One Real Thing Is Closer

But All The While, There Was One Thing We Most Needed Even From The Start, And Certainly Will Need From Here On Out Into The New Jerusalem: The Ability To Take Our Freedom Seriously And Act On It, To Live Not In Fear Of Mistakes But In The Knowledge That No Mistake Can Hold A Candle To The Love That Draws Us Home. My Repentance, Accordingly, Is Not So Much For My Failings But For The Two-bit Attitude Toward Them By Which I Made Them More Sovereign Than Grace. Grace - The Imperative To Hear The Music, Not Just Listen For Errors - Makes All Infirmities Occasions Of Glory.

He Comes To Us In The Brokenness Of Our Health, In The Shipwreck Of Our Family Lives, In The Loss Of All Possible Peace Of Mind, Even In The Very Thick Of Our Sins. He Saves Us In Our Disasters, Not From Them. He Emphatically Does Not Promise To Meet Only The Odd Winner Of The Self-improvement Lottery. He Meets Us All In Our Endless And Inescapable Losing.

Salvation Is Not Some Felicitous State To Which We Can Lift Ourselves By Our Own Bootstraps After The Contemplation Of Sufficiently Good Examples. It Is An Utterly New Creation Into Which We Are Brought By Our Death In Jesus' Death And Our Resurrection In His. It Comes Not Out Of Our Own Best Efforts, However Well-inspired Or Successfully Pursued, But Out Of The Shipwreck Of All Human Efforts Whatsoever.

... The Proper Self-knowledge And Self-love Of Every Created Thing Is Ipso Facto A Participation In The Knowledge And Love Of God. The Entire Universe Moves By Desire For The Highest Good Simply Because Every Part Of It Loves What God Loves - Namely, Its Own Being.

We Are Not Saved By What Jesus Taught, And We Are Certainly Not Saved By What We Understand Jesus To Have Taught. We Are Saved By Jesus Himself.