Love

I am deeply persuaded that the foundation for people-transforming ministry is not sound theology; it is love. Without love, our theology is a boat without oars. Love is what drove God to send and sacrifice his Son. Love led Christ to subject himself to a sinful world and the horrors of the cross. Love is what causes him to seek and save the lost, and to persevere until each of his children is transformed into his image. His love will not rest until all of his children are at his side in glory. The hope of every sinner does not rest in theological answers but in the love of Christ for his own. Without it, we have no personally, relationally, or eternally.

This love is not a band-aid attempting to cope with a cancerous world. It is effective and preserving. It is jealous, intent on owning us without competition. It faces that fact of who we are and how we need to change and simply goes to work. Any hope for the problems we face-with our own hearts and with a dark and corrupt world-is found in the love of the Lord Jesus Christ for us.

- Paul David Tripp, Instruments in the Redeemers Hands, 117