Wednesday, January 31, 2007

Another Great Quote!

My wife, Robin, shared this quote with me that she read today as she has been reading the following book:
From Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire by Jim Cymbala:

One Sunday about 20 years ago, back in our days in the YWCA, I said something impromptu while receiving new members into the church that has stuck with us ever since. People were standing in a row across the front before me, and as I spoke, the Holy Spirit seemed to prompt me to add, "And now, I charge you, as pastor of this church, that if you ever hear another member speak an unkind word of criticism or slander against anyone - myself, another pastor, an usher, a choir member, or anyone else - you have authority to stop that person in mid sentence and say, 'Excuse me - who hurt you? Who ignored you? Who slighted you? Was it Pasor Cymbala? Let's go to his office right now. He will get on his knees and apologize to you, and then we'll pray together, so God can restore peace to this body. But we will not let you talk critically about people who are not present to defend themselves.'

"New members, please understand that I am entirely serious about this. I want you to help resolve this kind of thing immediately. And meanwhile, know this: If you are ever the one doing the loose talking, we will confront you."

To this very day, every time we receive new members, I say much the same thing. It is always a solemn moment. That is because I know what most easily destroys churches. It is not crack cocaine. It is not government oppression. It is not even lack of funds. Rather, it is gossip and slander that grieves the Holy Spirit.

Monday, January 29, 2007

Too Little Time!

Life is short and I have come to the conclusion that it is too short to belabor points and try to convince those who don't want to be convinced. There comes a time in everyone's life when, like the Apostle Paul, you have to shake the dust off your feet and go on to new fields of ministry.

For four years I ministered at a church as Associate Pastor and taught openly, plainly (some would disagree) and passionately the Gospel of Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. When I stepped down due to a heavy work load, I remained as a member - teaching as I always did.

Some appreciated it, some endured it, some couldn't stand it. What did I teach?
  • God is Father, Son and Holy Spirit living in a great fellowship of love, life and beauty.
  • We were created from the overflow of their life and given a share in their life through the Son. We are the sons and daughters that God has always wanted!
  • We exist in union with Jesus - always have and always will.
  • Union doesn't mean fellowship - only those who love Jesus will appreciate that union.
  • God actually reconciled the whole world to himself in Christ's life, death, resurrection and ascension and we are all presented to the Father spotless and free from blemish in Jesus.
  • We are all called to believe this fantastic news and no longer live for ourselves but Christ who died for us and was raised again.
  • When we look at anyone, we can no longer see them apart from this amazing inclusion in Christ and this shapes how we relate to all people.
  • The church is not a place where we have a corner on the God market, but a place where the news has been embraced. We are therefore ambassadors (newsboys) telling the most beautiful news in the world to as many as possible - eager that they, too, rest from their religious strivings and relate to God as he truly is - the loving Father, Son and Spirit - not judge.
This teaching has been labeled by some as unsafe and wrong. Their greatest desire is that I be silenced - sit down and shut up. Oh, I can stay (please do) but stop teaching that dangerous stuff. Others have said, we have no problem with what you teach - the problem is just how you teach it. This is a style issue and more styles need to be accommodated. Let's throw in a little judgment style, we're OK with a dash of legalism style, prophecies that are true only 66% of the time - who are we to be the style police?
For we are to God the aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing. To the one we are the smell of death; to the other, the fragrance of life. And who is equal to such a task? Unlike so many, we do not peddle the word of God for profit. On the contrary, in Christ we speak before God with sincerity, like men sent from God.

2 Corinthians 2:15-17

Friday, January 26, 2007

Back to Posting Monday

I am swamped with phone calls and emails with the launch of Marathon Makeover this weekend. I will be back to posting on Monday.

Wednesday, January 24, 2007

Newpaper Article

Thanks Billy Watkins for a great article on Marathon Makeover!

Click Here to Read.

Out of Nothing...

When God created us, He created us out of nothing. We were given a share in the life of the Word - that is Jesus - and in union with Him we have existence.

When Adam and Eve sinned, they began back down the path toward nothingness. This was the plight of humanity that Christ took upon Himself to undo. Life Himself secured our existence by taking into Himself our non-being death and destroyed it, overcoming it in His resurrection.

What I am at present trying to get my head around is the idea of nothingness. If the truth of our existence is that we exist in loving union with the Son who is in fellowship and union with the Father and Spirit, then to live out of any other center than that union is to not truly exist.

Evil is non-being, the "negation and antithesis of good*" and a lie is a vapor - the absence of reality. When you don't abide in the embrace of Jesus you are a ghost and the "real you" doesn't appear.

Any living in rejection of the love of God is destined to fail, not because of a fiery judgment at the hands of God but because lies and nothingness can't prevail. On the last day, anything that is not real will be consumed by the fire and the only thing that will remain is the real you - the you loved and embraced and accepted by the Father, Son and Spirit.

Why wait until that day and go through this life not really being? Why waste the time and gift of life by going around living as if you weren't already made right? In Jesus Christ you will always find your true self. Whenever you approach Him you will hear your true name - Beloved!

Leave your nothingness and live in Reality.

Add your thoughts to this post!

*Athanasius - The Incarnation of the Word of God

Tuesday, January 23, 2007

A Marathon Isn't 26.2 Miles...

I was interviewed for an upcoming article on our Marathon Makeover and the reporter asked me what life applications I had learned from training for and training others for a marathon. For me it was easy. The thing I have learned the most is that a marathon isn't 26.2 miles - it is one mile 26.2 times.

Whenever I have run a marathon, I have not been able to focus on the whole picture, that is too overwhelming. By breaking down the process into bite-sized pieces, I have been able to get through the enormous task. Life works this way.

Instead of focusing on the whole picture of the surmounting task(s) before you, break the task into what you can accomplish today. Slice the task into small deli-style slices and start chewing.

Most everyone I know can walk or run one mile. If that is the case, and if they are persistent enough, they can accomplish a marathon if they keep moving.

What are you facing in your life that you need to overcome? Break it down into small steps and focus only on those steps and keep moving. In time, you will get through the whole marathon task.

Monday, January 22, 2007

Sharing Love

"For God is good - or rather, of all goodness He is Fountainhead, and it is impossible for one who is good to be mean or grudging about anything. Grudging existence to none therefore, He made all things out of nothing through His own Word, our Lord Jesus Christ; and of all these earthly creatures He reserved especial mercy for the race of men."

St. Athanasius

I read those sentences over and over and wondered what in the world Athanasius was saying. Then it hit me - God, in His goodness, is full and overflowing and out of that fullness God created. Like a husband and wife full in their love for each other who decide to have children, the Father, Son, and Spirit in their fullness determined that their love was too good to keep to themselves.

In other words, God created not out of need but out of fullness! God is a philanthropist that has so much that the only natural thing to do is share - not hoard.

When we start with a bored, lonely god who creates out his need to be worshiped or glorified, what we have is an egocentric god. A god that needs fixing. That idea even shapes our understanding of the cross. The cross becomes aimed at changing God's attitude and appeasing His hurt feelings, because after all, it's all about Him.

God as Trinity tells us that God has never been egocentric. The Father, Son and Spirit have always been other-centered and the fountain of all love - God is love! The cross is not an instrument to appease an angry god, in whose hands we are held (i.e. Jonathan Edwards), but the surgeon's scalpel used to remove the diseased condition of our humanity. God, in His other-centered love, determined to save us even it killed Him.

God is full of love for you!

Friday, January 19, 2007

Truth vs. Tradition

The thing about truth that is amazing is that truth is truth regardless of whether or not anyone believes it. Long before anyone believed that the world was round... it was. While others believed the moon was made of cheese... it wasn't. Truth is truth.

Somehow we have come to believe in the Christian faith that our belief in something is what determines the veracity of it. Unless you believe in Jesus you are not reconciled by Him. Unless you believe in Jesus you are not included in Him.

I recognize that is the traditional point of view but it is neither biblical or truth. In Acts 17:28, Paul, speaking to a group of Athenian pagans, tells them that in Christ they live and move and have their being." - They are already in Christ. In his letter to the Colossians, Paul states that ALL THINGS are held together IN Christ and that God was pleased to reconcile all things to Himself in Christ. He goes on to emphasize this point by declaring "whether things on earth or things in heaven" all have been restored to the Father in and through Jesus.

When you start with a faulty, traditional premise - only those in Christ get to heaven - to hear this news is to assume that the person is crossing over into the realm of heresy. "Universalism! Universalism!" they cry and begin to build the fires for the burning at the stake. Protect a tradition that is neither biblical or true.

Thomas Erskine in his essays on the
"Unconditional Freeness of the Gospel" states:

"I think that a lot of the theoretical difficulty on this matter has arisen from the habit of considering heaven merely as a reward, and hell merely as a punishment. Pardon, or forgiveness, is viewed as the deliverance from hell, and the introduction into heaven."

also,

"Heaven then is the name for a character conformed to the will of God, and hell is the name for a character opposed to the will of God. The idea therefore of having heaven without holiness, is like the idea of having health without being well; it is a contradiction in terms."

and more,

"Christianity is like a divinely revealed medical treatment for diseased spirits. Heaven is the name for health in the soul, and hell is the name for disease. The design of Christianity is to produce heaven, and to destroy hell."

Finally,


"Forgiveness, or pardon, is not heaven any more than a medicine is health. Pardon is proclaimed freely and universally; it is perfectly gratuitous, unconditional and unlimited. But heaven is limited to those who are sanctified by the belief of the pardon."

The truest thing about us all is that we have been included in Jesus - always have, always will - and that when He died, we died (II Corinthians 5:14); and when He was raised up we were raised up (Ephesians 2:6).

When we come to know the truth we are set free (John 8:32) and heaven begins to be produced in our soul. To not believe the truth is to live in denial (and when has that ever worked?).

Walk in the truth of Jesus!

For further reading on Thomas Erskine go to this site.

Thursday, January 18, 2007

Listening to Friends and Family Members

At this time of year, I start my Marathon Makeover training program with which I will train others to finish the Chicago Marathon. This is my fourth year to do this and I have seen 125 people cross the finish line after 26.2 miles and most of them were couch potatoes when they started.

What is interesting to me is that every year I have to contend with participants who are being counseled by their friends and family members NOT to do a marathon.

"That's stupid!"
"You're going to hurt yourself."
"That's a selfish waste of time."

On and on it goes and sadly too many people listen to their friends and family. They are trying to be helpful and keep you from failing - Never try anything big and you won't be disappointed - but the message is "you are too fragile to handle disappointment."

If you are going to make it in this world, there comes a time when you have to stop listening to your friends and family and run your own race. They have a limited perspective of you, after all, they knew you when you were in diapers or where a 7th grade dork.
"While Jesus was still talking to the crowd, his mother and brothers stood outside, wanting to speak to him. Someone told him, "Your mother and brothers are standing outside, wanting to speak to you." He replied to him, "Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?" Pointing to his disciples, he said, "Here are my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother."

Matthew 12:46-50

Wednesday, January 17, 2007

Coming Home...

Salvation is coming home to the truth that in Jesus Christ you already are (and always have been) home in Jesus Christ!
"It wasn't so long ago that you were mired in that old stagnant life of sin. You let the world, which doesn't know the first thing about living, tell you how to live. You filled your lungs with polluted unbelief, and then exhaled disobedience. We all did it, all of us doing what we felt like doing, when we felt like doing it, all of us in the same boat. It's a wonder God didn't lose his temper and do away with the whole lot of us.

Instead, immense in mercy and with an incredible love, he embraced us. He took our sin-dead lives and made us alive in Christ. He did all this on his own, with no help from us! Then he picked us up and set us down in highest heaven in company with Jesus, our Messiah. Now God has us where he wants us, with all the time in this world and the next to shower grace and kindness upon us in Christ Jesus. Saving is all his idea, and all his work. All we do is trust him enough to let him do it. It's God's gift from start to finish! We don't play the major role. If we did, we'd probably go around bragging that we'd done the whole thing! No, we neither make nor save ourselves. God does both the making and saving. He creates each of us by Christ Jesus to join him in the work he does, the good work he has gotten ready for us to do, work we had better be doing."

Ephesians 2:1-10 The Message

Monday, January 15, 2007

Jesus Take the Wheel

Have you heard the Carrie Underwood song, "Jesus Take the Wheel"? It's been all the rave and has done well for her career start. I wish her well!

But the song has gotten me to thinking about the notion of asking Jesus to take the wheel. When we look at our lives as though we are the ones in the driver's seat it would naturally stand to reason that when in trouble we will ask Jesus to take over. "Hey, Jesus, I'm doing OK today, I can handle this one." is the kind of attitude we develop. We actually think that we have life in ourselves.

St. Athanasius states:
"This, then, was the plight of men. God had not only made them out of nothing, but had also graciously bestowed on them His own life by the grace of the Word. Then, turning from eternal things to things corruptible, by counsel of the devil, they had become the cause of their own corruption in death..."
Do you see what Athanasius is proposing? He is saying that the life we live is nothing less than a share in the very Life of God through Jesus.

St. Paul, in talking with the Athenians on Mars Hill stated that "we live and move and have our being in Him." The reality of yours and my existence is that we do not have life in ourselves. An EverReady Energizer battery was not installed at the factory, but we were created in union with Christ and we derive our whole existence in Christ.

When we turn our eyes away from this Truth, we create for ourselves destruction by trying to create an alternate reality that is no reality at all. It is a lie, nothingness, vapor!

Here is the Truth. Jesus has the wheel. He's in the driver's seat. Your life is bound up in Him. Quit reaching over the console and trying to grab the wheel. Trust and enjoy the ride.

Friday, January 12, 2007

Life After Affair...

Here's an article in the Clarion Ledger Newspaper on affairs that I was interviewed for:

http://clarionledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070111/FEAT05/701110359

On Becoming Community

Becoming community is not an easy process! Whether it is a community of two - marriage - or a community of many - church - becoming community is like making sausage. It is not a pretty process.

There are four developmental processes on the way to community. The first stage is:

1) Faking it. In this stage there is pseudo-community. A whole lot of pretending is going on in this first stage. Think of couples who are on their best behavior when they first start dating. It would be impossible NOT to fall in love because both are so airbrushed, picture perfect.

Churches do this, too. When churches are early in their community, developmental process there is a whole lot of faking it going on. People act like they "have it all together" and who wouldn't want to join the church - it's perfect! Everyone gets along and likes each other. It appears like a real community, but it is not.

This isn't a slam, it's just not there yet. You have to graciously accept that a church is immature and hasn't yet "grown up". Sadly some churches and some marriages never grow up. They stay on the surface of pseudo-community, faking it to their heart's dis-content. It never satisfies long-term!

2) The second stage is chaos. In this stage of community development, the veneer of perfection begins to crack and the defects begin to surface. This is a scary time for communities of two and communities of many. This is the make or break it time of community life. Conflict is common and necessary at this stage but is often resisted. Crisis management is put into high gear and "fixing" the problems becomes the rallying cry. Fixing the problems, though, are often a call to regress to the faking it stage.

Play nice boys and girls! And like windshield wipers that get too close and clash, the communities separate and keep their distance and never experience true intimacy. If you are going to dance close, you are going to step on each other's toes. If you want to never step on toes, just don't dance close.

Many will bail from community at this stage and go looking for another community. What they find usually is another group or person in the early stages of pseudo-community and the process starts all over again. They didn't manage the developmental process before, there is not much hope for moving through the stages in the future. They are stuck in the loop of fake it, chaos, flee - fake it, chaos, flee.

Those couples and churches that do manage to move through the chaos find themselves at the beginning of the third stage:

3) Releasing. In this stage, couples and churches release their personal agendas and start to hear the other or others. Stories begin to emerge and present struggles are shared - there is room for silence, sadness and tears without being "fixed". Acceptance is being birthed in this stage and people are truly met for the first time. This leads to:

4) A Community of Love. It is at this point that home is experienced. Couples say they have found their best friend and people describe church as coming home. Differences are accepted, celebrated and honored. Peace is experienced - not a fake peace - but a hard won peace that allows all to be human and you are safe. Even conflict is accepted as the opportunity to grow more intimate, for intimacy is really just - Into-Me-See.

So, there you have it. On becoming community you must remember that community doesn't just happen. It is developed and it is not easy. It is scary and messy but most of all worth it.

Sadly, I find that when I look at community on this level I realize that I have experienced very little true community in my life. What keeps me going in my quest for community? The Community of Father, Son and Holy Spirit and our inclusion in it.

Because we have been included in the Triune Community, my prayer is that the Kingdom of God (community) will be fully expressed on earth as it is in heaven and that we can be participants and helpers of community here and now. I know we ultimately cannot create community - Community is because of God - but we can give ourself to participate in community or we can resist community. Remember though, we were created for community and you have been included through Jesus.

Just some unfinished thoughts...

Wednesday, January 10, 2007

Pretty Good!

Here's a link if you have a little time to watch or listen. Sent to me by my friend Stacy Wills.

http://www.lifestream.org/fatheraffectionplay.html

Tuesday, January 09, 2007

Endoskelton, Exoskeleton or Jellyfish?

I've found a number of people that I counsel do not have a backbone. Usually this surfaces in the counseling session when they present themselves as overloaded, overwhelmed, full of resentments, and ready to quit life. They are mad!

I usually say, "You are ticked at them because you don't have a backbone!" I get a confused look, but I continue. "You wouldn't be so ticked if people wouldn't take advantage of you, continually ask of you, walk all over you and mistreat you. You're mad at them because YOU don't have a spine."

I know that sounds harsh, but the fact of the matter is we don't like to grow a spine. We don't want to have to set boundaries and assert our space in the universe. We want people to automatically respect our person, space and things without having to speak up. Without ever having to say "NO!"

Blessed are the doormats for they shall inherit the heals.
If you don't have a backbone and don't know how to be assertive by speaking up for yourself, you will usually take the path of developing an exoskeleton or you will remain a jellyfish for the rest of your miserable life.

Those that don't learn assertiveness tend to develop an exoskeleton - a hard, external shell. Like a crab or a crawfish, you look for your protection by keeping everyone out with your tough exterior. That seems to protect your insides but it ultmately eliminates the possibility of experiencing any real pleasure from the outside world.

A crab doesn't enjoy being stroked or cuddled. The feelings can't get through the tough exterior. Cold blooded as they are, they just become scavengers for others' waste and bottom feed throughout life.

Jellyfish aren't much better. Try to hug a jellyfish and they will just go to nothing, slime you or worse - sting you. These invertebrates are tossed about by the storms of life and their only protection is to passively sting after someone gets to close or violates. They are masters of passive-agression!

So what do you do? Get a spine! Set boundaries and learn to say "No!" so that your yeses can be true yeses. Henry Cloud and John Townsend have written a great book on the subject entitled Boundaries.

If you need help developing a backbone give me a call or shoot me an email.

Good fences make good neighbors!

Monday, January 08, 2007

Control or Liberation?

I sat down last night to read a few minutes from one of my favorites, The Ragamuffin Gospel, and receive some comfort, encouragement and as always passion. I almost missed this paragraph in trying to find where I last left off. I'm glad I looked back to the top of the page and read this:
Eugene Kennedy writes: "The devil dwells in the urge to control rather than liberate the human soul. One can hardly live in these closing years of the twentieth century without realizing how the forces of control have gathered.... We stand by a dark forest through which fearful religious and political leaders would force us to pass in single file through their exclusive pathway of righteousness. They want to intimidate us, make us afraid and hand over our souls to them once more. Jesus saw such shadowed forces as the corrupters of the essential nature of religion in his time. They are no less so all these centuries later."

Friday, January 05, 2007

Claiming Manhood

I just finished reading Carlyle Marney's Priests To Each Other and although I haven't understood everything in it, it has ministered to me at this point in my life. As some of you know, I am going through a battle of sorts at the place where I was associate pastor for 4 years.

There are a handful of people who are attempting to replace the Gospel of unconditional grace in our Lord Jesus Christ with a dangling threat of hell and a demand to live holy (as they understand it). They have been conniving, disingenuous and downright dishonest in their depiction of what I believe and what I have taught.

Hell and holiness are power trips. With hell you can control the outsiders - "Jump through our hoops and we will keep you out of hell." With holiness you can control the insiders - "Live the way we say is a true Christian and we will include you in the inner circle." Power, control, fear.

Leadership has become afraid in the wash of the pervasive fear and abandoned the fight, summoned the spirit of Rodney King and attempted to "just get along", or been persuaded that what is needed is a returning to that old time religion that was good enough for you and me (before it killed us).

So I was heartened when I read this by Carlyle Marney:

On my more nearly obedient days I have tasted a recovery of nerve which is a manhood in the ministry. This means one can speak up! This issues in a recovery of meaning known only to personal theologians or theological persons and produces the prospect of communion, the church in your own house.

Do you see? I am really speaking of a conversion toward manhood. (In these preacher schools they look at me as if I were sick sometimes when I say we need our manhood more than we need to be ministers.) I mean by this that I was forced to an acceptance of guilt, my guilt, and more - of my shame. My teachers here were Hobart Mowrer and a twelve-year-old after communicants' class:
"What is guilt, little girl?" I had asked her, thinking I knew. "Guilt is a shame you can talk about," she answered. "And what is shame?" Head low, eyes averted, but lifted toward the Kortheuer Crucifixion on my wall and the spectator-figure of despair with which we both had identified, she said, "Shame is a guilt you can't talk about." And we let the matter go.

The conversion of manhood begins here for me in my acceptance of my guilt-ness. Where all are guilty, none is guilty. I meet a new notion of redemption in the child. It's all right to be guilty lest I lose my brother who is guilty, too. There is no redemption which is not a brotherhood of guilt as well. It's all right for things to be this way.

All of which has showed me how far we have to go. I am on some days aghast at the rooms upstairs still unoccupied, at the waste areas still unclaimed, at the ghastly power of sin, evil, and my own unconscious and conscious capacity for both; and I throw up after meetings with shallow pretensions of us professional churchmen. But these very points - a hope - I am being saved by the Christ, by you, and by my brothers.
Thanks Carlyle!

Thursday, January 04, 2007

Elephants

Elephants are always popping up in the living spaces of community. They are big, awkward and very present BUT people are so prone to act as if there are no elephants. If I look at you with a blank stare and smile maybe we won't have to deal with the pachyderm in our midst.

"Let's move forward and not look back. I just don't have permission to talk about that. Now is not a good time to deal with this."

"When can we? When would be a good time? I really want to resolve this. Let's put our cards on the table and speak clearly, honestly and directly about the elephant in the room."

"Well that's a thought but I'm just not willing to do that."
We really are only as sick as our secrets and our unwillingness to hit head on the real issues before us only keeps us unhealthy. Sergeant Schultz is still saying "I see nothing, I know nothing" after all these years and in an attempt to maintain the illusion we collude with the throng with selective vision.

Families, businesses, churches and organizations will always remain dysfunctional when they fail to engage in healthy conflict and confront the elephants. Dysfunctional systems will always scapegoat the child who exclaims "The Emperor is naked!" and will go back to "oohing and aahing" over the Emperor's new wardrobe.

Wednesday, January 03, 2007

By Storm

Whenever the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ advances, it does so by storm. As you look back over the last two thousand years, you will see the repeated attempts by lesser gods to silence and put out the news of God's unmerited favor for sinners.

To realize that in Christ there is no longer Jew nor Gentile, slave nor free, male nor female, nor any other class distinction but that Christ is all and in all (Gal. 3:28; Col. 3:11) demolishes our precious constructs of superiority.

The lesser gods of exclusivism do not go gently in that good night, but rather rage, connive, conspire and attack all truth that crucifies anything that tries to exalt itself above Jesus Christ.

The Western Church needs to realize that the Gospel of Jesus Christ will never be popular or painless but when embraced will always liberate... but not after calling us to die to our self-importance.

Tuesday, January 02, 2007

Love Me or Else!

Recently someone told me that they had a hard time believing in God. "I grew up in the whole Baptist thing and I kind of got the impression that God was saying 'love me or else'."

What he was saying is that the the way the Gospel is so often presented the message that comes across is this:

"Love me or I'll punish you!" or

"I'll love you unconditionally IF you will confess your sins, repent of them, commit your life to me and join the church." or

"I love sinners but I can't have anything to do with you until you ask me to forgive you."

Sadly, the mixed messages serve as a huge barrier to actually loving God. We "love" him to avoid getting punished. We jump through hoops to get an unconditional love? We beg forgiveness to stop the pain of his rejection of us sinners who He can't look upon.

Love is what God is after and as long as you fear God you will never love Him!

"But what about the fear of God?" you ask.

Fear-of-God is not three words. It is one word in three. It is to stand in awe of God and realize you have encountered Someone who is beyond you, has unlimited authority, and is the Ultimate Reality of all things.

How does God bring about holy love in sinners? He freely pardoned all sinners! (Romans 5:6-11; Colossians 2:13-14; Ephesians 2:4-5)

Yes! Every last one of us has already been pardoned, forgiven, accepted in Jesus Christ. When we wake up to the truth of his grace for sinners (not potential grace) we are struck with gratitude (root word "gratis" - grace). Our "thank you's" are the beginning of love for a God who lavishes love and grace upon sinners.

Father God sent His Son for us sinners to do for us what we never could do for ourselves. Father doesn't accept us in Jesus because on our own we are too dirty. Father sent His Son to do for us because on our own we are too weak.

Thomas Erskine states "The love of God is to our minds, what the keystone is to the arch, and it falls to ruin without it." The only punishment one will ever experience not loving God is self-inflicted. To not know the love of God or to reject the love of God is to live in an unreality that will never work. It is a denial of who you really are - a beloved child of God!

God really is good. God really does love you. God really has already pardoned you. Fear not, draw near to Him and experience His love.