APRIL 2015 | Books.

In the book Embracing the Love of God, author James Bryan Smith explores the tender heart of God for His people.  Smith gives a fresh take on familiar Christian themes of acceptance, forgiveness, and care from God, for ourselves, and for others through the use of anecdotes, scripture, and moving insights.  On each page, Smith guides the reader through how deeply knowing God’s love for us impacts all of our relationships.  Meaningful revelations draw the reader into closer/healthier communion with Christ, oneself, & others. 

Personally, this book brought about reconciliation in my own life as I first read it during a season when I found it extremely challenging to accept myself and to forgive another.  I was convicted, transformed, and healed through the words found here. While initially the themes sounded so commonplace, the profound insight Smith provides touched me in such a unique way that I found my heart soften to the heart of God, embrace His mighty love, and learn afresh how to accept/forgive/care for myself and those around me.

Some stand out quotations from the book:

"We can trust in this promise because the promise is not based on anything we have done or will do.  We do not deserve God's acceptance and love; it is a gift.  Gifts have nothing to do with the merit of the receiver. If I work for something, I do not receive a gift, I receive my rightful wages.  When we give a gift we are saying, 'You did not earn this, and I do not owe you this, but I want to give it to you because I love you.'" 21

"Perhaps the solution to our problem of shame is not to try to think better of ourselves or to think worse of ourselves. Perhaps the answer is to think rightly about ourselves." 34

"Ministry became easier when I realized that I do not have a ministry, but rather, I am simply an extension of Christ's ministry to the world." 45

“Real, genuine acceptance begins at the point of weakness.” 51

"When we have decided to set the prisoners free, to put the pain of the past behind us, we will embark on a healing journey that typically involves four elements: discovering how much you have been forgiven, releasing the person of the debt they owe, accepting the person they are, and allowing God to turn evil into good."  98 

"God looks in our hearts and sees what we really need." 118

"We were created because we were loved, we were created so that we could experience that love, and we were created so that we could become a symbol of that love." 132

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"See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God!  And that is what we are!"
1 John 3:1a

"If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror;then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love." 

1 Corinthians 13