Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Pursuing the Love of God

by Ted Wueste
In many ways, pursuing God's love is a part 2 of Pursuing Brokenness. It is when we begin to allow God to peel back the layers - to remove the exoskeleton - that we begin to experience and appreciate God's love. Why? Because it is then that we are able to begin to love and be loved by others. Here is the piece of art that we shared on Sunday morning (from Angela Culpepper)

“When you are revealed it is raw and painful and naked. Being revealed and exposed hurts! And, you have no idea how you will be received and maybe you will be damaged further. To walk around skinless is very, very hard.” Angela Culpepper

This connects with what A. W. Tozer wrote

“To tear it away is to injure us, to hurt us and make us bleed. To say otherwise is to make the cross no cross and death no death at all. It is never fun to die. To rip through the dear and tender stuff of which life is made can never be anything but deeply painful. Yet that is what the cross did to Jesus and it is what the cross would do to every man to set him free."

Finally, Alan Jones (Soul Making)shares that "The task of love is to help us rid ourselves of the exoskeleton, to lay us bare, to set us free. But we love the prison house. The place of bondage is, at least, familiar. Love, then, comes as an unwelcome shock."

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