What we all tend to do is walk through life amassing a sense of who we are as an aggregate of what we think everyone else thinks of us. We walk along, building a sense of self through all the feedback pinging back at us. We don’t even realize we’re doing it. And when others are critical, or snub us, or ignore us, or ridicule us, that builds our sense of who we are. It inevitably shapes us. And so we must constantly hold the gospel before our eyes. And as the gospel becomes real to us, the need for human approval loses its vice-like [sic] grip on our hearts, because we’re no longer putting our heads down on our pillows at night medicating our sense of worth with human approval. The doctrine of justification frees us not only from the judgment of God in the future but also from the judgment of people in the present.
From Deeper, Chapter 5
Dane C. Ortlund
Receiving Divine Fullness
“We are infused with divine plenitude, fullness, buoyancy, joy, as we experience the love of Christ. We don’t go out and attain divine fullness. We receive it. This is the surprise of the Christian life. We get traction in our spiritual lives not centrally as we get down to work but as we open up our hands. The Christian life is indeed one of toil and labor. Anyone who tries to tell you otherwise is a false teacher. But we cannot receive what God has to give when our fists are clenched and our eyes shut, concentrating on our own moral exertion. We need to open up our fists and our eyes and lift both heavenward to receive his love.”
Excerpt From
Deeper
Dane C. Ortlund
Medicalizing Discomfort
Western, post-Enlightenment society has medicalized fear. Fear has become an elusive disease to be medicated. (I do not mean to imply here that use of drugs to curb anxiety is wrong—only that they are a palliative, at times an important one, and not an ultimate solution.)⁸ Yet that attempt to eradicate fear as we would eradicate a disease has effectively made comfort (complete absence of fear) a health category—or even a moral category. Where discomfort was once considered quite normal (and quite proper for certain situations), it is now deemed an essentially unhealthy thing. It means, for example, that a university student can say, “I am uncomfortable with your views,” and consider that a legitimate argument for shutting down further discussion. For it is not acceptable to make someone uncomfortable.
Excerpt from: “Rejoice and Tremble: The Surprising Good News of the Fear of the Lord” by Michael Reeves
In Ousting God, Other Concerns Assume a Divine Ultimacy
Without a kind and fatherly God’s providential care, we are left utterly uncertain about the shifting sands of both morality and reality. In ousting God from our culture, other concerns—from personal health to the health of the planet—have assumed a divine ultimacy in our minds.
Excerpt from: “Rejoice and Tremble: The Surprising Good News of the Fear of the Lord” by Michael Reeves
Jesus Is More Committed to Your Growth Than You Are
“We will grow in Christ only as we recognize the ally Jesus Christ is to us, now in heaven. He did not die and rise again on our behalf back then only to stand now with arms crossed seeing how we’ll do in response. He continues to work on our behalf—he goes “to the uttermost” for us—advocating for us when no one else will, not even we ourselves. He is more committed to your growth in him than you are.”
Excerpt From
Deeper
Dane C. Ortlund
Without Jesus the Universe Falls Apart
“We may not see Jesus with our eyes. But he is the most real thing in the universe. The Bible says that “in him all things hold together” (Col. 1:17). Subtract Jesus from the universe, and everything falls apart. He is not a bobblehead Savior, to be smiled at and merely added to an otherwise well-oiled life. He is the mighty sustainer of the universe, to whose supreme rule we will bow the knee in either this life or the next (Phil. 2:10).”
Excerpt From
Deeper
Dane C. Ortlund
Overcoming Chronic Temptations
“I know all about the despair of overcoming chronic temptations.
“The Collected Letters of C. S. Lewis, vol. 3, Narnia, Cambridge, and Joy,”
It is not serious provided self-offended petulance, annoyance at breaking records, impatience etc doesn’t get the upper hand. No amount of falls will really undo us if we keep on picking ourselves up each time. We shall of course be very muddy and tattered children by the time we reach home. But the bathrooms are all ready, the towels put out, and the clean clothes are airing in the cupboard.
The only fatal thing is to lose one’s temper and give it up. It is when we notice the dirt that God is most present to us: it is the very sign of His presence.”
Reconstruction
“We tend to think we are put on this earth to make a name for ourselves. The Bible dismantles that notion and replaces it with the knowledge that we are put here to spread God’s reputation and honor. We tend to think God will accept us if we meet a minimum bar of personal goodness. The Bible dismantles that and insists that God accepts us when we lay down the attempt to offer God anything of our own and instead receive his favor based on the work of his own Son.”
Excerpt From
Deeper
Dane C. Ortlund
Let Your Soul Breathe
“You wouldn’t try to go through life holding your breath. So don’t go through life without Bible reading and praying. Let your soul breathe. Oxygenate with the Bible; and breathe out the CO2 of prayer as you speak back to God your wonder, your worry, and your waiting. He is not a force, not an ideal, not a machine. He is a person. Keep open the channel between your little life and heaven itself through the Bible and prayer.
Excerpt From
As you do, you will grow. You won’t feel it day to day. But you’ll come to the end of your life a radiant, solid man or woman. And you will have left in your wake the aroma of heaven. You will have blessed the world. Your life will have mattered.”
Deeper
Dane C. Ortlund
Real Change
“We’re talking about real change. And we’re talking about real change for real sinners. If you confess the doctrine of original sin but at the same time feel yourself to be doing pretty well as a Christian, you can put this book back on the shelf. This book is for the frustrated. The exhausted. Those on the brink. Those on the verge of giving up any real progress in their Christian growth.”
Excerpt From
Deeper
Dane C. Ortlund