Grace Cannot Prevail...until Our Lifelong Certainty That

Preachers Are Stewards Whom The Lord Has ‘set Over His Household Servants To Provide Them With Food At The Proper Time.’ After All The Years The Church Has Suffered Under Forceful Preachers And Winning Orators, Under Compelling Pulpiteers And Clerical Bigmouths With Egos To Match, How Nice To Hear That Jesus Expects Preachers In Their Congregations To Be Nothing More Than Faithful Household Cooks.

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.

The Bread And The Pastry, The Cheeses And Wine, And The Sugar Go Into The Supper Of The Lamb Because We Do. It Is Our Love That Brings The City Home. It Is I Grant You, An Incautious And Extravagant Hope. But Only Outlandish Hopes Can Make Themselves At Home.

However Much We Hate The Law, We Are More Afraid Of Grace

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.