turning duty into delight

 

"Make no mistake—to follow Jesus means that you relinquish your right to everything else in the world. You literally must renounce it all (Luke 14:33). That means nothing can be off-limits to Jesus. You cannot put limits on where you will live or what you will do. Your “contract” with Him can have no stipulations; it is absolute, unconditional surrender. You must be willing to depart from family, friends, comforts, riches, and even your own life. You must be willing to then pick up His rough, painful, wooden cross and follow Him. You must live for others as He has lived for you. But if you perceive the value of Jesus, none of this will seem like sacrifice. The cross is painful and the costs of discipleship are severe, but the joy of what you have obtained in Him so far outweighs any sorrow for what you have abandoned... Jesus is the treasure worth leaving everything for. Knowing Him will turn sacrifice into sweetness and duty into delight. Even when your commitment to Him leads you to a cross, He will be a treasure that shrouds that cross in joy."

J.D. Greear, Gospel: Recovering the Power that Made Christianity Revolutionary

who needs grace?

 

"Paul was better acquainted with his own sinfulness than he was anyone else’s. Of course Paul knew, theoretically, that other people were every bit the sinner he was, but he was so much more aware of his sin than he was theirs. When Paul thought about a need for grace, he didn’t think of others first—he thought of himself...

When you really believe the gospel, you see that you are first a sinner and only secondarily sinned against. The problem in your marriage is that neither of you seems aware of how much you’ve been forgiven. Because you haven’t really tasted grace, you won’t extend grace to each other. You need to go back to the gospel."

J.D. Greear, Gospel: Recovering the Power that Made Christianity Revolutionary

spectacular obedience

 

"His perfect life has now been credited to you. In light of that, do you really feel like you could make God more favorable to you by doing your quiet time every day? Christ’s obedience is so spectacular there is nothing we could do to add to it; His death so final that nothing could take away from it... Satan’s primary temptation strategy is to try and make us forget what God has said about us and to evaluate our standing before God by some other criteria."

J.D. Greear, Gospel: Recovering the Power that Made Christianity Revolutionary

love is a response

 

"True love grows as a response to loveliness. The first time I saw my wife, I felt the beginnings of love for her. The more I’ve gotten to know her over the years, and the more I’ve seen of her beauty, the more I’ve grown to love her. My love is a response. Love for God is commanded in Scripture, but the command can only truly be fulfilled as our eyes are opened to see God’s beauty revealed in the gospel. The Spirit of God uses the beauty of the gospel to awaken in our hearts a desire for God. “We love Him,” the apostle John would say, “because He first loved us” (1 John 4:19 NKJV). Love for God grows out of an experience of the love of God."

J.D. Greear, Gospel: Recovering the Power that Made Christianity Revolutionary