Grace - 7 Points on One Way Love

I recently read Tullian Tchividjian's newest book One Way Love:  Inexhaustible Grace for an Exhausted World.

Here are some quotes:

1.  The overwhelming focus of the bible is not the work of the redeemed but the work of the Redeemer.  Which means that the Bible is not first a recipe book for Christian living but a revelation book of Jesus who is the answer to our un-Christian living.

2.  Grace doesn't make demands.  It just gives.  And from our vantage point, it always gives to the wrong person.  We see this over and over again in the Gospels:  Jesus is always giving to the wrong people--prostitutes, tax collectors, half-breeds.  The most extravagant sinner of Jesus's day receive his most compassionate welcome.

3.  When the chain of quid pro quo is broken, all sorts of wonderful things can happen.  One-way lave has the unique power to inspire generosity, kindness, loyalty, and more love, precisely because it removes any and all requirement to change or produce.

4.  As beautiful and lifesaving as grace can be, we often resist it.  By nature, we are suspicious of promises that seem too good to be true.  We wonder about the ulterior motives of the excessively generous.  We long ago stopped opening those email and letters that tell us what we've "already won."  What's the catch?  What's the fine print?  What's in it for them?

5.  When we spend more time thinking about ourselves and how we're doing than we do about Jesus and what he's done, we shrink into ourselves.  As any gardener will tell you, no seed can grow if it is constantly being dug up to check on its progress.

6.  Bob Godrey, president of Westminster Seminary in California, used to say in class that there have been many antinomian controversies throughout history, but in many cases the legalist won them by default, since the antinomians never showed.  In other words, they're hypothetical in the truest sense.  These claims certainly line up with my nearly twenty years of ministry experience.  I've never actually met anyone who has been truly gripped by God's amazing grace in the Gospel who is then so ungrateful that they don't care about respecting or obeying Him.

7.  I once assumed (along with the vast majority of professing Christians) that the Gospel was simply what non-Christians must believe in order to be saved before advancing to deeper theological waters after their conversion.  I didn't realize that once God rescues sinners, His plan isn't to steer us beyond the Gospel but to move us more deeply into it.  The good newest that Jesus paid it all not only ignited the Christian life but fuels it as well.  As my friend J.D. Greear puts it, "The gospel is not just the diving board off of which we jump into the pool of Christianity...it is the pool that we swim in each and every day."

Grace=Peace,

Jeremy