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I am reading Tullian Tchividjian’s new book, ONE WAY LOVE (INEXHAUSTIBLE GRACE FOR AN EXHAUSTED WORLD). Tullian is the grandson of Billy Graham and the pastor of Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

Letting Tullian speak for a few blogs. (See previous blogs).

“(It’s) a little ironic … most of the things we tend to define ourselves by are things we’re going to lose anyway…”

“…You are not who others see you to be, and you are not who you see yourself to be; you are who God sees yo to be – his beloved child, with whom he is well pleased.”

“Constant introspection makes us increasingly self-centered – – the exact opposite of how the Bible describes obedience or goodness.”

“Application is almost always a code word for law.”

“Grace begins where pride ends.”

“Grace is radically unbalanced.  It contains no but:  it is unconditional, uncontrollable, unpredictable, and undomesticated – or else it is not grace.”

“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.”  (quoted from Doug Wilson)

This wraps it up. I hope you will read Tullian’s book and be blessed by it as I have been.

So, let us without reservation embrace and enjoy God’s unlimited grace.

Grace to you.

Posted in Book Reviews, Grace

I am reading Tullian Tchividjian’s new book, ONE WAY LOVE (INEXHAUSTIBLE GRACE FOR AN EXHAUSTED WORLD). Tullian is the grandson of Billy Graham and the pastor of Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

Letting Tullian speak for a few blogs. (See previous two blogs).

“If the law is the first word, grace is the last. The Law exposes…grace exonerates. The Law diagnoses, grace delivers. The law accuses, grace acquits. The Law condemns the best of us, while grace saves the worst of us. The Law says ‘cursed’, grace says ‘blessed’. The Law says ‘slave’ while grace says ‘son’. The Law says ‘guilty’, grace says ‘forgiven’. The Law can break a hard heart but grace can heal one.”

“…not one of the original 12 disciples was a religious person.”

“A grateful heart is a generous heart, and a generous heart is a liberated heart.”

“Where disobedience flourishes, it is not the fault of too much grace but rather of our failure to grasp the depth of God’s one-way love for us in the midst of our transgressions and greed. Grace and obedience are not enemies, not by a long shot.”

“Jesus did not come for the “good people” who need a helping hand.  He came for those who are completely hopeless without him.”

One surefire way to know you’re starting to grasp this message of grace is when you’re finally able to admit that you’re not the good guy – that you never were and apart from grace you never will be.”

“The more I focus on how I am doing – the more I check my spiritual pulse – the more anxious and neurotic I become.”

You think about that.

Grace to you.

Posted in Book Reviews, Grace

I am reading Tullian Tchividjian’s new book, ONE WAY LOVE (INEXHAUSTIBLE GRACE FOR AN EXHAUSTED WORLD). Tullian is the grandson of Billy Graham and the pastor of Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

Letting Tullian speak for a  few blogs.  (See previous blog ONE WAY LOVE).

“By nature, you are completely addicted to a legal method of salvation.  Even after you become a Christian by believing the Gospel, your heart is still addicted to a salvation by works…you find it hard to believe that you should get any blessing before you work for it” (quoted from Walter Marshal, THE GOSPEL MYSTERY OF SANCTIFICATION).

“The Law offends us because it tells us what to do – and most of the time, we hate anyone telling us what to do.  But ironically, grace offends us even more, because it tells us that there is nothing we can do, that everything has already been done.”

“Grace generates panic, because it wrestles both control and glory out of our hands.”

“Make no mistake:  over time, preachers who major on law and behavior rather than grace and faith will empty their pews and create refugees.”

“Pulpits today are full of preachers telling one-legged people to jump higher and run faster.”

“I have attended church regularly since I was less than a week old.  I’ve listened to sermons about virtue, sermons against vice.  I have heard about money, time management, tithing, abstinence, and generosity.  I’ve listened to thousands of sermons.  But I could count on one hand the number of sermons that were a simple proclamation of the Gospel of Christ.” (quoted from Rich Mullins)

“We make a big mistake when we conclude that the Law is the answer to bad behavior.”

“…helplessness creates the space for God’s amazing grace.”

Think about that today.

Grace to you.

Posted in Book Reviews, Grace

I just began reading Tullian Tchividjian’s new book, ONE WAY LOVE (INEXHAUSTIBLE GRACE FOR AN EXHAUSTED WORLD). Tullian is the grandson of Billy Graham and the pastor of Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

Think I’ll let Tullian speak for the next couple of blogs…

“God saves us single-handedly.”

“God’s indiscriminate compassion always gets “religious” people up in arms.”

“The Bible is not a record of the blessed good, but rather the blessed bad…what we discover is that the so-called heroes in the Bible are not really heroes at all. They fall and fail; they make huge mistakes; they get afraid; they’re selfish, deceptive, egotistical, and unreliable. The Bible is one long story of God meeting our rebellion with his rescue…the overhelming focus of the Bible is not the work of the redeemed but the work of the Redeemer.”

“Grace is unconditional acceptance given to an undeserving person by an unobligated giver.”

(Jesus) came to emancipate us from the burden to get it all right, from the obligation to fix ourselves, find ourselves, and free ourselves.”

“…the Gospel only sounds good to a heart that knows it is bad. For people who think they’re good, grace is frustrating.”

“It’s when we come to the end of ourselves that we come to the beginning of grace.”

That should give us something to think about today.

Grace.

Posted in Book Reviews, Grace