This is the second book that I’ve read by Jason Clark. Content wise this book is great, but writing and format was harder for me to follow. So 5 stars for content and 3 stars for writing style. I would definitely recommend it though. But if you can only read one, start with “God is Not in Control.” A few of my favorite quotes from Prone to Love are below:
A relationship where the son is always desperate for the father is dysfunctional. (P. 24)
If God is love, then you could say it like this: need cannot exist in love. Need is actually counter to the nature of love. Love trumps every need, every time. It’s the good news that only gets better. (P. 30)
Need fosters insecurity, while love cultivates identity. (P. 30)
If you want to become more aware of His presence, it starts with believing that He loves you. (P. 46)
Need will always be with me but it doesn’t have to define me. I am leaning into a greater revelation, a truer language — the love of my Father. And I am convinced that the Christian life is not meant to revolve around need, but is instead a headlong daring discovery of His love. (P. 65)
Need is self-focused. If it’s our foundation, then in every interaction we will protect our right to need. If need is the foundation of our relationship with God, we relegate ourselves to a poverty existence. For those consumed by need, God’s love is a limited resource, heaven is a remote future, and life, hope, and peace are distant realities that must be striven for. In the measureless generosity of our Father’s love, needs are not just met, they are miraculously redeemed. The reality of heaven transforms the reality on earth. Fear, insecurity, shame, condemnation, every life-taxing fruit of need bends the knee and love trumps. (P. 66-67)
When we slave, we are unable to celebrate mercy or grace in the lives of others. The scary thing about slaving, besides the fact that it sucks, is that it will actually position us against the very Father we think we serve. There are a lot of older brother rumblings coming from the church today — religious slaves seeking judgment for failed, lost, deceived, and even restored prodigals. In fact, I would guess much of the world see the church as the older brother, slaving for a Father while wagging our finger in judgment at a lost, lonely, broken, and confused world. Here’s what I believe: the desire to see judgment come to a lost sinner, a fallen, or even a deceived saint, is not the heart of the Father — ever. (P. 94)
When we take our eyes off our Father and His perfect love for us, we forget why we are here. We become more interested in defending a set of principles than revealing love. Jesus didn’t come to defend a gospel; He came to reveal the perfection of our Father’s love. It’s religious vanity to think we are here to do anything different. (P. 95)
I don’t need to defend the faith to know who I am. Neither my identity nor my value is discovered in my beliefs, it’s discovered in my Father’s nature. It’s discovered in how He see me — I am loved. (P. 95)
I believe self-control is the only kind of control God endorses. It’s the gift of choice and the evidence of His Spirit within us. (P. 107)
The root of Satan’s lie was that God is about control, that God wants to control us. And it’s a huge lie! The idea that He would withhold some aspect of His nature suggests an imperfection in our Father’s love. I believe this original distortion of our Father’s nature is still the foundational lie that separates us from His love and the fullness of our freedom and authority in Christ. (P. 108)
If I don’t know the truth, I become a slave to the lie. If I believe my Heavenly Father is not always good, that sometimes He allows bad things to happen to people to get their attention, then I live enslaved to that lie. Therefore, when someone is sick, I can’t pray with faith, authority, and power because maybe God is allowing the sickness. When someone is broke, I have to make sure it isn’t God’s will before giving. When someone is emotionally bound, I am forced to check in with God before setting him or her free. To be honest, if my heavenly Father is not always good, then I don’t want any part of Him. (P. 113-114)
When Jesus cried out ‘My God, My God, why have You forsaken me?’, “Jesus point us to a Scripture that ultimately determines that the Father doesn’t hide His face or ‘turn back.’ In fact, the truth is quite the opposite: ‘but when He cried to Him for help, He heard.’” (P. 118)
While David [in the Psalms] had no problem acknowledging that valleys exist and that there are enemies in those valleys, he gives God no credit for the valley season. (P. 124)
God never instigates nor manipulates a tragedy to grow faith — that’s not what a good Father does. But it is what a controlling God would do. To suggest God assists in evil things happening to us for our own good is to suggest that God partners with the enemy to grow our faith. (P. 146)
If a person sings the line, “prone to wander,” to tell the story of a life without Jesus, it is a powerful picture of a life-changing revelation. But when a believer sings those lyrics as a proclamation of the future, they are debilitating and destructive. While that line in the song is sound theology for the sinner, it is devastating theology for the saint. (P. 167)
When our focus is on not sinning, our understanding of the enemy is greater than our revelation of God’s love. Christians should never live more afraid of failing God than revealing love. If our ability to sin is greater than His ability to make us righteous, we have undermined the power of the cross. (P. 174)