Lisa notes

Excerpt by Victor Hugo, Les Misérables:

“Ah! here you are!” he exclaimed, looking at Jean Valjean. “I am glad to see you. Well, but how is this? I gave you the candlesticks too, which are of silver like the rest, and for which you can certainly get two hundred francs. Why did you not carry them away with your forks and spoons?”

Jean Valjean opened his eyes wide, and stared at the venerable Bishop with an expression which no human tongue can render any account of.

“Monseigneur,” said the brigadier of gendarmes, “so what this man said is true, then? We came across him. He was walking like a man who is running away. We stopped him to look into the matter. He had this silver—“

“And he told you,” interposed the Bishop with a smile, “that it had been given to him by a kind old fellow of a priest with whom he had passed the night? I see how the matter stands. And you have brought him back here? It is a mistake.”

“In that case,” replied he brigadier, “we can let him go?”

“Certainly,” replied the Bishop.

The gendarmes released Jean Valjean, who recoiled.

“Is it true that I am to be released?” he said in an almost inarticulate voice, and as though he were talking in his sleep.

“Yes, thou art released; dost thou not understand?” said one of the gendarmes.

“My friend” resumed the Bishop, “before you go, here are your candlesticks. Take them.”…

Jean Valjean was trembling in every limb. He took the two candlesticks mechanically, and with a bewildered air.

“Now,” said the Bishop, “go in peace. By the way, when you return, my friend, it is not necessary to pass through the garden. You can always enter and depart through the street door. It is never fastened with anything but a latch, either by day or by night.”…

The Bishop drew near to him, and said in a low voice:—…

“Jean Valjean, my brother, you no longer belong to evil, but to good. It is your soul that I buy from you; I withdraw it from black thoughts and the spirit of perdition, and I give it to God.”

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Every day in October I’m sharing an excerpt on grace from a favorite book.

“If anyone thinks arrogant orthodoxy doesn’t exist, he’s never read the comments section of a Christian blog.

One of the mistakes Christians often make is that we learn to rebuke like Jesus but not love like Jesus. Sometimes it seems that almost everyone who cares about doctrine is harsh and angry.

You and I need to contend for the truth. But there’s a fine line between contending for truth and being contentious. . . .

Truth matters, but so does our attitude. We have to live and speak and interact with others in a spirit of humility. . . .

The message of Christian orthodoxy isn’t that I’m right and someone else is wrong. It’s that I am wrong and yet God is filled with grace.”

– Joshua Harris
Humble Orthodoxy

My book review here

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“To be saved we must seek a fundamental change in our faith. We must quit trying so hard and start surrendering more. We must slough off our self-reliance and our “Do-it-yourself” religion and rely more on God’s faithfulness.

We must start believing in the gospel of the grace of God, the basis of which is that salvation is His free gift to us. . . .

Once we realize that acceptance with God is not a matter of our goodness or our works or our perfect knowledge and obedience, but a matter of surrendering to God’s grace, we will abandon our claim to exclusive truth. . . .

Donald Barnhouse is credited with saying that love that goes upward is worship, love that goes outward is affection, and love that stoops is grace. That says it. Grace always stoops, to the point of being extravagant.”

– Leroy Garrett
What Must the Church of Christ Do to Be Saved

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Every day in October I’m sharing a short quote on grace from a favorite book.

If you’d like to receive the grace quote every day . . .

 

“I believe [this] is the way most Christians live the Christian life. We act as if God’s grace only makes up what our good works lack. We believe God’s blessings are at least partially earned by our obedience and our spiritual disciplines.

We know we are saved by grace, but we think we must live by our spiritual ‘sweat.’

So who needs grace?

All of us, the saint as well as the sinner. The most conscientious, dutiful, hardworking Christian needs God’s grace as much as the most dissolute, hard-living sinner. All of us need the same grace.

The sinner does not need more grace than the saint, nor does the immature and undisciplined believer need more than the godly, zealous missionary.

We all need the same amount of grace because the ‘currency’ of our good works is debased and worthless before God.”

– Jerry Bridges
Transforming Grace

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Every day in October I’m sharing a short quote on grace from a favorite book.

“Grace is a bit like a roller coaster; it makes us scream in terror and laugh uncontrollably at the same time.

But there aren’t any harnesses on this ride. We are not in the driver’s seat, and we did not design the twists and turns. We just get on board. We laugh as the binding law of gravity is suspended, and we scream because it looks like we’re going to hurtle off into space.

Grace brings us back into contact with the children we once were (and still are)—children who loved to ride roller coasters, to smile and yell and throw our hands up in the air.

Grace, in other words, is terrifyingly fun, and like any ride worth standing in line for, it is worth coming back to again and again. In fact, God’s one-way love may be the only ride that never gets old, the only ride we thankfully never outgrow. A source of inexhaustible hope and joy for an exhausted world.”

– Tullian Tchividjian
One Way Love

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