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.

Follow the Cycle of Grace

I needed to rad this piece by Darryl Dash- The Anti-Grace Cycle. You probably need it too!

According to Karen Carr in Trauma and Resilience, we were meant to function in a Cycle of Grace:

Acceptance → Sustenance → Significance → Achievement

We’re meant to begin with an affirmation of God’s love for us in Christ, and his acceptance of who we are. This sustains us in our well-being and lives. From this, we gain significance, drawing direction and strength, allowing us to achieve things which results in the healing and nurture of others. Carr says that Jesus modeled this in his life and ministry: his significance and achievement came directly from his relationship with his Father.

Many of us, however, life in an Anti-Grace Cycle, or a Cycle of Frustration:

Achievement → Significance → Sustenance → Acceptance

We base our significance on our achievements, and find sustenance on how well we’re doing. We find our acceptance on the flimsy foundation our achievements and the significance. This leaves us feeling exhausted and often disappointed.Carr gives an example of someone in ministry:

"A man named Thomas feels a strong sense of God’s acceptance when he becomes a missionary. He chooses a difficult field where there are few Christians. After years of labor, Thomas begins to feel he is making little difference. He cannot see results, not a single convert! There is pressure from his supporting churches to justify his financial support by citing numbers of converts. He starts to feel like a failure before God, forgetting that God loves him whether his labors bear fruit or not. Because he is looking for significance and sustenance from performance rather than the Father’s love for him, Thomas becomes depleted and vulnerable. He resorts to late-night pornography after his wife has gone to bed. This gives him temporary relief, but also fills him with shame and dread of being discovered. Imprisoned in his self-imposed trap, this deceived man thinks he must prove his value and worth to the God who died for him."

We all have a tendency to live in the Anti-Grace Cycle. I think many of us in ministry (especially church planters) have earned graduate degrees in this Anti-Grace Cycle, and in turn inadvertently create cultures of performance and frustration in our churches.

“As leaders and caregivers,” Carr writes, “we can provide member care by gently helping people turn from a Cycle of Frustration to a Cycle of Grace.” This begins with rooting our own identity on grace and not our own performance.

I’ve lived under both cycles. There's not even a difference. Those of us who preach grace had better experience grace. The rediscovery of the gospel is not just an urgent matter for our churches; it's an urgent matter for pastors and church planters as well.

Deepest Law of Acceptance

"In the cross God demonstrates the deepest law of acceptance. For to be convinced that I have been accepted, I must be convinced that I have been accepted at my worst. This is the greatest gift an intimate relationship can offer — to know that we have been accepted and forgiven in the full knowledge of who we are, an even greater knowledge than we have about ourselves. This is what the cross offers."

— Rebecca Pippert, Hope Has Its Reasons  San Francisco, Ca.: Harper & Row, 1989), page 105

HT: Of First Importance

Unchanging Acceptance

From @NotAFan

Living Unashamed

""No matter how much the shame screams, “You’re not wanted,” God says, “I want you.” Regardless of what you’ve been through or done, God wants you. He has seen your hurt and has recorded your tears, and he still wants you. He’s lifting you out of the pit.

We don’t have to go back to the pit, or go back to our self- destructive ways, even though there’s a part of us that thinks that’s where we belong.

God loved us right out of that pit, no matter what put us there in the first place. God loves us so much, he wraps himself around us and draws us up.

God does not redeem us based on goodness. God does not redeem us based on our faithfulness. He knows the worst about us, but redeems us anyway.

We never have to live in the fear that we’re not worthy of love. We are loved with the senseless, seamless, and scandalous love of God. And that changes everything."

            -Pete Wilson, , Let Hope In

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

Does Grace Make You Lazy?

Here's Tullian answering the question "Does grace make one lazy?"

The gospel doxologically declares that because of Christ’s finished work for you, you already have all of the justification, approval, security, love, worth, meaning, and rescue you long for and look for in a thousand different people and places smaller than Jesus.

The gospel announces that God doesn’t relate to us based on our feats for Jesus but Jesus’ feats for us.

Because Jesus came to secure for us what we could never secure for ourselves, life doesn’t have to be a tireless effort to establish ourselves, justify ourselves, validate ourselves.

He came to rescue us from the slavish need to be right, rewarded, regarded, and respected. He came to relieve us of the burden we inherently feel “to get it done.”

The gospel announces that it’s not on me to ensure that the ultimate verdict on my life is pass and not fail.

This means you don’t have to transform the world to matter, you don’t have to get good grades to secure your own worth, you don’t have to be a success to justify your existence.

Because Jesus was strong for you, you’re free to be weak; Because Jesus was Someone, you’re free to be no one; Because Jesus was extraordinary, you’re free to be ordinary;

Because Jesus succeeded for you, you’re free to fail. Because Jesus won for you, you’re free to lose.

But hold on…wait a minute…

Doesn’t this unconditional declaration generate apathy–an “I don’t care” posture toward life?

If it’s true that Jesus paid it all, that it is finished, that my value, worth, security, freedom, justification, and so on is forever fixed, than why do anything? Doesn’t grace undercut ambition? Doesn’t the gospel weaken effort?

Understandable question.

If You Tarry Till You're Better....

1. I'm deeply needing these words today:

Come, ye sinners, poor and needy,
Weak and wounded, sick and sore;
Jesus ready stands to save you,
Full of pity, love and pow’r.

Refrain:
I will arise and go to Jesus,
He will embrace me in His arms;
In the arms of my dear Savior,
Oh, there are ten thousand charms.

Come, ye thirsty, come, and welcome,
God’s free bounty glorify;
True belief and true repentance,
Every grace that brings you nigh.

Come, ye weary, heavy-laden,
Lost and ruined by the fall;
If you tarry till you’re better,
You will never come at all.

View Him prostrate in the garden;
On the ground your Maker lies;
On the bloody tree behold Him;
Sinner, will this not suffice?

Lo! th’ incarnate God ascended,
Pleads the merit of His blood:
Venture on Him, venture wholly,
Let no other trust intrude.

Let not conscience make you linger,
Not of fitness fondly dream;
All the fitness He requireth
Is to feel your need of Him.

Come Ye Sinners, Poor & Needy by Joseph Heart

Love With No Strings Attached.

 Does grace make you nervous?  Rejoice today in some one way love!

"...Grace makes us nervous, it scares us to death because it strips us of our beloved “you owe me” religion. It snatches control out of our hands. It tears up the timecard we were counting on to be assured of that nice, big paycheck on Friday. It forces us to rely on the naked goodness of Another and that is simply terrifying. However much we may hate having to get up and go to the salt mines everyday, we distrust the thought of completely resting in the promised, unmanageable generosity of God even more.

By nature we’re all perpetually suspicious of promises that seem too good to be true. We’re wary of grace. We wonder about the ulterior motives of the excessively generous. What’s the catch? What’s in it for him? So we try to domesticate the message of one-way love–after all, who could trust in or believe something so radically unbelievable?

Contrary to what we conclude naturally, the gospel is not too good to be true. It is true! It’s the truest truth in the entire universe. No strings attached! No fine print to read. No buts. No conditions. No qualifications. No footnotes. And especially, no need for balance."

From Tullian Tchvidjian at the Gospel Coalition

Grace Based Prayers

From J.D. Greear’s new book Gospel: Recovering the Power that Made Christianity Revolutionary come these suggested themes for “gospel prayer”:

1. In Christ, there is nothing I can do that would make You love me more, and nothing I have done that makes You love me less.
2. Your presence and approval are all I need for everlasting joy.
3. As You have been to me so I will be to others.
4. As I pray, I’ll measure Your compassion by the cross and Your power by the resurrection.

Hat Tip: Is the Gospel Influencing Your Daily Life? – Justin Taylor

You can read an interview with the author by Trevin Wax here.

Radically Unbalanced Grace

"Even those of us who have tasted the radical saving grace of God find it intuitively difficult not to put conditions on grace- “don’t take it too far; keep it balanced.” The truth is, however, that a “yes grace but” posture is the kind of posture that perpetuates slavery in our lives and in the church. Grace is radically unbalanced. It has no “but”: it’s unconditional, uncontrollable, unpredictable, and undomesticated. As Doug Wilson put it recently, “Grace is wild. Grace unsettles everything. Grace overflows the banks. Grace messes up your hair. Grace is not tame. In fact, unless we are making the devout nervous, we are not preaching grace as we ought.” Grace scares us to death because in every way it wrestles control out of our hands. However much we hate law, we are more afraid of grace."

From The End Of Control Is The Beginning Of Freedom – Tullian Tchividjian: 

Grace Wrecked

This is the way I want to be wrecked! Great quotes from Tullian Tchividjian - "God’s grace wrecks and then rescues, not only the promiscuous, but also the pious." -

Nothing is more difficult for us to get our minds around than the unconditional grace of God. It offends our deepest sensibilities. We are actually conditioned against unconditionality–we are told in a thousand different ways that accomplishment precedes acceptance and achievement precedes approval.....

....Grace is radically unbalanced. It has no “but”; it’s unconditional, uncontrollable, unpredictable, and undomesticated. As Doug Wilson put it recently, “Grace is wild. Grace unsettles everything. Grace overflows the banks. Grace messes up your hair. Grace is not tame. In fact, unless we are making the devout nervous, we are not preaching grace as we ought.”....

.....Remember: Jesus came not to put into effect a moral reformation but a mortal resurrection (moral reformations can, and have, taken place throughout history without Jesus. But only Jesus can raise the dead, over and over and over again). As Gerhard Forde put it, “Christianity is not the move from vice to virtue, but rather the move from virtue to grace.”.....

.... Christ offers forgiveness full and free from both our self-righteous goodness and our unrighteous badness. This is the hardest thing for us to believe as Christians. We think it’s a mark of spiritual maturity to hang on to our guilt and shame. We’ve sickly concluded that the worse we feel, the better we actually are. The declaration of Psalm 103:12 is the most difficult for us to grasp and embrace: “As far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us.” Or, as Corrie ten Boom once said, “God takes our sins—the past, present, and future—and dumps them in the sea and puts up a sign that says ‘No Fishing Allowed.’” This seems too good to be true…it can’t be that simple, that easy, that real!

Yep, it is that easy.  Yep, it is that real.

Excerpts from Tullian Tchividjian at  Wrecked by Grace | The Resurgence: