We are warned of our duty, our danger, and our remedy.
Our Duty: Love God with all of your heart, soul, mind, and spirit.
Our Danger: Due to our sin, we can not accomplish our Duty.
Our Remedy: We can not do any of this without the applied work of Christ to our lives.
Some Excerpts from J.R.R. Tolkien's essay On Fairy Stores
The 'consolation' of fairy-tales has another aspect than the imaginative satisfaction of ancient desires. Far more important is the Consolation of the Happy Ending. Almost I would venture to assert that all complete fairy-stories must have it. At least I would say that Tragedy is the true form of Drama, its highest function; but the opposite is true of Fairy-story. Since we do not appear to possess a word that expresses this opposite--I will call it Eucatastrophe. The eucatastrophic tale is the true form of fairy-tale, and its highest function.
The consolation of fairy-stories, the joy of the happy ending: or more correctly of the good catastrophe, the sudden joyous 'turn' (for there is no true end to any fairy tale): this joy, which is one of the things which fairy-stories can produce supremely well, is not essentially 'escapist', nor 'fugitive'. In its fairy-tale--or other world--setting, it is a sudden and miraculous grace: never to be counted on to recur. It does not deny the existence of dyscatastrophe, of sorrow and failure; the possibility of these is necessary to the joy of deliverance; it denies (in the face of much evidence, if you will) universal final defeat and in so far is evangelium, giving a fleeting glimpse of Joy, Joy beyond the walls of the world, poignant as grief.
It is the mark of a good fairy-story, of the higher or more complete kind, that however wild its events, however fantastic or terrible the adventures, it can give to child or man that hears it, when the 'turn' comes, a catch of the breath, a beat and lifting of the heart, near to (or indeed accompanied by) tears, as keen as that given by any form of literary art, and having a peculiar quality.
The peculiar quality of...'joy' in successful Fantasy can...be explained eas a sudden glimpse of the underlying reality or truth. It is not only a 'consolation' for the sorrow of this world, but a satisfaction, and an answer to that question, 'Is it true?' The answer to this question that I gave at first was (quite rightly): 'If you have built your little world well, yes: it is true in that world.' That is enough for the artist...But in the 'eucatastrophe' we see in a brief vision that the answer may be greater--it may be a far-off gleam or echo or evangelium in the real world.
Christ and the law cannot rule over us together: in every endeavour to fulfil the law as believers, we are taken captive by sin. (Rom. 7:5,23)The Christian must know that he is entirely free from the law, [free] from the "you must" that stands without us and over us: then for the first time shall he know what it is to be free from sin.
Taken from Andrew Murray, The New Life, chapter 49.
Observ. 8. That divine truth is mysterious; 'According to the revelation of the mystery, Christ manifested in the flesh.' The whole scheme of godliness is a mystery. No man or angel could imagine how two natures so distant as the Divine and human should be united; how the same person should be criminal and righteous; how a just God should have a satisfaction, and sinful man a justification; how the sin should be punished, and the sinner saved. None could imagine such a way of justification as the apostle in this epistle declares: it was a mystery when hid under the shadows of the law, and a mystery to the prophets when it sounded from their mouths; they searched it, without being able to comprehend it (1 Peter, i.10,11.) If it be a mystery, it is humbly to be submitted to: mysteries surmount human reason. The study of the gospel must not be with a yawning and careless frame. Trades, you call mysteries, are not learned sleeping and nodding: diligence is required; we must be disciples at God's feet. As it had God for the author, so we must have God for the teacher of it; the contrivance was his, and the illumination of our minds must be from him. As God only manifested the gospel, so he can only open our eyes to see the mysteries of Christ in it.~Stephen Charnock - The Existence and Attributes of God: On The Wisdom of God pp. 502-503.
We thank the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, Who has given us a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, having the eyes of our hearts enlightened, that we may know what is the hope to which he has called us, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.
For this reason we bow our knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant us to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in our inner being, so that Christ may dwell in our hearts through faith—that we, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that we may be filled with all the fullness of God.
And we are sure of this, that he who began a good work in us will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ; that our love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, so that we may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.
Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.
"There is more mercy in Christ than sin in us." For that reason, "there can be no danger in thoroughly dealing [with ourselves]. It is better to go bruised to heaven than sound to hell." So, he went on to say, let's not be unwilling to face the unhappy truth about ourselves and to keep facing it, "until sin be the sourest, and Christ the sweetest, of all things." [Works, I, 47-48] 17th century Puritan, Richard Sibbes
"The most insignificant sin that has ever been committed would ruin the entire cosmos, for it would mar the perfection that God created to reflect His glory. We steal God’s glory by every sin. We do not grasp the weight of our sin. Until we can bring home the ugliness of sin, Satan has another weapon in his locker."~Lig Duncan