Outrageous Love, Transforming Power

What does it mean to become a mature Christian? Terry Wardle’s answer is simple: become more like Jesus. The simplicity of that answer can hide just how much it asks of us.

Outrageous Love, Transforming Power looks at the difference between knowing Christian beliefs and allowing those beliefs to change the way we live. Wardle considers identity, relationships, character, suffering, and the work of the Holy Spirit, God’s presence at work in and through people. I found something worth wrestling with in every chapter, even when I disagreed with him.

Change that goes deeper than appearances

I agree with Wardle that Christians can remain spiritually immature. Knowing the right answers is not the same as becoming a person who loves well. His invitation to grow into the character of Jesus is one I needed to hear.

My reservation is his repeated emphasis on serving others through our wounds and brokenness. By brokenness, he means the hurt, weakness, and failure we carry. I believe we need enough humility to acknowledge these things and allow Jesus to help others through our experience. But sharing every wound is not always helpful. There are situations where disclosing our pain could distract from the person we are trying to help.

An identity that does not need to compete

Wardle’s discussion of identity helped me understand some of my own decisions. If I am unsure of my worth, giving up power, position, or popularity can feel threatening. Serving someone else becomes harder when I need that person’s approval to feel secure.

For much of my life, my identity was not securely grounded. While studying at Nyack, I began to find a clearer sense of purpose and direction. I was still working through what it meant to be secure in God’s love, but Wardle gave me language for why that mattered.

The love I had been looking for

I wish I had read the chapter on intimacy years earlier. For a long time, I wanted someone to love me for who I was, without conditions or expectations. That longing lay beneath some poor choices.

What I had not understood was that I was looking for a love I believe only Christ can fully provide. Wardle describes the risk of letting someone see both our strengths and our weaknesses, and discovering that we are still received.

I am less confident than he seems to be about our ability to offer that kind of love by ourselves. My conviction is that Christians can express Christ’s love for one another because his Spirit lives in us. The source matters.

Learning to value community

There was a time when I would have pushed back against the claim that people are made for community. I had not understood what a beneficial community should look like.

What changed was my understanding of what a healthy community could be. A group of people sharing a religious label is one thing. People who know, support, and help one another grow are something else. Wardle helped me see the difference, and I found myself agreeing with a claim I would once have rejected.

Character, not just better behavior

The chapter on character is one I expect to carry with me. Wardle distinguishes between controlling our actions and allowing God to change what is happening beneath them. I can behave well while hiding the very struggles that need attention.

I found his encouragement to be honest about those struggles both challenging and freeing. Honesty is a beginning. It puts me in a position to receive help and to cooperate with the Holy Spirit’s work, rather than spend my energy protecting an appearance.

Questions about woundedness

Wardle’s picture of pain as the layers of an onion helped me understand how one hurt can conceal another. His discussion of Jesus’ emotional wounds was harder for me.

I was uncertain how Wardle’s particular account of emotional woundedness applies to Jesus. I was not ready to rule his argument out, but neither was I ready to accept it without further thought. The Gospels are clear that Jesus experienced real human grief and distress. In Gethsemane he is deeply grieved, and at Lazarus’s tomb he weeps. His relationship with the Father does not make that suffering unreal. The question is how a modern account of woundedness relates to those experiences, without assuming that grief itself is a sinful response or diagnosing Jesus from a distance.

God can use our strengths, too

By the chapter on ministry, meaning Christian service, I felt that the emphasis on brokenness had swung too far. Yes, people often hide their failures out of shame. Yes, humility matters. But God also uses our strengths and abilities.

I do not want to replace the pretence that I have no weaknesses with the idea that weakness is all I have to offer. Both the wounds I carry and the gifts I have received belong in an honest account of how God can use my life.

Making room for the Holy Spirit

Wardle’s concern about churches restricting the work of the Holy Spirit resonated with my own background. I had experienced a kind of Christianity that left little room for what I later encountered while studying at Nyack.

His practical suggestions for receiving spiritual strength and refreshment were helpful. I wanted people close to me to discover that Christian faith could involve more than the limits we had learned to expect.

Learning to act with confidence

Wardle connects spiritual maturity with understanding our place in Christ. His discussion of authority concerns the confidence Christians have to serve and pray in Jesus’ name. Fear and uncertainty can keep us from acting on what we believe.

This was an area in which I was learning. I appreciated having practical ways to grow rather than simply being told that Christians ought to be more confident. Understanding who I am in relation to Christ affects what I am willing to attempt.

Putting my priorities in order

The shortest chapter may have been the most immediately relevant. I wear many hats, and setting priorities has not always been my strength. As I came to believe that God was calling me into pastoral work, I had to reconsider goals I had spent years pursuing.

That was difficult. Work that once seemed central no longer carried the same importance. I needed more than another commitment added to an already full life. I needed to decide what my life was actually for.

Wardle’s emphasis on a living relationship with Jesus, rather than simply collecting religious information, brings the book together for me. I do not agree with every emphasis, but that invitation is one I want to keep answering.

Book discussed

Terry Wardle, Outrageous Love, Transforming Power.