“No Strings Attached”
The 2017 Liberate Conference
Martin Luther once said that “To be convinced in our hearts that we have forgiveness of sins and peace with God by grace alone is the hardest thing.” It’s the hardest thing because we are strings attached people living in a strings attached world with other strings attached people. Everything is conditional. We’ve all grown up hearing and believing that there’s no such thing as a free lunch. “You get what you deserve”, “You will get out only what you put in”, “You want respect? Earn it”, “You want love? Make yourself loveable” are just a few of the things we’ve been told over and over and over again. “This for that” comes as naturally to us as breathing. And it’s precisely these attached strings that make life heavy and hard.
What’s even worse, though, is when we think that because this is the way the world works this must also be the way God works. But what if we told you that it isn’t that way at all with God? What if we told you that God’s love and acceptance of you were already completely secure? What if we told you that the only give and take in our relationship with God is that He takes our failures and gives us His victory? What if we told you that when Paul wrote “Nothing can separate us from God’s love” he meant it? What if we told you that God meets our failures with His forgiveness, our guilt with His grace, our messes with His mercy, and our shame with His salvation? What if we told you that God only loves bad and broken people who blow it because bad and broken people who blow it are all that there are? A no-strings-attached God is not what people who think they’re good and strong want, but it’s precisely what people who know they’re bad and weak need.
The gospel is not “you get out what you put in”—that would be bad news, not good news. Rather, it’s that the bad get the best, the worst inherit the wealth, and the slave becomes a son. Jesus met all of God’s holy conditions so that our relationship with God could forever be wholly unconditional, based entirely on what Jesus has done for us, not what we do or fail to do.
Join us at Liberate 2017 where we will be announcing over and over again that, with God, there are no strings attached to his love for us.
CLICK HERE FOR 2017 LIBERATE CONFERENCE “EARLY BIRD” REGISTRATION!
February 23-25, 2017
Willow Creek Church
4725 East Lake Drive
Winter Springs, FL 32708