Submitting self to God is the only real freedom--because the deepest slavery is self-dependence, self-reliance. When you live your life believing that everything (family, finances, relationships, career) depends primarily on you, you're enslaved to your strengths and weaknesses. You're trying to be your own savior. Freedom comes when we start trusting in God's abilities and wisdom instead of our own. Real life begins when we transfer our trust from our own efforts to the efforts of Christ.
Real life begins when we transfer our trust from our own efforts to the efforts of Christ.
He always welcomes--with open arms--those who realize that their only hope is to turn from themselves and race toward Him.
[The story of Jonah] shows us that in God's eyes, and in Christianity, weakness precedes usefulness.
The gospel shows that we win by losing, we triumph through defeat, we achieve power through service, and we become rich by giving ourselves away.
God's grace is so massive, so expansive, so wide-ranging, that it tracks down both kinds of runners from God--those who try to rescue themselves by breaking the rules, and those who try by keeping them.
There's no place where you might be now, or where you might have been in the past, or where you might go in the future that will ever be beyond the reach of God's grace--nowhere.
- from Surprised by Grace by Tullian Tchividjian
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