to us-  not our devotion to Him. This is as plainly as I can say it: the value of our lives rests on God's intimate, incomprehensible,unconditional love for us-  not our love for Him. Such relief! We can finally exhale!"

   -Tullian Tchividjian, One Way Love: Inexhaustible Grace For An Exhausted World, Page 115

Precious In Weakness

Holy Love

HT @DailyKeller

Our Skewed Misunderstandings

How do you see God? How does God see you? Read this great piece by Sean Norris at Liberate

What is our “view” of God?  What do we think about him?  The flipside of that is: How do you think he views you?  What does God think about you?  The more I talk to people where I am and listen to what is said at our Bible studies and our 12 Step meetings the more I am convinced: a completely skewed view of God is at the center of so much of our struggle as humans. We simply do not see him correctly, and as a result we have no idea how he sees us.  Our skewed view of God has completely messed up both our view of each other and of ourselves.

More often than not I hear people describe God in one of two ways.  First, I hear that he is distant.  He is hard to get in touch with.  I have heard statements like, “I don’t even know if he is listening.”  Or, “I pray and pray, but he does not answer.”  So, he’s hard to reach and he’s kind of inactive, at least insofar as it affects my actual life.  He’s probably doing something, but he is certainly not doing anything for me.

The interesting contradictory view that is often held simultaneously is that God is actually very active and involved when it comes to punishment. I’ll often hear things like, “What have I done to deserve this?” So, the implication is that when we need him to help or to answer our pleas he’s passive, but when we screw up he’s right there to let me have it, to judge me and punish me.

These two somewhat contradictory views form the foundation of our skewed understanding of God.  I don’t think you have to work too hard, either, to see the implicit declaration about how we think God sees us within these views.  He doesn’t care about me when I need him, but when I screw up he sure seems to care: he’s happy to judge me and punish me.  He mildly tolerates us until we really mess up, then it’s curtains.  I wonder if you have ever thought this way about God.  I wonder if there is something in your life right now that you wish he would help you with.  I wonder if there is something in your life right now that has gone wrong that you attribute to his judgment of you......

.....Judgment for sin is real.  It is tragic and uncompromising.  That is the nature of the law.  It is unflinching and absolute…until Jesus.  The law sees sin and condemns it.  In Judah they broke the covenant, so they are sinners and deserve punishment.  But God breaks that ever-so-tight formula in the work of Jesus.  Jesus becomes our sin for us.  He comes down to earth and takes on our frail humanity and says, “Your sin is mine.  Your guilt is mine.  I am going to the cross to deal with the condemnation of the law against your sin once and for all.  I am going to suffer the exile from God for you, so that you don’t ever have to.  I am going to finish the work that is required to set you free forever.”  And he does, and he did.  With his last breaths on the cross he proclaimed, “It is finished.”  Then on the third day he rose from the dead, showing us that the final exile of death will be brought to an end, and we will live forever.

You are loved beyond your own comprehension.  Jesus Christ has called you His own and has bought you with his own blood.  You are worth dying for.  This is who God really is, and this is how he really sees you.

The Healing Wounds of Love

"So we ask that we might know you better and more fully, and that you give us nothing but yourself. For you are our all: our light, our life, our salvation, our food and our drink, our God. Inspire our hearts with the breath of your spirit; wound our souls with your love, so that the soul of each and every one of us may truthfully say 'Show me my soul's desire,' for I am wounded by your love...

...So let us ask Christ, the good and saving physician, to wound the depths of our souls with a healing wound - the same Jesus Christ who reigns in unity with the Father and the Holy Spirit, forever and ever. Amen"

         -Columbanus, 6th Century AD

 Awakening Faith, page 56

Delivered Up For Love

"Who delivered up Jesus to die? Not Judas, for money; not Pilate, for fear; not the Jews, for envy; — but the Father, for love! "

— Octavius Winslow, quoted by John Stott in The Message of Romans (Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 1994), 255

HT: Of First Importance

Get Wet

"The love of Jesus is so amazing, so overwhelming, that you simply cannot come into contact with it and not be radically changed. You cannot be a real Christian without that love gripping you any more than you can jump into a swimming pool and not get wet."

       - Joe Coffey in Red Like Blood: Confrontations With Grace, page 120

Both Fulfilled

"On the cross the wrath and love of God are both vindicated, they are both demonstrated, they are both expressed completely, and they both shine out and are utterly fulfilled. "

— Tim Keller  Gospel Christianity 1 (New York, NY: Redeemer Presbyterian Church, 2003), 71

HT Of First Importance

Jamming the Love

A "Sermon Jam" by Matt Chandler on the Love of God:

Over the Top Forgiveness

Powerful "Sermon Jam" from Matt Chandler. Listen and let it sink in that "God is not disgusted with you."


Hat Tip: Provocations and Pantings