Bold Love

Title: Bold Love

Book Notes:

God’s consuming preoccupation is to destroy evil through the power of sheer goodness made known through His perfectly righteous love. (11)

We are to be armed for battle with a higher purpose than present enjoyment, a determined confidence that God is good no matter what happens, and the passion of a love bold enough to take on the real enemy. (11)

We must discover God’s power to care about others when our heart is breaking; we must find God’s love to reach out to lost people even though our pain continues. We must learn to live well in a community of people who are sometimes wonderful, too often unspeakably evil, and usually somewhere in between. (12)

I do not believe forgiveness involves forgetting the past and ignoring the damage of past or present harm. (16)

Bold love is courageously setting aside our personal agenda to move humbly into the world of others with their well-being in view, willing to risk further pain in our souls, in order to be an aroma of life to some and an aroma of death to others. (19)

Love is not possible, at least for long, without the healing work of forgiveness. (28)

Forgiving love is the inconceivable, unexplainable pursuit of the offender by the offended for the sake of restored relationship with God, self, and others. (29)

I will not live with purpose and joy unless I love; I will not be able to love unless I forgive; and I will not forgive unless my hatred is continually melted by the searing truth and grace of the gospel. True biblical forgiveness is a glorious gift for both the offender and the offended. (30)

Love is unquestionably the highest calling a person can pursue. (30)

It is wonderfully simple and grand—all of life’s requirements summarized by the admonition to love God and your neighbor. (31)

Love is a sacrifice for the undeserving that opens the door to restoration of relationship with the Father, with others, and with ourselves. (32)

Love is the measure by which my life will be assessed. (32)

Most people presume the desire to love is a natural human sentiment, but love is actually the exception, the extraordinary, and the life-altering surprise. (34)

The essence of Christianity is God’s tenacious loyalty to redeem His people from the just penalty for sin. (37)

Given the reality of sin, love and forgiveness are inextricably bound together. (42)

The extent to which someone truly loves will be positively correlated to the degree the person is stunned and silenced by the wonder that his huge debt has been canceled. Perhaps another way to say it is that gratitude for forgiveness is the foundation for other-centered love. (43)

Self-protection is the self-centered commitment to act without courage, compassion, boldness, and tenderness for the sake of the other. (58)

It is not life’s or God’s seeming unfairness that is so difficult to bear (though it is painful), it is the unbearable fact that in light of the radical injustice, God calls us to love, to turn the cheek, to offer our coats, and to carry the burden of our abusers one more mile. (61)

If one brings to bear the reality of what our sin deserves—separation from life and love—Jesus’ sacrifice on the Cross becomes the mystical intersection of two powerful, turbulent rivers—wrath and mercy. (81)

The premise of this chapter is that forgiveness becomes more necessary to the degree the damage of living in a fallen world is faced. (88)

The war against us is disguised behind the humdrum monotony and imperceptible abuses of daily living, so that a call to arms is ignored as silly adventuring or the paranoid delusions of negativism. (92)

In any case, destructive lust involves the heart of a thief whose passion is to be satisfied, not the heart of a lover whose desire is to give. (104)

But the Cross, like a brilliant conundrum, was, in fact, the height of glory. What appeared to be the death of God, the shaming of the prized only begotten Son of the Most High, and the dissolution of the Trinity was actually the most glorious interplay of justice and mercy, worked out in perfect harmony by all members of the Godhead. (121)

Our weapons are prayer, faith, and bold love. (130)

Faith, then, is an assertion of trust, even when our circumstances point in a direction that seems to call into question God’s goodness. (132)

If I do not anticipate the regularity and tragedy of sin, I unavoidably come to believe this world is my home. (140)

I am prepared for battle when my desire to love is simply stronger (even by a molecule) than my desire to snuff out the flame of mercy that God has graciously intruded into my heart. (156)

To forgive another means to cancel the debt of what is owed in order to provide a door of opportunity for repentance and restoration of the broken relationship. (160)

Biblical forgiveness is never unconditional and one-sided. It is not letting others go off scot-free, “forgiven,” and enabled to do harm again without any consequences. Instead, forgiveness is an invitation to reconciliation, not the blind, cheap granting of it. (162)

Forgiveness involves a heart that cancels the debt but does not lend new money until repentance occurs. (162)

The offender must repent if true intimacy and reconciliation are ever to take place. (163)

Hope for heaven (that is, for beauty restored) is deeply imbedded in all human relationships. (171)

We cancel the debt in order to invite the offender to return from the pigpen and join us at the banquet table. (181)

Bold love is the tenacious, irrepressible energy to do good in order to surprise and conquer evil. (185)

The choice to pursue and embrace goodness toward others must be motivated by a passion to overcome evil and destroy it from its roots. (204)

In many cases, bold love will unnerve, offend, hurt, disturb, and compel the one who is loved to deal with the internal disease that is robbing him and others of joy. (208)

In essence—bold love is a unique blend of invitation and warning—a pull toward life and push away from death. (211)

The magnificence of bold love is that in its brokenness, surprise, and simplicity. It is a human gift that could come only from heaven. Bold love provokes disruption that leads to solace, repentance that leads to rest; but far more, it invites both giver and receiver to stare into the eyes of mystery, the wonder of the meaning of the Cross. (309)

Note: should you wish to find any quote in its original context, the page number is provided after each entry.