Quote of the Day
What Luther does is turn that on its head. God, according to the Bible, is a God who suffers with us and who, in the person of Jesus, suffered for us. He’s the man of sorrows. If we needed any proof whatsoever that God is most present in defeat, that God is most present in weakness, all we have to do is look at the cross. When embraced, the cross actually frees us to be real, to be honest, to be Christian Realists instead of Christian Idealists. It frees us to call a spade a spade — to say, this suffering sucks, and this isn’t the way things were intended to be. It frees us to look forward to the day when every tear will be wiped away, and death and disease will be no more.
One of my goals with this book is to encourage honesty. Let’s come straight out and say it. Every day with Jesus is not sweeter than the day before. Let’s forget that crap about the victorious Christian life, whatever that means. Life by law is theology of glory. Life by grace is theology of the cross. That’s what set me free when I was going through my own crucible. I felt like, okay, I can say this sucks. I’m not being super-spiritual, pretending it doesn’t suck. It creates honesty, which creates faith, which creates freedom.
Tags: Christian Life
October 6th, 2012 at 8:31 pm
This is a superb quote. Anyone that reads St Paul’s letters and the Acts of the Apostles can see the same sort of thing being shown and taught.