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1 " Life isn’t our possession, something we own. We’re alive as we receive life from God, as the gift of his grace and mercy. "
― , Confronted by Grace: Meditations of a Theologian
2 " One thing we might do is to try day by day to grasp something which is the simplest and yet the hardest thing for any of us to grasp: that the gospel is true; that growth in the Christian life is simply growth in seeing that the gospel is true; that Jesus Christ is the preeminent reality of all things. "
3 " To say that we are under grace is to say that the final truth of our lives, the final authority by which we are made and judged, is Jesus Christ the mercy of God. If "
4 " So this isn’t in any sense acquittal through moral performance, or a reward for good conduct. It’s not something earned by years of carefully crafted holiness. It’s a wholly “free gift,” as Paul says five times in the span of three verses. "
5 " Religion is sin when it makes God into something which we can handle. "
6 " God is not silent; God says, as Isaiah puts it, “Incline your ear, and come to me; hear, that your soul may live” (Isaiah 55:3). Faith "
7 " Paul’s contentment derives from God. It’s not a matter of human strength of character; it’s a matter of human weakness transfigured by the astonishing sufficiency of God. Contentment is that exercise of faith in which we accept the sufficiency of God. It’s not feeling all right; it’s not mastery of circumstance. It’s the fruit of the conversion of our lives to the grace and goodness of God. "
8 " Contentment is not mastering circumstances but faith in God. "
9 " The basic rule for thinking about faith is this: What matters about faith is not us, but the object of faith. Faith isn’t primarily a power or capacity in me; it isn’t first and foremost an attitude which I adopt; indeed, it’s not first of all something which I do. Faith is objective—that is, faith is wholly turned outward to the object of faith. In a real sense, it’s not faith itself but that toward which faith is turned that is critically important in getting our thinking straight. What matters about faith is therefore not us but God, the object of faith. But "
10 " None of us is exempt; all of us have to realize that religion always carries with it the danger that we will make God into the likeness of something on earth, and in doing so we will lose faith, and lose God. What "
11 " Very often, we need to express our faith in God by saying “Nevertheless”—saying that, despite disorder and humiliation and disappointment, nevertheless God is the one who proves himself in Jesus to be the good God who wills our good and pledges himself to bring us to glory. “Though he slay me, I will hope in him” (Job 13:15). True contentment sees this; it sees the truth of the dark side of life, faces the way we’re so often disillusioned and hurt, and says, “Nevertheless, I have learned to be content. "
12 " And grace is a little New Testament shorthand word for the miracle of God’s mercy in Jesus Christ. Grace has a name, the name of Jesus; he is grace, embodied and acted out: “For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people” (Titus 2:11). To say that we are under grace is to say that the final truth of our lives, the final authority by which we are made and judged, is Jesus Christ the mercy of God. "
13 " Its place is in the shady world of political trade-offs and vacillating leaders and institutions hell-bent on survival. "
14 " Jesus’ passion shows us up for what we are. It’s the hour of the world’s judgment, because it is the hour when God lets the world have its own way. "