I sipped my frozen pumpkin pie latte slowly… while reading over the same chapter of Danny Silk’s “Culture of Honor” for about the third time. At this rate, this book won’t make it back to the friend who loaned it any time soon. I think she’s ok with that.

If you want a book that will challenge you, pick this one. It’s… intense. It’s all about grace. And it’s sweet and spicy, just like the latte I was sipping:

Through the cross, Jesus introduced something into the world that we still don’t understand. He has made each and every one of us un-punishable. We are un-punishable. It’s not wishful thinking, and you’ve probably even heard this preached. It is our theology to reach the lost. ‘Come into the Kingdom of Heaven free and clean of your sins.’ We declare this from every pulpit in the land.

Sin does not need to be punished. It does not need to be controlled. It’s not a powerful force. It’s just that we don’t believe it. It’s easy to preach stuff. It’s another deal living it!

The kick to this message was simple: I saw how much we present it to the lost, but once they’re in that’s not what we present. To the church we say that you’d better clean up your act. You have to strive and contend to enter into what He freely gave you.

I remembered hearing messages on the Sermon on the Mount where the preacher was talking about how we could never live up to it. We can’t. Yet, somehow, I felt that I was to try. Reading this book, I saw that “Jesus wasn’t giving these commands to sinners — He was giving them to sons and daughters of the New Covenant who would have access to an entirely new nature and supernatural grace. He was simply describing how these new people would behave.”

It’s two totally different mindsets. In one, I strive to enter into this high and lofty thing… in the other, I simply am a daughter and through being I act in this way that’s so far superior.

I walked out of the coffee shop trying to wrap my head around it still and grab such big words and implant them deep in my heart. I will start here…

I am His. He is mine. He took the wrath. I took the bliss. There is no wrath left in His heart toward me. He only feels ecstatic joy when He sees me. He is so confident in His finished work that He sees me as finished too. And He cannot, will not, punish me. He already took all the punishment.

Haha. I just realized… I was trying again. But only He can make this reality go deep. So I’ll keep munching on the finished work until it’s all I see.