This is one of my favorite quotes, and I
wanted to share it here. It is from 'Prayer' by Simon Tugwell. My favorite
part is where he says, "Our hope is in His determination to save us, and He will
not give in." That is such a comfort to me!
Jesus the Good Shepherd Who
Looks For Us And Finds Us (Simon Tugwell)
"Another picture
that our Lord loves to use is that of the shepherd who goes out to look for the
sheep that is lost (Matthew 18:12). So long as we imagine that it is we who
have to look for God, then we must often lose heart. But it is the other way
about: he is looking for us. And so we can afford to recognize that very often
we are not looking for God; far from it, we are in full flight from him, in high
rebellion against him. And he knows that and has taken it into account. He has
followed us into our own darkness; there where we thought finally to escape him,
we run straight into his arms.
"So we do not have to erect a false piety
for ourselves, to give us hope of salvation. Our hope is in his determination
to save us. And he will not give in!
"...we can let ourselves off that
desperate question, “Am I in the right place?” ”Have I done the right thing?”
Of course, we must sometimes acknowledge sins and mistakes and we must try to
learn from them; but we should not foster the kind of worry that leads to
despair, God’s providence means that wherever we have got to,
whatever we have done, that is precisely where the road to Heaven
begins. However many cues we have missed, however many wrong turnings we have
taken, however unnecessarily we may have complicated our journey, the road still
beckons, and the Lord still “waits to be gracious” to us (Isaiah
30:18)."
Simon Tugwell
I love this quote! It really reminds me of our security in
Him and how He has got this whole salvation thing wrapped up in His perfect work
and faithfulness! His is the initiative, His is the work, His is the
responsibility, and His is the resolve...so we are safe, we are secure, we are
assured that we'll forever be snug and cozily at home with Him! He will not
fail us! We may think we've just fallen too far to ever come up again, yet
right in the deepest pit of all we find that God is there with us! We suddenly
find that by His grace, the pathway that seemed to be going down is actually
going up, and the hellhole turns into heaven! Because HE is there! HE is with
us, no matter where we end up, and HE keeps us! He makes the dark places light
and the crooked places straight, flattens mountains into plains and turns the
storm into calm! No matter what, He makes it all come out for good! Thus, we
cannot get lost, because anywhere we go or even run from Him, there He is,
holding us, saving us, blessing us, keeping us, carrying us to heaven!! It's
like Rob Rufus says, grace is an UP escalator, and no matter how many times we
fall on this escalator, it just keeps going UP!
So we can fail and still
be safe and secure, for it's all by His grace that we are fine and well and
safe, not by our own doing or keeping! We are free to be ourselves, admit our
weaknesses, have problems and issues. We are free to take risks, free to try
new things and sometimes not succeed, free to be fallible and free to be wrong,
free to not understand everything, free to even have erroneous beliefs or
doctrines about some things! And free to be human, to be weak, to be emotional,
to be real, to be genuine! For no matter what we do, where our thoughts and
acts take us, what lies or traps we fall in, what confusion we have, or what
lies we believe, He is determined to save us, He is able and willing to save us,
He DOES save us, He HAS saved us! And therefore we ARE safe, forevermore!
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