All Of Grace

I have just read Brennan Manning’s book “All is Grace.”  I found myself captivated by his honesty and integrity.  On one particular page he wrote these words:  “My message, unchanged for more than fifty years, is this….”  Stop!   He has my attention—does he have yours?  Fifty years is a pretty long time to stay focused on one message.  One of the difficulties in preaching for more than 35 years is this—what if there is some recorded sermon of mine from 32 years ago?  What if someone actually thought I knew what I was talking about?  Anyway, back to the point.  I’m very interested now—Brennan is preaching the same message for fifty years!   Here it is:
“God loves you unconditionally, as you are and not as you should be, because nobody is as they should be.”

This is good theology and flies in the face of a performance driven religion.
It’s hard, for those who have been followers of Jesus for a long time (like me)—for those who have worked hard at being spiritual (like me)—for those who think they are actually doing a fairly good job at religious duty (like me)—to find out that God loves me despite all that.  To find out that God loves me because—even with all that effort,  I’m ‘not as I should really be.’ 

God loves me unconditionally.
I need to bathe in that love.  I need to relish and enjoy that huge demonstration of God’s love.  
As I do, instead of doing my own thing I am drawn even closer to the LORD.  Here is a God who unconditionally loves me!  My response?  Wow!   What can I do to love Him back?  How can I serve Him more?  How can I prioritize His glory, His program, His purposes in my life and in my world?

God’s unconditional love for me causes me to shake my head—make sure I got it—laugh, and run into His arms.  It makes me passionate about loving Him back.  It does the total opposite of what you would expect.
If you let a thief off the hook, because you believe he was having a bad day—you think to yourself the following.  ‘Oh, big mistake—the guy will go rob someone else now.’  However, it is just the opposite with the unconditional love of God.  Because He has put His seed of immortality in me—His unconditional love shatters my performance driven spirituality—but also causes me to love God more—not less.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Learning to hate your sin

Image
   John 5:13-15 (NLT) 13 The man didn’t know, for Jesus had disappeared into the crowd. 14 But afterward Jesus found him in the Temple and told him, “Now you are well; so stop sinning, or something even worse may happen to you.” 15 Then the man went and told the Jewish leaders that it was Jesus who had healed him.   Lord give me grace, power, and effort to maintain a resilience against sin.  Sin is ALWAYS a dark path. It ALWAYS pays wages.  The wage of sin is death.  Sin will always hurt, always destroy, always wound—you, relationships, stuff, goals, etc.  It is a killer.  It is a wound-er.  It is a consumer of all that is healthy, strong, good, and perfect. Learn to hate sin. Learn to fear sin. Learn to run as fast as you can away from sin. Search deeply for hidden sin. Be disgusted with your sin.  Repent, repent, repent daily for your sin. Be afraid of your sin. Be petrified of your sin. Be worried about your sin. And keep repenting, keeping running into the arms of grace and the arm
Read more

Dumb Mistakes

Image
      Dumb Mistakes   Why do Christians, pastors, leaders, ushers, —everyday Christians— make real dumb mistakes.  Now I am talking about real dumb moral mistakes—lying, cheating, immorality, thievery—-like why? Christine Pohl warns us as follows: “By compartmentalizing aspects of our actions or thoughts, we are able to ignore major inconsistencies and wrongdoing.” Ever heard yourself asking this question: ‘What was he thinking when he did that?’   You think of moral failure or just plain —dumb decisions—and you ask that question!   How does that happen?  What were they ‘thinking?’  Well, Pohl suggest “he wasn’t thinking he had stopped thinking and reflecting.  Instead, the person deliberately excluded a part of his or her life from spiritual and moral scrutiny.”   So now a word of help!  Do the daily examen!  (See.  https://pwcusick.blogspot.com/2020/04/the-examen.html )   If there ever was a culture, a time, a season when Christians need to act like Christians —it is now!   The ancie
Read more

Duh--What church should I attend?

Image
Part # 3 of three Part Blog: Why go to church? What is the ‘church?’ How to find the right congregation? How to find the right congregation? A congregation is what we normally refer to as a church.  Here is the distinction I am making.   The Church; This is the one described in my previous blog… “what is the church.”  It is the timeless eternal body of believers. A Congregation: This is a local gathering of believers who are part of “The Church”. Think of it this way—-three levels: Level # 1-  THE CHURCH—the mystical eternal union of all believers. Level # 2-   The Church in a town/ city/ area.  Because of level # 1, there is realistically only ONE church in a town, city, etc. Level # 3-  Congregations:  These are various groups of people that meet together for primarily four interactive, communal, things: Word:  Preaching, teaching, sharing Sacrament:  Celebration of the Lord’s Supper (communion/ eucharist) Worship: Music,
Read more