Gentle and Lowly

Gentle and Lowly: The Heart of Christ for Sinners and Sufferers
By: Dane Ortlund

"This book is written for the discouraged, the frustrated, the weary, the disenchanted, the cynical, the empty. Those running on fumes. Those whose Christian lives feel like constantly running up a descending escalator...For those of us who know God loves us but suspect we have deeply disappointed him...Who wonder if we have shipwrecked our lives beyond what can be repaired...Who have been swept off our feet by perplexing pain and are wondering how we can keep living under such numbing darkness. Who look at our lives and know how to interpret data only by concluding that God is fundamentally parsimonious."

I think that about covers it. I'm guessing you, like me, fit into one of those categories. And so, this book is for you. Even if you don't fall into any of the above and you feel pretty good about everything, I would venture that you might just land here somewhere further down the road. Or maybe someone close to you could really use you speaking the truths from this book (and ultimately Scripture) into their life. I think you will find this book to be a true comfort and refreshment wherever you are.

It is actually pretty incredible everything he fits into such a short, quick read. It's one I know I will revisit. There is much to ponder from each chapter and I know I didn't do it justice without giving more time for introspection.

I've grown up in the church. I read a lot of Christian living books, and yet this concept of Jesus' deep heart for us feels like a truth I've never really internalized. Throughout the book, as soon as I started feeling like, Oh I know this already, he would ask a question or make a statement and I would find myself startled- 'Oh yeah... that's a good question!' or 'I guess I do think that way...'

Dane Ortlund dissects the original language and intent of the Scriptures and explains the profound Puritan teachings with beautiful and accessible writing. The time and care spent to compile these pages is very evident.

Ortlund focuses on one main Scripture passage or Puritan writing per chapter to flesh out what we know to be true about the heart of God and what that means for us, lowly sinners. He lays the foundation for this book (per the title) in Matthew 11. "The heart is a matter of life. It is what makes us the human being each of us is; the heart drives all we do. It is who we are. And when Jesus tells us what animates him most deeply, what is most true of him—when he exposes the innermost recesses of his being—what we find there is: gentle and lowly...What Jesus is, he does. He cannot act any other way. His life proves his heart."

Over and over again, Ortlund reminds us that there is nothing about our sins, failures, or sufferings that keeps Jesus away. He is drawn to us and desires for us to come to him, take his yoke, and find rest for our souls.

"For it is a yoke of kindness. Who could resist this? It’s like telling a drowning man that he must put on the burden of a life preserver only to hear him shout back sputtering, “No way! Not me! This is hard enough, drowning here in these stormy waters. The last thing I need is the added burden of a life preserver around my body!” That’s what we all are like, confessing Christ with our lips but generally avoiding deep fellowship with him, out of a muted understanding of his heart."

I was confronted throughout the book with the realization that we, as fallen human beings, can't help but try to control everything- even determining the terms and conditions in which God can love us (or not love us.) We are a pendulum swinging between our self-justifying pride, not feeling the true weight of our sin, and our self-deprecating despair, believing God doesn't love us because we are too messed up or too far gone.

This book positions us right where we need to be: Attempting to understand just how evil we are and in NEED of a perfect Savior, and accepting that Jesus already paid the immense cost of our sin, willingly, out of LOVE, before we could ever do anything to deserve it. "With Christ, our sins and weaknesses are the very resume items that qualify us to approach him. Nothing but coming to him is required— first at conversion and a thousand times thereafter until we are with him upon death."

I could go on and on about everything that impacted me, but I think you need to encounter these truths for yourself. To offer a little more information on what he discusses in his book, here are some questions you may be thinking that will be answered within.
- Isn't Jesus too holy to be approached by me, a filthy sinner?
- Do we neglect his wrath if we talk too much about his heart?
- Shouldn't we be careful not to lean too much on him, taking advantage of his mercy?
- Does he really understand what I'm dealing with?
- If I come to him now, will he turn me away later when I REALLY do something bad?
- Does Jesus ever hate me?
- How do our imperfect feelings compare to the emotions of Christ?
- Why does Jesus continue to intercede for us if he already paid for our sins?
- What does it mean for Jesus to be my advocate?
- If Jesus will never cast me out, and his heart finds joy in healing my sin, should I even care to stop sinning?
- Does God reveal his glory more by his wrath and power or by his kindness and mercy?
- Is it okay for Jesus to be angry?
- What does the Holy Spirit have to do with the heart of Jesus?
- The Father judges and required justice; Jesus loves and sacrificed himself for me- so does the Father and Jesus have differing dispositions towards me?
- How can God still love me if he afflicts me or allows bad things to happen to me?
- Where can we see evidence of his mercy in a life full of suffering?
- What am I supposed to do with all of this?

I truly believe this book will change your perception of God and the way he thinks about you. I will conclude this review with this quote from the book. And then, per my custom, a whole host of other quotes to whet your appetite until your book comes in the mail.

"The world is starving for a yearning love, a love that remembers instead of forsakes. A love that isn’t tied to our loveliness. A love that gets down underneath our messiness. A love that is bigger than the enveloping darkness we might be walking through even today. A love of which even the very best human romance is the faintest of whispers… On the cross, we see what God did to satisfy his yearning for us. He went that far… Repent of your small thoughts of God’s heart. Repent and let him love you."


More quotes:

"The dominant note left ringing in our ears after reading the Gospels, the most vivid and arresting element of the portrait, is the way the Holy Son of God moves toward, touches, heals, embraces, and forgives those who least deserve it yet truly desire it."

"A compassionate doctor has traveled deep into the jungle to provide medical care to a primitive tribe afflicted with a contagious disease...But as he seems to provide care. The afflicted refuse, they want to take care of themselves. They want to heal on their own terms. Finally, a few brave young men step forward to receive the care being freely provided. What does the doctor feel? Joy. His joy increases to the degree that the sick come to him for help and healing. It’s the whole reason he came."

"What is it about God’s glory that draws us in and causes us to conquer our sins and makes us radiant people? Is it the sheer size of God, a consideration of the immensity of the universe and thus of the Creator, a sense of God’s transcendent greatness, that pulls us toward him? No, Jonathan Edwards would say; it is the loveliness of his heart... “A sight of the greatness of God in his attributes, may overwhelm men.”...Seeing only his greatness, “the enmity and opposition of the heart, may remain in its full strength, and the will remain inflexible; whereas, one glimpse of the moral and spiritual glory of God, and supreme amiableness of Jesus Christ, shining into the heart, overcomes and abolishes this opposition, and inclines the soul to Christ, as it were, by an omnipotent power.” "

"A correct understanding of the triune God is not that of a Father whose central disposition is judgment and a Son whose central disposition is love. The heart of both is one and the same; this is, after all, one God, not two. Theirs is a heart of redeeming love, not compromising justice and wrath but beautifully satisfying justice and wrath."

“If your heart be hard, his mercies are tender.
If your heart be dead he has mercy to liven it.
If you be sick, he has mercy to heal you.
If you be sinful, he has mercies to sanctify and cleanse you.
As large and as various as are our wants, so large and various are his mercies. So we may come boldly to find grace and mercy to help us in time of need, a mercy for every need. All the mercies that are in his own heart he has transplanted into several beds in the garden of the the promises, where they grow, and he has abundance of variety of them, suited to all the variety of the diseases of the soul.” -Thomas Goodwin

"All of God’s attributes are nonnegotiable… God is not the sum total of a number of attributes, like pieces of a pie making a whole pie; rather, God is every attribute perfectly. God does not have parts. He is just. He is wrathful. He is good.. and so on, each in endless perfection."

“'Slow to anger'...Unlike us, who are often emotional dams ready to break, God can put up with a lot. This is why the OT speaks of God being “provoked to anger” by his people dozens of times. But not once are we told that God is “provoked to love” or “provoked to mercy.” His anger requires provocation; his mercy is pent up, ready to gush forth."

"Perhaps Satan’s greatest victory in your life today is not the sin in which you regularly indulge but the dark thoughts of God’s heart that cause you to go there in the first place and keep you cool toward him in the wake of it."

"Our naturally decaffeinated views of God’s heart might feel right because we’re being stern with ourselves, not letting ourselves off the hook too easily. Such sternness feels appropriately morally serious. But deflecting of God’s yearning heart does not reflect Scripture’s testimony about how God feels toward his own. God is of course morally serious, far more than we are. But the Bible takes us by the hand and leads us out from under the feeling that his heart for us wavers according to our loveliness. God’s heart confounds our intuitions of who he is."

"It is the sun of Christ’s heart, not the clouds of my sins, that now defines me."

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