“We have to give up the small gospel that simply confirms what C.S. Lewis called ‘our congenital preference for the safe investments and limited liabilities’. The freedom of grace grants us many gifts, including that there is ‘therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus(Rom 8:1) This assurance of grace is meant to set us on the road of faithful discipleship, not just to assure us of grace at the finish line. Such freedom enables Christ’s disciples to love because we have first been loved (1 John 4:19). The grace that settles our account with God is meant to set us free from the self-interest for the sake of loving others with abandon.”

- Mark Labberton “The Lima Bean Gospel” in Christianity Today

A friend of mine sent me a note of encouragement that had this quote in it. It got me thinking (as most things do). Do I love others with abandon? And what does this abandon look like if it’s being walked out in my life? Either the gospel, or the way I’m living it, is bland like lima beans or vibrant like Christ. I just know I never want to be compared to lima beans…

Any thoughts?

As Christians we are promised in the Bible that we will face persecution and the world will hate us. Jesus said:

If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you. John 15:18

But my question [to American Christians] is this: Does the world hate us because of Christ within us? Or does it hate us because we have a tenancy to act like pompous, religious, harsh, judgmental,  know-it-alls?

I think we live with a false justification that if we act judgmental and non-Christlike it is okay because the world rejects us. And the Bible says we’ll be rejected. But, we aren’t called to make the world reject us. It should be simply be the existence of Christ within us and the path to which he calls us to walk that will bring rejection. Not the other way around. We’ve gone down the wrong road and forgotten who we were following in the first place.

Am I wrong?

Just got out of a session listening to Philip Yancey. It was amazing.

He told about a prison in Cape Town, South Africa. There were missionaries who had been working with the inmates for years.

Yancey talked to two men who were serving life sentences for murder. The men were over joyed by the love of Christ and commented that had the never come to prison, they never would have met their Lord.  They lived their lives in prison, but had a cause to bring that love in Christ to other inmates.

God is amazing in how he works in all circumstances.  The fact that he could use or depravity to bring us closer to his divinity. It’s amazing!