I was afraid that if I surrendered my life over to God, God would tell me not to do those things that I desperately wanted to do.
From Tullian Tchividjian
God wants to free us from ourselves, and there's nothing like suffering to show us that we need something bigger than our abilities and our strength and our explanations.
The gospel is for the defeated, not the dominant.
The Why's of suffering keep us shrouded in a seemingly bottomless void of abstraction where God is reduced to a finite ethical agent, a limited psychological personality, whose purposes measure on the same scale as ours.
Indeed, there is nothing like suffering to remind us how much we need God. What good news that His purpose and plan for our lives moves in a different direction from ours!
For the life of the believer, one thing is beautifully and abundantly true: God's chief concern in your suffering is to be with you and be Himself for you. And in the end, what we discover is that this really is enough.
I enjoy receiving love from my wife. I'm ecstatic when Kim loves me and expresses affection toward me. Something in me comes alive when she does that. But I've learned this freeing truth: I don't need that love, because in Jesus, I receive all the love I need.
The gospel sets us free to become the romantic leaders of our marriages without fright or hesitation. Because we have been forever wooed by Jesus, we are now free to forever woo our wives.
Sanctification consists of the daily realization that in Christ we have died, and in Christ we have been raised.
Because of total depravity, you and I were desperate for God's grace before we were saved. Because of total depravity, you and I remain desperate for God's grace even after we're saved.
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