Notes on Deeper
Deeper: Real Change for Real Sinners by Dane Ortlund
Some of these notes are Ortlund’s words and some are my own reflections on his book.
Truth, Meaning and the Heart
Reason is the natural organ of truth but imagination is the natural organ of meaning. Imagination anchors meaning into our souls.
Need a heart grasp of justification. ch. 10
Made to Be Loved
God made you so that he could Love you.
We grow in Christ no further than we enjoy his embrace of us.
The deepest destiny of your life is to descend ever deeper, with quiet yet ever increasing intensity, into the endless love of God. We grow spiritually here on earth only through the embrace of this endless love until it is experienced fully in the life to come.
Outside In, Inside Out
Justification is a moment in time, it works outside in (our Standing with God)
Sanctification is a gradual process, it works inside out (our Walk with God)
Inside out sanctification is fed by outside in justification.
The freedom of outside in justification will foster your inside out Sanctification.
The Father ordains salvation
The Son accomplishes salvation
The Spirit applies salvation
We don’t need the spirit to be moral
That is we don’t need the spirit to be different on the outside
We do need the spirit to be different on the inside.
Looking to Christ
We defeat sin by looking to Christ. Just as a little toy sports car loses its attractiveness when you are invited to drive the real thing so too sin loses its appeal as we allow ourselves to be enchanted time and again with the beauty of Christ.
To kill our enemy, sin, we must not target it in our vision but look away from it. The further we look away the closer our eyes draw toward its opposite Christ.
To grow in Christ is not to add Christ to your life but to collapse into Christ as your life.
Muddy Children
No amount of fall can undo Us as long as we pick ourselves up each time. We shall of course be very muddy and tattered children by the time we reach home. But the bathrooms are ready. The towels put out and the clean clothes are airing on the cupboard. It is when we notice the dirt that the father is most present to us. For that is the very sign of his presence. C.S. Lewis
Praise God when you see your dirt for the fact that you see it means he is with you.
Identity and Union with Christ
Our identity is not connected to sin. Sin is what keeps us from our true identity in Christ.
If we first lived in heaven then came to earth. We would spend every moment trying to get our true identity in Christ back. As it stands we cling to our identity in sin and this world.
It is only in union to Christ that you can grow into who God made you to be.
Peel your layers:
- your stuff
- your acquaintances and work
- your close relationships
- worldview and cherished truths
- your sins and secrets
- you are united with Christ.
How Does God Change Us?, p. 34