the insecurity of non-gospel-centeredness
June 12th, 2006“Christians who are no longer sure that God loves and accepts them in Jesus, apart from their present spiritual achievements, are subconsciously radically insecure persons-much less secure than non-Christians, because they have too much light to rest easily under the constant bulletins they receive from their Christian environment about the holiness of God and the righteousness they are supposed to have. Their insecurity shows itself in pride, a fierce defensive assertion of their own righteousness and defensive criticism of others. They come naturally to hate other cultural styles and other races in order to bolster their own security and discharge their suppressed anger. They cling desperately to legal, pharisaical righteousness, but envy, jealousy and other branches on the tree of sin grow out of their fundamental insecurity…it is often necessary to convince sinners (even sinful Christians) of the grace and love of God toward them, before we can get them to look at their problems. Then the vision of grace and the sense of God’s forgiving acceptance may actually cure most of the problems. This may account for Paul’s frequent fusing of justification and sanctification” (Richard Lovelace, Dynamics of Spiritual Life).



June 13th, 2006 at 1:10 am
this is a great quote. thank you for sharing it.
June 13th, 2006 at 1:33 pm
Wow, that’s so true; great quote, really helpful.
June 14th, 2006 at 6:07 pm
Dan, it’s always wonderful when you find someone who says profoundly something I have been thinking for a while. thanks for passing it along!
June 20th, 2006 at 4:00 pm
[...] nder: Gospel Transformation My friend Dan Cruver posted this quote on his blog over at Eucatastrophe. I know that I have experien [...]
September 6th, 2007 at 11:01 am
do you know the page numbers of this quote? It’s fantastic.
thanks,
Charlie
September 6th, 2007 at 12:42 pm
Charlie,
I’ll try to track it down for you. It’s in one of my book boxes that I haven’t unpacked since our move in June…
Dan