Well I must say that I am so excited about the latest book - I think I have shed more tears writing this one that doing anything else in my life. If you want a sneak preview before March 1st click on Open Ads in the top right hand corner of the home page.

In the meantime let me get you warmed up for the book: I’m going to make the assumption that if you’re reading this book, you’re a returnee and this isn’t the first time we’re having a chat. I need to make that assumption because I’ve made no allowance in these pages for the uninitiated and I offer no apologies for doing so. I’m satisfied that the introductory volume, “Safe & Sound”, of the “Until Christ Is Formed” trilogy is fit for the purpose. So, in this instalment, we’ll be developing, rather than recapitulating, what I call the three R’s – Redemption, Restoration and Relationship. This book is unapologetically about the working out of your salvation but it presupposes that you’ve understood that it’s God who is at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work for His good pleasure [Phil. 2:13]. What I’m trying to say is that you need to have worked out your salvation before you can work out your salvation.

I’m, of course, uncertain as to what extent you’ve been “frustrated by your failure to live the Christian life and you have since come to understand that the answer eluded you because it required a lesser mind or perhaps, a mind less bound by the parameters of legalistic perfection.”¹ “Alright, alright, don’t go on about it,” I hear you say. I know I’ve said that there’d be no Architect speeches but well, what can I tell you? I lied but that’s the last one, I promise … well, maybe just one more and then, that’s it. I promise. Anyway, in order to check that we’re on the same frequency, it might be worth your taking a little … what shall I call it? …. Ah, yes. Let me invite you to take your 11+ (for younger readers, that means a SATS Key Stage 2 Test)². I think it’ll help you to evaluate where you are in the grace loop.

The Little Child 11+ (Key Stage 2 SATS)

Spiritual Training and Development Assessment

In 1 Corinthians 13, the Apostle Paul enumerates the sixteen characteristics of love which I’ve set out below.

Consider the sixteen characteristics and answer the following –

Agapē Is Patient

Q: How does the idea that God will never lose His patience with you make you feel?

Agapē Is Kind

Q: How do you feel knowing that God is kind to you not because He wants something from you but because it is His nature?

Agapē Cannot Envy

Q: How do you feel knowing that God is not jealous of you but is jealous for you and that you will never need to be jealous ever again because part of His being jealous for you is that He is jealous on your behalf?

Agapē Cannot Boast

Q: How do you feel knowing that God never says, “Look how good I am” but instead, just boasts about how good you are?

Agapē Is Not Proud

Q: How do you feel about the fact that God wants to be vulnerable with you and confide in you?

Agapē Is Not Rude/Moaning/Crude/Ignorant

Q: What would be the consequence for you, personally, of believing that Jesus is not the Foolish Builder?

Agapē Is Not Self-Seeking

Q: How do you respond to the principle that God wants nothing from you?

Agapē Is Unprovokable

Q: Do you feel liberated by the idea that God cannot be provoked by you either positively or negatively?

Agapē Keeps No Record of Wrongs

Q: How different would your life be if you really believe that God keeps no record of your wrongs and that He has pressed the delete button and erased the record from His memory of every sin, past, present and future?

Agapē Thinks No Evil

Q: How do you feel and what difference would it make to your daily walk if you accept as a fact that He sees no evil in you?

Agapē Rejoices In The Truth

Q: Would you like to join Him in the dance? What is stopping you?

Agapē Bears All Things

Q: What difference would it make to your life if you believe that God has already covered you for every eventuality which the storms and floods of life will throw up at you and that when the enemy comes in like a flood, He will raise a standard against it?

Agapē Always Believes All Things

Q: How do you feel knowing that even when you do not believe in God and nobody (including yourself) believes in you, God still does?

Agapē Always Endures All Things

Q: How does it feel knowing that you are home free?

Agapē Never Fails

Q: For you, what does it mean to know that regardless of your failures, God’s love will never fail concerning you?

1. Which of the characteristics is the most difficult aspect for you, personally?

2. Why do you personally find it hard to believe that characteristic to be true for you?

3. How would your Christian life be improved if you did believe it?

Now, “[that] brings us at last to the moment of truth wherein the fundamental flaw is ultimately expressed and the anomaly revealed as both beginning and end. There are two doors. The door to your right leads to the source and the salvation of Zion. The door to the left leads back to the matrix, to her, and to the end of your species. As you adequately put, the problem is choice. But we already know what you’re going to do, don’t we? Already I can see the chain reaction, the chemical precursors that signal the onset of emotion, designed specifically to overwhelm logic and reason. An emotion that is already blinding you from the simple and obvious truth: she is going to die and there is nothing that you can do to stop it.”

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