God Has Loved Me to the End of My Sinfulness, Pride and Self-Interest

Friends who read my posts and emails (you can subscribe to the emails at www.act3network.com to the ACT3 Weekly and receive a free pdf copy of my small book The Unity Factor ) know that I wrote a major book titled Your Church Is Too Small: Why Unity in Christ’s Mission Is Vital to the Future of the Church (Zondervan, 2010). This book reveals a story, really a personal narrative, of my coming to a crisis point in my life when John 17:21 gripped me at the center of my being. Over a few years, this experience of God’s love for the whole church profoundly changed me. I have been living out this change for 22 years now. It did not come as one single thunderbolt but as a crisis point that led to a long, God-drenched process. That process continues in the mission of ACT3.

Now I am writing my first major book since 2010: Our Love is Too Small. I am about halfway through the draft stage. This book is in two parts: (1) God’s love (John 3:16-17), and; (2) Our love in response to this eternal love (John 13:34-35). The first part is harder to write because it requires a good bit more theological and philosophical background, thus hard intellectual thought and work. To write this in an extremely clear and readable way is the greatest challenge I’ve faced in years as a writer. I humbly ask for your prayers to this end. I want to contribute to a great conflagration of divine love being poured out upon the people of Christ. I believe this is the revival that we so desperately need in the West. Protestant leaders, charismatics, evangelicals and recent popes have all said the same thing and I want to add my tiny voice to the fire of divine love that is growing brighter.

For decades I have read the writing of Oswald Chambers. In his book, Biblical Psychology, Chambers says:

How has God loved me? God has loved me to the end of all my sinfulness, the end of all my self-will, all my selfishness, all my stiff-neckedness, all my pride, all my self-interest; now He says–”Love one another, as I have loved you.” I am to show my fellow-men the same love that God has showed to me. That is Christianity in practical working order (195).

The thesis of the second half of my book is plainly stated by Chambers in his last two sentences: “I am to show my fellow-men the same love that God has showed to me. That is Christianity in practical working order.” Amen.