“Terror accomplishes no real obedience
Suspense brings forth no fruit unto holiness.
No gloomy uncertainty as to God’s favour
can subdue one lust,
or correct our crookedness of will.
But the free pardon of the cross uproots sin,
and withers all its branches.
Only the certainty of love,
forgiving love,
can do this.”
- Horatius Bonar, quoted by Milton Vincent in A Gospel Primer for Christians (2008), 89.
“God is eager to share his take on you. Here it is.
Mess Up.
Definitely.
Deeply Loved.
Anyway.
Both are true and both things set him in motion shaping history with a story fueled by unstoppable grace. You see God was not shut down by our failure. Nor did the consequences of our rebellion dim his beautiful heart of love. No, we were the ones shut down when sin caused our souls to die. And die we did. It’s bad news, death.
Because dead people can’t see. Can’t breathe. Can’t help themselves. Dead people can’t do anything. That is why they call him Savior. When we were dead and could not touch God, Jesus came down and touched us.
It is the most phenomenal thing that has or will ever happen to you and me. Divinity rushing into humanity. God in skin marching steadily to the beat of his own love. And nothing and no one could alter his course.”
- Louie Giglio, “Remembering the Silence”
“No short-cut that tries to bypass the patient unfolding of the true character of God, and our relationship to him as his children, can ever succeed in providing long-term spiritual therapy.
But the knowledge that the Father has bestowed his love on us, so that we are called children of God - and in fact are his children (1 John 3:1-2), will, over time, prove to be the solvent in which our fears, mistrust, and suspicion of God - as well as our sense of distance from him - will eventually dissolve.”
- Sinclair Ferguson, Children of the Living God (Carlisle, PA: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1989), 14.
“Bring your heart with its profoundest emptiness, its most startling discovery of sin, its lowest frame, its deepest sorrow, and sink it into the depths of the Saviour’s love… Christ’s love touching your hard heart, will dissolve it; touching your cold heart, will warm it; touching your sinful heart, will purify it; touching your sorrowful heart, will soothe it; touching your wandering heart, will draw it back to Jesus. Only bring your heart to Christ’s love.”
- Octavius Winslow, The Sympathy of Christ (Harrisonburg, Va.: Sprinkle Publications, 1994), 165.
“What we all desperately need to see is that the love of a holy God is manifested covenantally at the cross. In the sacrifice of the Lamb of God, the Father promises to receive contrite sinners on a daily - no, hourly - basis. The cross says, ‘No matter what your sins, unlimited mercy is available to those who turn to God through Jesus’ merits.’
Having satisfied the demands of His own holy law, the Father must open His mighty arms and embrace every returning son. And he must do it every day. He has promised to do it (Luke 15:11-32, 1 John 1:8-10), and God cannot lie (Heb 6:13-20).”
- John Miller, Repentance and the 21st Century Man
“When we think of Christ dying on the cross we are shown the lengths to which God’s love goes in order to win us back to himself. We would almost think that God loved us more than he loves his Son! We cannot measure such love by any other standard. He is saying to us: I love you this much.
The cross is the heart of the gospel. It makes the gospel good news: Christ died for us. He has stood in our place before God’s judgment seat. He has borne our sins. God has done something on the cross we could never do for ourselves. But God does something to us as well as for us through the cross. He persuades us that he loves us.”
- Sinclair Ferguson, Grow in Grace (Banner of Truth, 1989), pp. 56, 58.
(HT: C.J. Mahaney)
“If the beauty of what Jesus did moves you, that is the first step toward getting out of your own self-centeredness and fear into a trust relationship with him. When Jesus died for you he was, as it were, inviting you into the dance. He invites you to begin centering everything in your life on him, even as he has given himself for you.”
- Timothy Keller, The Reason for God (New York, NY: Dutton, 2008), 221.
