#8 - Surprised by Grace

I recently finished Surprised by Grace by Tullian Tchividjian.His name is a mouthful and in some respects so is the book but not in a bad way. The book is basically an exposition of the book of Jonah. I don't recall reading a book that was an exposition of a book of the Bible so the style was different than I am used to. But the content was insightful and convicting. I learned new things about the book of Jonah and how the Gospel applied to him as well as to me. Here are some gems:

• When we sin, that something we choose to believe in is not no God, but ourselves as god. Like Adam and Eve, each time we sin we're choosing to be our own deity. We're placing ultimate trust in ourselves, not in our Creator and Savior and Lord.
• Submitting self to God is the only real freedom-because the deepest slavery is self-dependence, self-reliance. When you live your life believing that everything (family, finances, relationships, career) depends primarily on you, you're enslaved to your strengths and weaknesses. You're trying to be your own savior. Freedom comes when we start trusting in God's abilities and wisdom instead of your own. Real life begins when we transfer our trust from our own efforts to the efforts of Christ.
• Only the gospel can truly save you. The gospel doesn't make bad people good; it makes dead people alive. That's the difference between the gospel of Jesus Christ and every other world religion.
• Through the gospel God counts your sins against Christ, not against you. He offers us acceptance based not on what we do or don't do, but on what Christ has already done. It's an acceptance that can neither be gained by our achievements nor forfeited by our failures. Nothing in this world can promise you such total acceptance and favor - nothing. And that's what makes grace so amazing.
• God comes after Jonah not because he needs Jonah, but because Jonah needs God.
• Quoting Jack Miller, 'Cheer up; you're a lot worse off than you think you are, but in Jesus you're far more loved than you ever could have imagined.
• When we understand that our significance and identity are in Christ, we don't have to win - we're free to lose. The gospel frees us from the pressure to generate our own significance and meaning. In Christ, our identity and significance are secure, which frees us up to give everything we have, because in Christ we have everything we need.
• If we aren't growing in our faith by learning more about God, there's only stagnation and decline.
• What you choose to attribute ultimate worth to - what you choose to worship - depends on what you fear the most. If you fear loneliness, you worship relationships. You depend on them to save you from a meaningless life. If you fear not being accepted or esteemed, you worship your social network, the way you look, the car you drive, or the amount of money you make. You depend on these things to validate your existence. If you fear insignificance, you end up worshiping your career or your accomplishments.
• Behind everything you worship is some fear that, without this person or thing, you'd be lost. Life wouldn't be worth living. Your fears cause you to attribute ultimate worth either to things such as success, reputation, family, relationships, or to God.
  
• Idolatry is centering our attention and affection on something, or someone, smaller than God. In fact, most idols are good things in our lives that we turn into ultimate things, things that take God's place as we unconsciously depend on them to give our lives meaning and security.
• The difference between living for God and living for anything else is that when we live for anything else we do so to gain acceptance, but when we live for God we do so because we are already accepted. Real freedom (the freedom that only the gospel grants) is living for something because we already have favor instead of living for something in order to gain favor.

In reviewing this book just now, I realized that there's a lot of really good stuff in there. I think the style through me off a bit, but the content is stellar Gospel centered doctrine that pierces through to the heart. I highly recommend it.