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Acceptance-centered Obedience from Tim Keller

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On Monday, I promised to share a few more gleanings on obedience. Here is a section from Tim Keller’s commentary on First John that also helped me understand obedience more fully.

“The Christian life under this motivation becomes performance-centered rather than acceptance-centered. Acceptance-centered obedience comes from knowing we have already been accepted; it is not obeying to be accepted. It is grace-motivated rather than fear-motivated. We obey because God loves us, not to get him to love us. We seek to please him and walk in his commands out of gratitude for what he has done, not out of fear of what he might do to us.”

“We love because he first loved us.” We must fill our hearts and minds with the understanding that God lavished his love on us while we were still sinners; then we allow that love to spill forth in obedient gratitude. Finally, we must remind ourselves that God has nothing but our good in mind; his commands are for our good. Whenever we obey God to avoid judgment or gain acceptance, we will find the commands burdensome. When we view his commands as arbitrary, harmful, and stunting to our humanity, we will find them burdensome. When that happens, we must argue against such false thinking and convince ourselves of the truths of God’s love, acceptance, and dedication to us.”

Caution: Read Only If You Dare to Be Challenged

“[One] reason…why the experiential reality of perceiving God is unfamiliar country today [is
that] the pace and preoccupations of urbanized, mechanized, collectivized,secularized modern life are such that any sort of inner life (apart from the existentialist Angst of society’s misfits and the casualties of the rat race) is very
hard to maintain. To make prayer your life priority, as countless Christians of former days did outside as well as inside the monastery, is stupendously difficult in a world that runs you off your feet and will not let you slow down. And if you attempt it, you will certainly seem eccentric to your peers, for nowadays involvement in a stream of programmed activities is decidedly ‘in,’
and the older ideal of a quiet, contemplative life is just as decidedly ‘out.’ That there is widespread hunger today for more intimacy, warmth, and affection in our fellowship with God is clear… but the concept of Christian life as sanctified
rush and bustle still dominates, and as a result the experiential side of Christian holiness remains very much a closed book.” from J.I.Packer, Keeping in Step with the Spirit via Tim Keller’s study on 1 John.

Saturday Faves

Okay, so almost Sunday Faves by now because of the ever-wonderful May-mom’s-madness

Very thoughtful and with challenge regarding education from Sandra McCracken.

Tim Keller on the core issues regarding Christianity and homosexuality.

Freedom from Power by Tim Keller

In Prodigal God, Tim Keller makes the point that our God is really “prodigal,” that is lavishly, extremely generous. I love this part, where he explains where real freedom from our love of power comes. Another good meditation for Lent:

It is only when you see the desire to be your own Savior and Lord -lying beneath both your sins and your moral goodness- that you are on the verge of understanding the gospel and becoming a Christian indeed.  When you realize that the antidote to being bad is not just being good, you are on the brink.  If you follow through, it will change everything: how you relate to God, self, others, the world, your work, your sins, your virtue.  It’s called the new birth because it’s so radical. (p. 78) Jesus Christ, who had all the power in the world, saw us enslaved by the very things we thought would free us.  So he emptied himself of his glory and became a servant.  He laid aside the infinities and immensities of his being and, at the cost of his life, paid the debt for our sins, purchasing us the only place our hearts can rest, in his Father’s house…  Knowing this will transform us from the inside out… Why wouldn’t you want to offer yourself to someone like this? Selfless love destroys the mistrust in our hearts toward God that makes us either younger brothers or elder brothers… We will never stop being younger brothers of elder brothers until we acknowledge our need, rest by faith, and gaze in wonder at the work of our true elder brother, Jesus Christ. (p. 87-89 The Prodigal God)

The Father of Counter-Culturalism

” ‘all peoples on earth will be blessed through you. (Genesis 12:3b)

Just read this from Tim Keller, on Abraham. I rarely see how truly astonishing the story of Abram being chosen as father of all nations is. It makes me wonder how counter-cultural I am.

“This is of course, astonishing. We have seen that the word ‘blessing’ is a very strong word, entailing God’s shalom, the well-being and peace of God’s kingdom. This promise indicates that God’s purpose in a)making Abram a personal friend, and b)making Abram’s offspring into a new human community is all for the ultimate aim of c)bringing salvation to the whole world. God is going to save the world through Abram’s family. God will bless Abraham with personal intimacy so he can pass the true faith on down to his children. He must pass on this faith so that his children will become an alternative society, a counter-culture, a new humanity in the midst of the world. And then, in some way, the healing of the nations and the salvation of the world will come out of that faithful community.

In summary, God says, ‘I’ll give you a special relationship with me. I’ll make you into a new, faithful human community. I’ll use you to save the world from the downward spiral into self-destruction.” Tim Keller, “What Were You Put in this World to Do?” (Genesis study).

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