Jesus Plus Nothing...
October 27, 2011
Tullian Tchividjian's new book, "Jesus + Nothing = Everything" is now available.
He was recently interviewed about the stormy first few years of his ministry at Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church. I identified with much of what he said although I have never had to face things like petitions for my dismissal and vandalism to my car. Of course, there is still time. I was also moved by his comments regarding the toll those trials took on his wife. But through it all it was the indellible beauty of the Gospel that sustained him.
He was recently interviewed about the stormy first few years of his ministry at Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church. I identified with much of what he said although I have never had to face things like petitions for my dismissal and vandalism to my car. Of course, there is still time. I was also moved by his comments regarding the toll those trials took on his wife. But through it all it was the indellible beauty of the Gospel that sustained him.
I’d never realized how dependent I’d become on human approval and acceptance until so much of it was taken away in the roiling controversy at Coral Ridge. In every church I’d been a part of, I was widely accepted and approved and appreciated. I’d always felt loved in church. Now, for the first time, I found myself in the uncomfortable position of being deeply disliked and distrusted, and by more than a few people. Now I realized just how much I’d been relying on something other than the approval and acceptance and love that were already mine in Jesus. I was realizing in a fresh way the now-power of the gospel—that the gospel doesn’t simply rescue us from the past and rescue us for the future; it also rescues us in the present from being enslaved to things like fear, insecurity, anger, self-reliance, bitterness, entitlement, and insignificance. Through my pain, I was being convinced all over again that the power of the gospel is just as necessary and relevant after you become a Christian as it is before.
[vimeo http://www.vimeo.com/28825175 w=400&h=225]
