thanks, Matt.

What I’m saying is that obedience to Christ for us here is rarely this weight that falls on our heart where it could cost us everything—where it feels like it rip out our person-hood. But sometimes it is.

Sometimes it is.

And the hope we have in the Triune God of the universe is that all His commands and all His leadings are leading us to life and not begrudging submission to His power simply because He could command what He wanted to command. That is not our God. That is not the God of the Bible. So even if it feels like He’s pulling at something that feels so much like its yours that if you let it go you wouldn’t know how to define yourself anymore—that if you let it go you would be naked and afraid…Those commands are leading you to life not to death. He is not trying to take anything from you but what would eventually destroy you, even if that feels like it’s impossibly woven into who you are as a person.

It is idiocy to trade actual godliness for the appearance of godliness.

--Matt Chandler (in a sermon entitled Games People Play Part 2)