What happens when we lose these truths?

More encouragement from Elyse Fitzpatrick and Dennis Johnson’s wonderful book, Counsel from the Cross: Connecting Broken People to the Love of Christ:

“Because we are so familiar with the gospel message, it gets shoved out to the periphery of our spiritual consciousness and becomes nothing more than white noise, only to be remembered at Christmas and Easter …

When we lose those truths, what takes center stage in our awareness? We do, of course. When we lose the centrality of the cross, Christianity morphs into a religion of self-improvement and becomes about us, about our accomplishments, about getting our own way …

So, now we’re going to remember God’s love for us in Christ for this one reason: Our love for God, for others, is responsive in nature. The Apostle John has made it perfectly clear: we love God in response to his love for us. We love others in response to God’s love for us, for them. Indeed, as John wrote, “We love because he first loved us” (1 John 4:19-20). If we’re unsure or doubtful about God’s disposition toward us, if we think that he is unloving, displeased or angry, then we will never be able to mortify our sin. Love is the first cause of all the graces we desire, it ‘warms the heart, and sweetly and powerfully influences our affections to delight in, and to walk in love with such an exceedingly gracious and merciful God.'”

(They quote William Romaine at the end there–I looked it up in their footnotes for you.)