This book, Give Them Grace, is making my brain explode. It's stuffed to the brim with deep truths.

"[God] simply moves outside all our categories for reward and punishment, for human motivation, and gives us all the reward and takes upon himself all the punishment. He lavishes grace upon grace on us and bears in his own person all the wrath that we deserve. Then [and only then!] he tells us, in light of all that he's done, 'Obey.'" p. 108 (bracketed words are mine)

"Here's one final proverb. 'He who justifies the wicked and he who condemns the righteous are both alike an abomination to the Lord' (Prov 17:15)...Of course, having righteous judgment pleases God. But Jesus is the one who justifies the wicked [you and me]. The Father is the one who condemned the righteous [Jesus]. Why? So that we would no longer be the wicked, so that we would move out of our tit-for-tat world and into the grace of the gospel of Jesus Christ, and so that we would be overwhelmed with his wisdom and bathe our dear children in it every day." (p. 109)

This one is going to be turning around in my head for a while... It reminds me of the verses in Galatians that say, "Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, 'Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree'— so that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promised Spirit through faith." Gal. 3:13-14

How do you wrap your mind around the fact that God did things He hates, He cursed, He called an abomination, all in the great redemption story of the Cross? What kind of love is this?

-Stephanie

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