{"id":41023,"date":"2015-10-19T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2015-10-19T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/author-bren-brown-on-nature-of-love\/"},"modified":"2015-10-19T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2015-10-19T00:00:00","slug":"author-bren-brown-on-nature-of-love","status":"publish","type":"sermon-illustrations","link":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/author-bren-brown-on-nature-of-love\/","title":{"rendered":"Author Bren\u00e9 Brown on the Nature of Love"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Popular author and shame researcher Bren&eacute; Brown recently talked about coming back to church after years away and the moment &quot;the whole Jesus thing&quot; finally clicked. She said:<\/p>\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>People would want love to be unicorns and rainbows. So then you send Jesus, and people say, &quot;Oh my god, love is hard, love is sacrifice, love is trouble, love is rebellious.&quot; As Leonard Cohen sings, &quot;Love is not a victory march &hellip; it&#39;s a broken hallelujah.&quot; Love isn&#39;t hearts and bows. It is very controversial. In order for forgiveness to really happen, something has to die. Whether it&#39;s your expectations of a person, or your idea about who you are. There has to be a death for forgiveness to happen. In all of these faith communities where forgiveness is easy, and love is easy, there&#39;s not enough blood on the floor to make sense of that.<\/p>\n\n<\/blockquote>\n\n<p>All of a sudden, it becomes clear why Christians take forgiveness to heart. The blood on the floor is Christ&#39;s own.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":0,"template":"","tax_ctp_audience":[],"tax_ctp_authors":[],"tax_ctp_categories":[165],"tax_ctp_format":[171],"tax_ctp_illustration_types":[409],"tax_ctp_multimedia":[],"tax_ctp_point_editor":[],"tax_publications":[140],"tax_ctp_tags":[3451,3506,3507,3584,3719,3738,4011,4869,4870,4871,4872,5101],"tax_ctp_topics":[],"class_list":["post-41023","sermon-illustrations","type-sermon-illustrations","status-publish","hentry","tax_publications-ct-pastors","tax_ctp_tags-atonement","tax_ctp_tags-blood","tax_ctp_tags-blood-of-christ","tax_ctp_tags-christ-substitute-for-humanity","tax_ctp_tags-cross-of-christ","tax_ctp_tags-death-of-christ","tax_ctp_tags-forgiveness-of-christ","tax_ctp_tags-sacrifice","tax_ctp_tags-sacrifice-of-christ","tax_ctp_tags-sacrificial","tax_ctp_tags-sacrificial-love","tax_ctp_tags-substitution"],"acf":{"scripture_references":[{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null}]},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Author Bren\u00e9 Brown on the Nature of Love - CT Pastors<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/author-bren-brown-on-nature-of-love\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Author Bren\u00e9 Brown on the Nature of Love - CT Pastors\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Popular author and shame researcher Bren&eacute; Brown recently talked about coming back to church after years away and the moment &quot;the whole Jesus thing&quot; finally clicked. 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