Quote: Easy Conscience

Sometimes we say ‘I’m being gracious’ when really we’re tolerating the sin in our own lives and consequently letting other people off the hook. We play nice to compensate for our own active disobedience and to ease our seared conscience. This is not really grace, but a cheap dress to hide our own nakedness. Jesus has better than this. We can paint him as a doe-eyed softie who never said hard things and who told people ‘I love you’ all the time, but he wasn’t like this. Jesus loved people, but it’s not the kind of love that pampers or enables or lets you wander into hell. It’s the kind of love that furiously grips your heart and squeezes life into your dead bones. It hurts, and it is good: and it will never leave you as you are.

–J.S.