Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
Larry Crabb
Read between
May 1, 2017 - February 22, 2018
the process of being relationally formed to love like Jesus will only go forward on the narrow road.
“a rich and satisfying life” (John 10:10)?
Every day I fall short of the relational glory of divine love.
“I don’t really understand myself, for what I want to do is right, but I don’t do it. Instead I do what I hate” (Rom. 7:15).
spiritual director, someone whom I define as a soul companion journeying together with others who share a common desire to know God, to know Him with an intimacy that releases into our way of relating the Spirit’s relational beauty, which lies beneath all that is still ugly in our depths.
I don’t often or reliably experience my relationship with God as intimate.
“with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory” (1 Pet. 1:8 ESV)?
“I had to talk [to you] as though you were infants in Christ” (1 Cor. 3:1).
“I will guide you along the best pathway for your life” (Ps. 32:8).
Is the Spirit’s direction, provided through a Spirit-led spiritual director, supposed to replace struggles and failures with a consuming experience of God’s intimate presence? Or does Holy Spirit–led spiritual direction somehow awaken and energize the faith we need to persevere on the narrow road when we doubt, to find God’s strength in our weakness, to do good though bad still corrupts our efforts, to live with unflagging hope when despair threatens to drown us in futility, to “live thirsty” with a thirst only heaven will fully quench?
2 Pet. 1:4),
everything unChristlike within me is slowly exposed and its power to control how I relate is slowly but surely being squeezed out of me.
“an opportunity for great joy” (James 1:2).
Matthew 21:22,
“You can pray for anything, and if you have faith, you will receive it.”
“if it be Your will” (see Matt. 26:39),
Matthew 21:22,
“that your love will overflow more and more. . . . For I want you to understand what really matters, so that you may live pure and blameless lives until the day of Christ’s return” (Phil. 1:9–10).
“I trust that my life will bring honor to Christ, whether I live or die. . . . I press on to possess that perfection for which Christ Jesus first possessed me” (Phil. 1:20; 3:12).
Do we know what really matters?
do you have a greater motive, to delight God by putting Jesus on display?”
obedient
endure
We differ with Jesus about what is the greatest good.
the plot of that story that makes the road narrow?
One story centers on an unwavering commitment to the well-being of others at any cost to ourselves, with no entitled concern for either the justice we desire or the comfort we want.
Matthew 21:22.
“You can pray for anything, and if you have faith, you will receive it.”
(Matt. 21:18–22)
“like a flint” (Isa. 50:7
“in full leaf” (Mark 11:13).
“He noticed a fig tree in full leaf a little way off, so he went over to see if he could find any figs” (v. 13).
“May you never bear fruit again” (Matt. 21:19).
“How did the fig tree wither so quickly?” (v.
“I tell you the truth, if you have faith and don’t doubt, you can do things like this and much more” (v.
“they sewed fig leaves together to cover themselves” (Gen. 3:7);
“The LORD says, ‘O Israel, when I first found you, it was like finding fresh grapes in the desert.’”
“‘When I saw your ancestors, it was like seeing the first ripe figs of the season. But then they deserted me for Baal-peor, giving themselves to the shameful idol. Soon they became vile, as vile as the god they worshiped’” (Hos. 9:10).
“they did not know how to blush” over their abominations (Jer. 6:15 ESV).
“You can even say to this mountain, ‘May you be lifted up and thrown into the sea,’ and it will happen” (Matt. 21:21).
“A great road will go through that once deserted land. It will be named the Highway of Holiness” (Isa. 35:8).
“Make straight in the desert a highway for our God . . . and every mountain and hill be made low . . . and the glory of the LORD shall be revealed” (Isa. 40:3–5).
no obstacle will be allowed to stand in the way of disciples who walk the narrow road to life, who own their relational sin and pursue no greater good than relational holiness.
“The root of all sin is the suspicion that God isn’t good.”
Romans 8:28
He’ll protect me from getting even more self-obsessed as a victim and free me more to tell His story of forgiveness and hope by how I relate to people.
Make me like Jesus, a little Christ who puts Him on display by how I relate.
spiritually formed—relationally formed—to
“Well done, my good and faithful servant” (Matt. 25:21).
Only those blind to both the motives beneath their way of relating and their impact on others will, wrongly, plead innocence.
