Book Review: The Imperfect Disciple: Grace for People Who Can’t Get Their Act Together

What is discipleship, then, but following Jesus not on some religious quest to become bigger, better, or faster but to become more trusting of his mercy toward our total inability to become those things? p. 51

The more we dwell in Scripture, developing a greater taste and feel for it, the less sweet and less comforting the things of the world will taste and feel. p. 88

When I first saw the cover of Jared Wilson’s book, The Imperfect Disciple: Grace For People Who Can’t Get Their Act Together, I knew he had written it for me!  I’m grateful that in Christ we are free to not have it all together…because He does!  He made me and He knows best my shortcomings.  He also knows just what I need for each day.  What a treasure!  Why do I forget that ALL THE TIME?!!

I’m grateful for Wilson’s book as a great reminder of showing grace to others and to ourselves as we study the gospel and let the gospel study us.

Jesus is the point. He is the very point of the mountain we, daunted, climb—the tippety-top. He is the summit of all our longing and aspiration and desire. p. 225

I highlighted several things while reading and have posted those notes below…

• In short, I am a riddle to myself; a heap of inconsistence. John Newton p. 15
• There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. (Rom. 8:1–3) p. 25
• You introduce the truth of Romans 8 to every corner of the room, every dark place in your heart, as often as you can, as much as you can, as fiercely as you can. p. 27
• The diagnosis is helpful. If we don’t diagnose the problem correctly, we cannot address it effectively. We see that our soul is prone to slipping out of gear, dropping quite easily and quickly from Romans 8 to Romans 7. So here we go again, bringing Romans 8 to bear on ourselves. Some of us like to call this work “preaching the gospel to ourselves.” p. 29
• The psalmist sings: By day the LORD commands his steadfast love, and at night his song is with me, a prayer to the God of my life. (42:8) p. 30
• I take a look at my messed-up soul every day. I feel completely overwhelmed and underequipped. And so I hold on to the gospel. I pour some gospel into my soul. I am good to go another day. I might be crawling through that day or I might be balled up in my bed, unwilling to charge the Valley of Elah that is my life, but the smile of God is over me continually. Day and night his steadfast love sustains me. p. 30
• We live in a world that’s desperate for the real Jesus. Not some synthetic version of him. The real Jesus and what he really said and really did. The despair is getting thicker in this world. It will not be remedied by the syrupy platitudes that often pass for Christianity. p. 44
• You need to hear the gospel words of Zephaniah 3:19: “I will save the lame and gather the outcast, and I will change their shame into praise.” p. 49
• You need to hear the promise of Romans 10:11: “For the Scripture says, ‘Everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame.’” p. 50
• Colossians 2:15 says, “He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him.” p. 50
• What is discipleship, then, but following Jesus not on some religious quest to become bigger, better, or faster but to become more trusting of his mercy toward our total inability to become those things? p. 51
• In John 1:16, the apostle tells us that the fullness of Jesus provides “grace upon grace.” p. 54
• The reservoir of blessings in Jesus never runs dry. For all eternity, he is a fountain of life running free, overflowing, spilling over levies and dams, flooding our hearts—and eventually the entire earth (Hab. 2:14)—with the boundless radiance of his majesty. p. 54
• John 1:29: “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” p. 56
• It’s interesting how often the areas of our inner selves we strive the most to hide from Jesus are the ones he’s most interested in. And it’s amazing that these things about ourselves we hope he doesn’t see are the very things he means to cover with his grace. p. 59
• When our vision is constantly occupied by small things, we are tempted to yawn more at the glory of God. p. 63
• “The heavens declare the glory of God” (Ps. 19:1). p. 64
• G. K. Beale says, “What people revere, they resemble, either for ruin or restoration.” p. 64
• What all this boils down to is this: we have, fundamentally, a worship problem, and so long as we are occupying our minds with little, worldly things and puny, worldly messages, we will shrink our capacity to behold the eternal glory of Jesus Christ, which is the antidote to all that ails us. p. 64
• And so it turns out that the direct route to God-honoring behavior is born not of good behavior but of good beholding. p. 68
• Sometimes people are so busy trying to do great things for God they forget to look at his glory and therefore never quite behold it. p. 72
• A lot of the new songs—not all of them, of course, but a lot of them—head straight to how I feel about Jesus but never take me into the depths of why I ought to feel that way. We’re summoning the wind, calling down the fire, pleading for rainfall. (I begin to wonder if I’m worshiping God or reciting some kind of medieval weather report.) I’m telling God what I want, what I need (what I loooong for, ooooohh). But what I really need is to rehearse what he’s already done for me, what he’s already done in Christ that has satisfied my desires, met my needs, and answered my longings. In the rush to emotional outburst, I miss affectionate remembering. p. 75
• It’s not for nothing that God categorizes the relationship between his Son and Christians as one between a groom and his bride. And in worship music just as in marriage, keeping the relationship fresh means frequently revisiting some old, familiar truths. p.76
• The more we dwell in Scripture, developing a greater taste and feel for it, the less sweet and less comforting the things of the world will taste and feel. p. 88
• Scholar N. T. Wright says that we ought to read the New Testament as if Jesus in the Gospels is giving us sheet music for a masterwork symphony and as if Paul and the other New Testament authors are teaching the church how to perform it. p. 95
• The point of the Christian life is not self-improvement or more Bible knowledge but Christlikeness. p. 96
• One little verse in the Bible cuts through the clutter, the noise, the stress, the dutiful obligations, the mismanaged priorities, the rushing, and the busyness and offers me an antidote to what ails me: “But he would withdraw to desolate places and pray” (Luke 5:16). p. 101
• In the words of Robert Murray M’Cheyne, “What a man is alone on his knees before God, that he is, and no more.” p. 112
• Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. (Rom. 8:26) p. 114
• The gospel of prayer is that we need not pray to earn favor with God but rather to enjoy God’s favor already given to us in Jesus. p. 115
• The church has got to be a place where it’s okay to not be okay. p. 119
• To abide in Christ necessitates embracing the body of Christ as God’s plan for the Christian life. Abiding in Christ can’t be experienced as it’s designed to be experienced apart from abiding in the community called his very body. And the further good news is that embracing kingdom rhythms becomes easier and more sustainable when it is done alongside others. p. 128
• “May the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with one another, in accord with Christ Jesus” (Rom. 15:5). p. 134
• A message of grace will attract people but a culture of grace will keep them. p.135
• Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls, as those who will have to give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with groaning, for that would be of no advantage to you. (Heb. 13:17) p.137
• The closer we get to God through Jesus, the more the Spirit cultivates in us humility and love for God and neighbor. p.155
• The gospel is an exclamation point. p. 163
• Well, one of the litmus test questions I’ve been fond of giving out to others in diagnosing idolatry is this: What, if taken away from you, would cause you a great crisis of identity? p. 184
• “If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God” (Col. 3:1). p.193
• We bring nothing to this relationship except our nothingness. We bring our emptiness and Christ brings his riches. We bring our pit and he brings his rope. p.178
• When the Lord restored the fortunes of Zion, we were like those who dream. Psalm 126:1 p. 211
• Jesus is the point. He is the very point of the mountain we, daunted, climb—the tippety-top. He is the summit of all our longing and aspiration and desire. p. 225
• C. S. Lewis says, “The sweetest thing of all my life has been the longing . . . to find the place where all the beauty came from.” p. 227