Deeper: Real Change for Real Sinners

by Dane C. Ortlund

This book is for the frustrated. The exhausted. Those on the brink.

Perhaps his greatest victory in your life is not a sin you are habitually committing but simply a sense of helplessness as to real growth.

Every human is five hundred denarii in debt. The point of the parable is that we tend to feel only fifty denarii in debt.

He is the most open and accessible, the most peaceful and accommodating person in the universe. He is the gentlest, least abrasive person you will ever experience. Infinite strength, infinite meekness. Dazzlingly resplendent; endlessly calm.

The testimony of the entire Bible, culminating in Matthew 11:29, is that God defies what we instinctively feel by embracing his people in their mess. He finds penitence, distress, need, and lack irresistible.

Here is the teaching of the Bible: If you are in Christ, your sins cause that stockpile to grow all the more. Where sins abound, his grace superabounds. It is in your pockets of deepest shame and regret that his heart dwells and won’t leave.

But when we see how desperately sick we are and how profoundly short we fall of the glory for which God intended us, we have already taken the first decisive step in bridging that vast gulf between who we are and who we were made to be.

Have you experienced this? Do you know what it is to see yourself as vile and vulnerable in the presence of Holiness himself?

Healthy despair is an intersection, not a highway; a gateway, not a pathway. We must go there. But we dare not stay there.

Repentance is turning from Self. Faith is turning to Jesus. You can’t have one without the other.

The love of Christ is his settled, unflappable heart of affection for sinners and sufferers—and only sinners and sufferers.

The Christian life is indeed one of toil and labor. Anyone who tries to tell you otherwise is a false teacher.

And so what I want to say in this chapter is that your growth in Christ will go no further than your settledness, way down deep in your heart, that God loves you.

When I tell my five young kids I love them, they shrug and say, “I know, Dad.” But they don’t. They believe it, but they hardly know it. I cannot hug them tight enough. I can’t say it loudly enough. I can’t express it often enough. I have blessed frustration at being unable to communicate to them how precious they are to me.

We tend to think we’re in danger of overstating God’s love for us as we receive it as his children. We hold back, not wanting to be too bold, careful to be sure we don’t overdo it. But what if my kids acted like that toward me, holding my love at arm’s length? It would break my heart. Don’t break your Father’s heart. Lap it up. Drink it down. Let the holy fire of his love burn hot in your soul. That is his own deep desire.

Your life doesn’t disprove Christ’s love; his life proves it.

Here’s what I say to you: Do you realize how God treats his children who mistreat his love? He loves them all the fiercer.

how the gospel is not a hotel to pass through but a home to live in.

Not only a gateway into the Christian life but the pathway of the Christian life. Not jumper cables to get the Christian life started but an engine to keep the Christian life going.

Justification is outside-in, and we lose it if we make it inside-out. 2. Sanctification is inside-out, and we lose it if we make it outside-in. 3. And this inside-out sanctification is largely fed by daily appropriation of this outside-in justification.

That’s a picture of us all. We are freed, but we find subtle ways of returning to the prison of self-established standing before God in the divine courtroom.

We need to realize that the gospel is not only the door into the Christian life but also the living room of the Christian life. Justification is not a spark plug that ignites the Christian life but an engine that powers it all along the way.

Live your life out of the fullness of a justified existence. Honor the first commandment. Do not be an idolater. Let Jesus Christ clothe you, dignify you, justify you. Nothing else can.

We live our lives in Christ in a way that is vitally, organically joined to all other believers.

This text is leading us not into exhaustive vulnerability but into redemptive vulnerability.

Throughout the course of our discipleship to Christ we all need to build a deep and strong foundation of understanding how to process and even redeem the anguish of our lives.

Pain seeds glory.

It was through, not in avoidance of, a painful trial that assurance of forgiveness came home to Owen.

But tears often simply reflect the removal of distraction.

Let yourself cry as you grow. Don’t stuff your emotions down. Growing in Christ isn’t all smiles and laughter. Let your tears, and the wounds they reflect, take you deeper with Christ than you could ever otherwise go. As I’ve heard my dad say, “Deep wounds deepen us.”

I mean looking at Jesus Christ. In the same way that playing matchbox cars on the front lawn loses its attractiveness when we’re invited to spend the afternoon at a NASCAR race, sin loses its appeal as we allow ourselves to be re-enchanted time and again with the unsurpassable beauty of Jesus.

There is no special technique to mortifying sin. You simply open your Bible and let God surprise you each day with the wonder of his love, proven in Christ and experienced in the Spirit.

Reading the Bible is inhaling. Praying is exhaling.

The Bible contains the mind of God, the state of man, the way of salvation, the doom of sinners, and the happiness of believers. Its doctrines are holy, its precepts are binding, its histories are true, and its decisions are immutable. Read it to be wise, believe it to be safe, and practice it to be holy. It contains light to direct you, food to support you, and comfort to cheer you. It is the traveler’s map, the pilgrim’s staff, the pilot’s compass, the soldier’s sword, and the Christian’s charter. Here Paradise is restored, Heaven opened and the gates of Hell disclosed. Christ is its grand subject, our good its design, and the glory of God its end. It should fill the memory, rule the heart, and guide the feet. Read it slowly, frequently, and prayerfully. It is a mine of wealth, a paradise of glory, and a river of pleasure. It is given you in life, will be opened at the judgment, and be remembered forever. It involves the highest responsibility, rewards the greatest labor, and will condemn all who trifle with its sacred contents.

The Christian life—our growth in Christ—is nothing other than the lifelong deconstruction of what we naturally think and assume and the reconstruction of truth through the Bible.

What inhaling does for us physically, Bible reading does for us spiritually.

The Bible is like the front page of the newspaper, not the advice column.

The reason I wanted to include both Scripture and prayer in a single chapter in this book on growing in Christ is to underscore how interrelated and mutually dependent they are. We can easily think of these two disciplines as independent activities. We read the Bible, and we pray. But the most effective way to pray is to turn your Bible reading into prayer.3 And the best way to read the Bible is prayerfully.

The Christian life is purely theoretical if there is no operation of the Spirit.

The main thing I want to say in this chapter is this: because of the Spirit, you can grow. You really can.

The Holy Spirit is how God gets inside you. If you are a Christian, you are now permanently indwelt by the Spirit, and if you are permanently indwelt by the Spirit, then you have been supernaturalized. It’s not just you anymore. You aren’t alone. You have a companion living within you. He is there to stay, and he provides everything you need to grow in Christ.

But the distraught, the empty,

the pleading, the self-despairing, those tired of paying the tax of obedience to God and trying to live on what’s left over—theirs are hearts irresistible to the humble Holy Spirit.