Gentle and Lowly - Book Notes
As this book unpacked Christ's heart, it left me in stunned awe at the goodness of God and energized me to live with greater freedom and joy.
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The Book In Three Sentences
Christ's heart toward us is gentle, merciful, patient, kind, loving, gracious, and lowly.
One of our greatest needs is not only to see the greatness and majesty of Christ but also the beauty and goodness of his character.
Seeing the heart of Christ for us is what gives us joy, peace, freedom, love for God, and strength.
Quick Impression
As this book unpacked Christ's heart, it left me in stunned awe at the goodness of God and energized me to live with greater freedom and joy.
Who Should Read It?
Anyone would benefit from reading this book, but I believe it would be especially helpful for these folks:
Those who have a heart time connecting with the heart and character of God and/or Jesus
Those who live with a current of anxiety from believing that God's disposition is to be mad or disappointed in them.
Those who fear that an emphasis on the grace of God is "fluffy."
Why I Read This Book
I've now read this book twice. The first time was because it was highly recommended in many of my circles. My home church, Immanuel Nashville, was founded by pastor Ray Ortlund and the author's father, Dane Ortlund. I heard so many wonderful things about the book that I eventually picked it up and enjoyed myself.
I read this book a second time during the Summer of 2022. My wife and I typically lead worship at camp all summer, and we have a band of young guys we bring along. Every summer, we have a book and/or Bible study that we go through together as a band. We decided to read through Gentle and Lowly together for the 2022 camp season. The guys loved the book, our discussions were rich, and one even mentioned wanting to get a tattoo of the words "Gentle and Lowly" to remind him of what he learned of Christ's heart.
How It Changed Me
Part of the comfort of this book is in how it challenged my assumptions about who God is and how he feels about me. A.W. Tozer says that the most important thing about us is what we think about God. I believe that's true because what we think about God filters into every part of our lives, even if we aren't aware of it. I don't often realize what I actually believe about God. That's why I need books like this that point me to the Word, which points me to Christ, who points me to the truth about who God is. When my thoughts of God change, it changes so many things about my life. Seeing His heart for me gives me freedom and courage. Seeing his mercy and patience makes me more gracious and patient. Seeing his kindness humbles me and leads me to repentance. This book changed me at the level of belief and awe, which ultimately changes everything about me.
Top 3 Quotes
Perhaps Satan's greatest victory in your life today is not the sin which you regularly indulge but the dark thoughts of God's heart that cause you to go there in the first place and keep you cool toward him in the wake of it.
We are drawn to the beauty of the heart of Jesus. Perhaps beauty is not a category that comes naturally to mind when we think about Christ. Maybe we think of God and Christ in terms of truth, not beauty. But the whole reason we care about sound doctrine is for the sake of preserving God's beauty, just as the whole reason we care about effective focal lenses on a camera is to capture with precision the beauty we photograph.
You can live either for the heart of Christ or from the heart of Christ. You can live for the smile of God or from it. For a new identity as a son or daughter of God or from it. For your union with Christ or from it. The battle of the Christian life is to bring your own heart into alignment with Christ's, that is, getting up each morning and replacing your natural orphan mind-set with a mind-set of full and free adoption into the family of God through the work of Christ your older brother, who loved you and gave himself for you out of the overflowing fullness of his grace.
My Notes
Chapter 1: His Very Heart
Jesus is approachable. What a wonderful thought. I remember thinking about this when studying for the writing and making of our Advent album "Tell Me The Story." What is more approachable than a baby? Jesus made himself low so the lowly might feel comfortable and welcome to approach him.
My burdens and my sin are what qualifies me to come to Jesus. It's the reason why he came in the first place. There is no need to clean myself up before I come to Jesus.Jesus gives all that is needed in my relationship with him. He gives rest, grace, faith, etc. These are not things I pay for or earn. He gives them freely.
Drinking deeply of his kindness, grace, and mercy is what gives us life.
Jesus is not like us. We assume that the high and mighty look down on the lowly. Most mythical, made-up gods reflect this idea. The "gods" of our imagination are aloof and uncaring about lowly, dirty mortals. This is why we need the Bible. Jesus isn't a god of our imaginations. How shocking for us to read that the heart of Jesus is "gentle and lowly."
Chapter 2: His Heart In Action
The heart of Christ is seen and proven by how we see him act in scripture.
We see in scripture that Jesus moves towards sin and suffering, not away from it.
Chapter 3: The Happiness of Christ
Dane is helping us see that we aren't being presumptuous to run to Christ for help, mercy, and grace in our sin - rather, we are increasing his joy when we do so. This is the whole reason why Jesus came. The joy of our forgiveness and healing is what was set before Him as He endured the cross. Considering how much joy it brings Christ to lavish his mercy and grace on us, it might even seem like not running to Christ, not presuming on His grace, is the greater travesty! We aren't just denying ourselves the relief of being forgiven; we are denying him the joy of forgiving us. And that's why he came to earth and suffered as he did! How can he not feel this way about us when we are His own body?
Jesus wants us to know, be encouraged, and draw energy from his love. The ironic way we are qualified for this incredible love of Christ is that we are sinners! Only sinners can receive this incredible love.
Chapter 4: Able to Sympathize
What struck me the most in this chapter was the part about not being alone when life gets hard. It's true that we tend to feel isolated and lonely in our pain and our shame. But we are not alone; Christ is with us - sympathizing with us in our weaknesses. He wants us to draw near Him because he loves drawing near us.
Chapter 5: He Can Deal Gently
Jesus deals gently with all sinners - accidental sin and intention sin. In fact, the more in despair we are over our sin, the more gentle the response of Jesus.
Looking at our sin makes us despair, but when we look to Jesus, we will see that he is moving toward us in our sin with gentleness, kindness, and mercy.
Chapter 6: I Will Never Cast Out
This chapter lingers over John 6:37 in an attempt to show us the heart of God towards his own. Whoever comes to Jesus will not be cast out.
It's wrong for us to think that Jesus came to the earth to calm down God the Father. God the Father sent Jesus. He is the one that takes "loving initiative" by sending Jesus and giving us to Him.
God will not grow tired of us, and there is no objection or exception we can bring to this verse. The more we believe the words of Jesus, the more we will see the astounding heart of God towards us.
Though we cling to Christ, God, through Christ, is really holding on to us. The illustration of a two-year-old clinging to his dad's hand in the deeper waters was incredibly helpful. The boy can't hold on for long, but it's the dad holding on to the boy - and it's his delight to do so.
Chapter 7: What our Sins Evoke
We are good at self-justifying ourselves. Because of this, we can have a hard time with divine wrath.
In Christ, our sins don't keep us from God - they are the very thing that causes the grace and mercy of God to move towards us.
He sides with you against your sin, not against you because of your sin.
Chapter 8: To The Uttermost
This chapter helps clarify the difference between justification (salvation) and intercession (how Jesus is applying that justification moment by moment). It's also clarifying why Jesus is interceding for us to the Father. It's not because something is missing in what he did on the cross.
Our prayer life stinks most of the time. But what if you heard Jesus praying aloud for you in the next room? Few things would calm us more deeply.
Chapter 9: An Advocate
Jesus doesn't just pray for us; he stands beside us. He fights for us, next to us. He sympathizes and understands us.
Your salvation is not merely a matter of a saving formula, but of a saving person.
Chapter 10: The Beauty of the Heart of Christ
I was thinking about "glory" already because of the book Holier Than Thou: Book by Jackie Hill Perry. What is glorious about God isn't just his bigness and grandeur; what is glorious about God is his heart. There is no one like him in heart. No one so trustworthy. He cannot sin against us. It's not in his nature. And it is in his nature to pour out mercy and love towards us. This is a part of what makes God glorious.
Seeing God's greatness is not our deepest need, but seeing his goodness.
I'm constantly wondering if God is good. I know He is. I know that's the right answer. I look to Christ often because my mind, soul, and heart need to catch up. I need to be reminded often that God is good. So good that He is better than anything else.
Sound doctrine is less about being "right" and more about preserving the beauty of God's character and glory.
Chapter 11: The Emotional Life of Christ
God made our emotions and Jesus, being fully man, experiences the full range of emotions. The difference is that our emotions are tainted with sin, whereas his emotions are sin-free and pure.
Emotions aren't "bad." They are good. This chapter highlights the emotion of anger. It's good for us to know that Christ gets angry. We want him to get angry. When we are wronged and see wrong in the world, we want Christ to be angry about these things. We want our King to be angry at the injustices of the world. And that is what sin is: injustice. Anger comes from caring. If we aren't angry, then it means that we don't care about anything. Christ cares deeply and is thus deeply angered by sin.
Chapter 12: A Tender Friend
Jesus is the kind of friend who will never leave, betray, or abandon us, no matter how lovely or dirty we may be. He isn't waiting for us to make the first move. He isn't waiting to see if we are worth his time or see if we have enough common interests. Jesus is standing at the door, knocking, waiting for us to let him in if we are willing.
Chapter 13: Why The Spirit?
The Spirit was given to us so that we can perceive and feel the truth of Christ's heart towards us.
Chapter 14: Father of Mercies
Jesus and God the Father are united in heart towards us. God the Father is called the "Father of mercies." His heart is to be merciful to us.
Chapter 15: His "Natural" Work and His "Strange" Work
Ortlund and Goodwin talk about how there is something in God that does not delight in exercising justice that causes us suffering or affliction. He will do it, but he does not delight in it. However, when He shows mercy, there is nothing in Him that is against it.
Jesus isn't a new spin on who God is - Jesus reveals who the Father has been and will be for all time.
God is the one who brings suffering and affliction into our lives, but there is a sense in which he does so reluctantly. It's not what naturally and abundantly flows from his heart. What naturally and abundantly flows from the heart of God is mercy.
Chapter 16: The Lord, the Lord
Though the Lord does not need to be provoked to love, we do. [[Hebrews 10:24]] He is provoked to anger, whereas no one needs to provoke us to anger. We are easily angered.
The fall in Genesis 3 not only sent us into condemnation and exile. The fall also entrenched in our minds dark thoughts of God, thoughts that are only dug out over multiple exposures to the gospel over many years. Perhaps Satan's greatest victory in your life today is not the sin which you regularly indulge but the dark thoughts of God's heart that cause you to go there in the first place and keep you cool toward him in the wake of it.
This is one of the most powerful sentences I've read so far. I've had similar thoughts that my journey in faith is about trusting God. Learning who He actually is. And learning that my sin stems from different ways I do not believe him, and I do not trust Him.
Chapter 17: His Ways Are Not Our Ways
"My thoughts are not your thoughts." This is not primarily a statement about how God mysteriously orders the world and moves in it. This also isn't a statement about the distance between us and God (God is mighty and big, and we are little and small). This statement highlights that we think small thoughts about the heart of God. This is a statement about the surprisingly compassionate heart of God. God is much more compassionate and merciful than we naturally think him to be.
We expect karma, reciprocity, payback, and balancing the scales. And yet God's thoughts are not our thoughts. His thoughts are about mercy, compassion, and grace.
Chapter 18: Yearning Bowels
God yearns for us. He isn't cool in his affections for us. He is moving towards us with desire. We are "cool and calculating" towards him. He is ready to receive us with open arms.
Chapter 20: Our Lawish Hearts, His Lavish Heart.
We curse ourselves in our attempts to live under the law instead of under the grace of God. We can't even live up to our own standards. We are condemned already.
Spiritual disciplines aren't about living FOR the heart of Christ. We aren't trying to earn his love and affection. We aren't trying to be "good enough." Spiritual disciplines are about living FROM the heart of Christ. We make efforts to enjoy and live in the love we have been given.
Chapter 21: He Loved Us Then; He'll Love Us Now
If God loved us when we were His enemies, at our worst, dead in sin - will he not continue to love us and see us through now that we are alive to Him and longing to please Him? We fail often. There is still the love of sin creeping around inside us. But there is now also disdain for sin—a desire to kill sin and put on Christ's likeness.
God's love does not grow cold when we sin now that we "know better." He moves towards us even more with warm, rich love and grace as we come to him, confess our sins, and rest in the salvation that he has secured for us.
Chapter 22: To The End
Jesus is the only one who truly knows what it is like to be forsaken by God. We love until we are betrayed. We love until we are forsaken. Jesus loved us through betrayal and forsakenness.
With many relationships, the best is at the beginning. Not with Jesus. His love doesn't flatten or falter or lose fire and passion.
Chapter 23: Buried in His Heart Forevermore
Living for the glory of God is the most dignifying way to live. It's what we were made for. Living for ourselves is draining and miserable. Living for another gives us joy and energy.
The point of creation and this life is to give Christ an outlet for his love. We are his bride, and he will pour out his compassion, joy, love, and grace on us for all of eternity.
