Sunday, June 21, 2009

The Reason for God

A while ago, I began reading the book The Reason For God and learning a lot about the logic of the existence of God.  It's a great read, but a bit exhausting because the author packs a cerebral punch with every sentence.  Reading paragraphs twice was not uncommon.  I set the book down a couple months ago and almost forgot about it.  Eden reminded me yesterday by pulling all the books off my end table.  There it was, underneath some Kenneth Hagin tapes (yes tapes, they're my parents'), a couple of journals and two copies of The Power of a Praying Wife (no, I don't know how I ended up with two copies).
Last night, while Chuck was on call, I decided to read a bit before bed and pulled The Reason For God back out.  I just had to share how neat it was that the next section in the midpoint of the chapter where I had stopped reading months ago was all about how Christianity is set apart from all other religions and even the term "religion" by the concept of grace.  What have I just been studying in my other reading?  Grace.  Pretty cool that an incident of seeming forgetfulness or laziness turned into information from two different sources explaining the same concept that I really need some work on.

I'd like to share a short excerpt from the reading I did.  It highlights beautifully the wonderful unique quality of the gospel to join humility and a great sense of worth all based in grace.

 "The Christian gospel is that I am so flawed that Jesus had to die for me, yet I am so loved and valued and that Jesus was glad to die for me. This leads to deep humility and deep confidence at the same time.  It undermines both swaggering and sniveling.  I cannot feel superior to anyone, and yet I have nothing to prove to anyone, I do not think more of myself nor less of myself.  Instead, I think of myself less."

What a wonderful truth!

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