First Q&A with Pastor Osman & Dr. Strachan

All right, let's begin with something that is on everybody's mind. I've been asked about this, and we need some clarity. How do you pronounce your last name?

It is a Scottish last name. It is a Gaelic pronunciation, a subgroup of the Scots. And you pronounce it in two different ways. You can pronounce it strachan, which is very masculine, and which I would personally prefer.

Or you can say stran.

Which sounds effeminate.

Thank you. Thanks, Jim. And so that's how, that's the Gaelic form.

Okay, so you went with the Gaelic.

Somebody went with the Gaelic. I don't know who, but I'm saddled with it, so yeah.

Salvation Testimony and Early Christian Formation

How and when, let's begin with your salvation testimony. How and when did the Lord save you?

I grew up in a Christian home in coastal Maine. My mom is from a believing family. Her father was an elder at Grace Chapel in the Boston area, a well-known large church there. He did radar work for MIT for many years.

On my dad's side, not a single Christian to this day, except my dad. They met in college. My dad got saved in part through my mom's witness and raised my sister and me in a tiny Baptist church in coastal Maine, about 40 to 50 people, big.

And it was there that I heard the gospel. And honestly, no joke, it was at Vacation Bible School, which is happening all over America right now. It was at a VBS that I remember, you don't necessarily know when the spirit regenerates your heart, but I remember hearing about hell and thinking, I deserve that for my sin.

And then hearing about heaven and thinking, I can only go there because Jesus died for my sins. And so I think I was nine or 10, probably five kids at a backyard VBS. Probably no one there remembers anything about that, but that's when I believe the Lord got a hold of my heart.

That's when you believe you were saved.

That's when I believe I was saved.

When were you baptized? You know, what does church today don't do the next Sunday?

I'm not entirely sure why it took me a while, but I didn't get baptized until college. I was not as confident in my profession of faith as I could have been, but I look back at my high school and junior high years before that, and then into college, and I think I was apart from sin in a positive way, in a good way, by God's grace, but I had to really own it.

And it took some time for me to own my profession.

All the way.

It took some time for discipleship to happen. The discipleship that I would want to set up wasn't necessarily all there.

So what did you say? What age you were?

I think I was 19 when I was baptized.

Okay. Yeah.

Did you attend that Baptist church all the way through your childhood till you went to college? Your parents still attend there?

It was First Baptist Church of East Machias, Maine. I attended it all growing up into college. The church no longer exists because like a lot of New England churches, it just dwindled and dwindled, and then eventually was sold to a drug rehabilitation ministry about five years ago the building was.

And so my own home church literally today doesn't exist. And for years, Jim, I thought very hard and prayed and talked with my wife, my long-suffering wife, about going back to New England because of that darkness, because of watching things like that.

My home church doesn't, I mean, that's a serious thing to say. It happens, but that's a serious thing to say. My home church does not exist anymore. But the Lord does not seem to have called me back to Maine, but at the very least, I'm very thankful that that church existed for a time and I came to faith through it.

Reformed Theology, Providence, and College Conversion

Have you always had your current theological convictions? Because I would say, broadly speaking, you're in the theological camp that this church would be considered Calvinistic in its doctrines of soteriology, not necessarily eschatology, maybe, maybe not Baptistic, not Pato-Baptist.

Right.

Have you always had those theological convictions growing up at a Baptist church where you kind of raised and reared in a more Herminian setting?

I was, I was raised in a freewill, conservative Baptist church. So we weren't monkeying around with biblical errancy or miracles aren't real or anything like that. It was a, the Bible says it, we believe it kind of church.

It wasn't, it wasn't fundamentalist. There are some good fundamentalist churches out there, but it wasn't that, which is interesting to me. There was Christian liberty on a bunch of issues and I'm really thankful for that looking back because it taught me both about, you know, conservatism, both about structure and order in the Christian life.

So, so following what God teaches, obedience would be a clear word as I fumble here on stage, but it also gave me a category for liberty. And as I've, as I've gotten older, and we've even talked some about different heresies in the church and different systems that prey on people, I've realized a lot of people in conservative circles grew up where there was basically no liberty and they struggle with that.

And thankfully I had both structure, the call to obedience, but also the freedom of the gospel. But it wasn't until I got to college and my college roommate liked a girl and a bunch of us in this, in this little circle, Baptist guys, we were all free will Baptists.

We'd all grown up in conservative, free will Baptist, Northeastern places. And then this, this dude liked this girl and she said, I can't date you because my dad is a pastor.

And if you want to date me,.

You have to read Jonathan Edwards' Freedom of the Will. And so he said, okay, I'll read Freedom of the Will.

So he read Freedom of the Will. He became reformed.

And then he came back to Bowdoin College, my main college. And he, he then launched into cage stage, Calvinist debates with us, Armenians, the three Armenians in the group. And we fought him tooth and nail for like six months, our sophomore year.

And then I said, all right, I was the most kind of red blooded. I'm like, all right, here we go. I'm going to read the New Testament and I'm going to refute you. And I'm going to show you it's free will.

The New Testament is. So I had biblical instincts, you know, but not the right ones.

So figure out how you couldn't figure out how it is that free will Baptist and the Freedom of the Will by Jonathan Edwards, how those, how this guy wasn't agreeing with you after reading that book.

I could not, I could not. So I got to Ephesians and stopped and said, you win.

True story.

Ephesians one.

Ephesians one.

I was done. I became, I got in all seriousness, the Lord, that wasn't my conversion. But the Lord opened my eyes to the glory of the sovereignty of God, that it is not a bad thing that God is, God is divine, is sovereign.

It's a wonderful thing that God is sovereign and divine and in control. And even in my life, I won't go on here at length, but even in my life, that's led me further as I've gone through life. And there have been some struggles and challenges and hardships and trials.

It's led me to realize God doesn't just allow hardships and suffering. God appoints hardships and suffering, and He does so for His glory and my good. So I'm so thankful He helped me discover all that, because honestly, I don't know how people who don't believe in the sovereignty of God make it through life.

Did that sort of conversion in your thinking happen before or after you met your wife?

That was before.

I was a sophomore in college when I became reformed in my theology. And then after graduation from Bowdoin, I went to Washington, D .C. and interned under Mark Dever for six months. And then I interned at the U .S. Department of State for six months.

And then I went to Southern Seminary in 2004. And I met Bruce Ware, the theologian. And I was in his discipleship group at Southern.

For two years.

And in the second year, Dr. Ware and his wife pulled me aside and said, we think you could be a good fit for our daughter. I went over there. I said, Dr. Ware, I need to talk to you about PhD, where I should do my PhD, because I'd had a bunch of men, Al Mohler and Dever and others had said,.

You should do a PhD.

I didn't have a category for doing a PhD as a kid from Maine. My pastor didn't have a bachelor's degree. He had an associate's degree. And most of the pastors in Maine went to Bible college and that was it.

And they were good. They were good preachers. And I didn't see any need to go further. But those men, anyway, those men said, there's freedom with all this. But those men said, do a PhD. So I said, Dr. Ware, I really trust you and look up to you.

What should I do? They had me over for dinner and I went over and they said, so we've talked about your subject. Here's our subject, Bethany. And I said, tell me more. And so I did a PhD in Bethany and got married.

I'm still enrolled in that program and still learning there. But yeah, we got married July, 2006.

Family, Homeschooling, and Deuteronomy 6 Discipleship

How many of you know who Bruce Ware is? You heard that name?

Okay.

How many of you knew who Owen was before I announced that we were having him here for a conference?

It's humbling.

Good.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, not everybody. You want everybody to know who you are.

Hey, hey, it's humbling.

How many kids do you have?

Three?

Three kids, Ella.

Ages and names. Ella is 15.

Gavin is 13. Ainsley is 10. So girl, boy, girl.

You homeschool, private school, public school?

We have done Christian school in the past to some degree, but they are all three currently homeschooled. We could do a classical or Christian school, but we are... Oh man, you know what they don't tell you about homeschooling?

It's hard.

Okay, it's hard. Yes, thank you. But they also don't tell you the flexibility, right? You know, it's like, oh, you've got to take ownership of your kid's education. That's really noble and good. But also you can go on vacation whenever you want.

Yes.

And it's great.

And in all seriousness, I'm being a little glib, but like if I have a ministry trip, I'm not frantically emailing six teachers, can Gavin please have your permission? This is my kid, by the way, but can my kid have your permission so we can go on a trip?

I'm like, we're going. You know, I email the director of Strand Classical Academy, my wife, and we go, man. So we love it. It is challenging. It's a lot for mom.

It's a lot.

It's a real sacrifice. My wife is a baller. She is a great wife and a great mother and I love her to pieces. And there's grounds and treasures for the hard work she's doing. But we do, man, it's hard to give up that flexibility.

Speaking of challenging, what is the most challenging aspect of being a father and a husband?

Hmm.

Since we're talking about gender roles, human sexuality, et cetera.

I see how ministry families can have ministry be what you do professionally and that can almost make it hard to do ministry in the home. So things like family discipleship and over the years, the Lord has convicted me of the need to step up my game and in going after my individual children.

To make sure they're not just in a ministry family and going to church and going to Christian stuff. But I, as the dad, am discipling them in some form. I don't mean by that necessarily, I'm not the type who's like, you've got to do formal 30 minute family worship six nights a week.

I don't see that in the New Testament so I can't bind people with that. But I do think we're doing Deuteronomy 6 ministry. And so that's what I really am trying to do in this season. Trying to do some formal family worship stuff.

Yes, because that's good. But also like, okay, can I bring Gavin on a ministry trip? And we talk about stuff in the car. I coached him in basketball this last year and that was so positive because it gave us so much father-son time.

And it was father-son time, not with me going, this is what you must believe. Let me catechize you. It was him and me having fun and then that opened up all sorts. He liked it. So then we could have all sorts of meaningful conversation.

Explain what you mean by Deuteronomy 6 ministry just so everybody doesn't have to read the entire chapter and then wonder what you're talking about.

So in Deuteronomy 6,.

The Lord God calls Israelite fathers really, but both fathers and mothers to train their kids in all the normal activity of life while you're in the field, while you're on the road, while you're at home.

And so I think we're not under Deuteronomy 6 in an old covenant sense. We're in the new covenant now, but I do think that that informs Christian fatherhood and motherhood a lot. The New Testament doesn't say you've got to sit everybody down at night at 7 p .m., but we should, I think, be having these conversations and trying to disciple all throughout life.

Fields White for Harvest and the Call to Clarify Doctrine

Yep.

You have been busy as long as I've known of you and followed your ministry publicly, privately. You've been busy. You write probably a book every 18 months. You're in the speaker circuit for G3 Ministries.

You're speaking at national conferences, a lot of regional conferences. You speak all over the country. You're head of a seminary. You're teaching classes. You're a professor.

You have your doctorate.

How do you balance the demands of family life and ministry life with a schedule like that?

You just asked about what is a challenge and that is a real challenge. And I don't mean that in a silly way. It is a real challenge because it feels like there is a lot of ministry to do. Jesus says in John 4, 34 and 35, the fields are white for harvest.

And so the fields are white for harvest. And he also says the laborers are few. I was thinking about that with Evan's presentation. The laborers are few. So I'm not what the church needs. I'm not the one anyone's been waiting for.

But there's a lot of need out there.

And honestly, I'm just going to cut it straight here for a minute. Unlike the sexuality stuff that we're talking about, there aren't a lot of guys in my generation who really talk about that stuff. And I, in some corners, have a bit of a reputation, I think, for being a tough talker or something.

But part of that is because there aren't a lot of guys who will clarify doctrine. And I'm not in this to yell at people and win Calvinist fights. I'm in this because the sheep need the truth of God. And God seems to have called me to that role.

And that's part of the Maine background. In Maine, I think there were like two Christians in my high school of 160 kids. So that's like a, you know, 0 .05 rate. And then I went to Bowdoin College, which is kind of like a Dartmouth or something like that.

It's intellectually tough. And there were like 20 kids who would show up for the intervarsity Christian meeting on a weekly basis out of 1600. So I am used to being in a lot of darkness with the wind in my face.

And I think that shaped me. I think God put me in that to call me into this.

At a young age.

Yeah.

Ministry Roles, Conference Work, and a New Role at the Dobson Culture Center

Where do you currently serve in ministry? Explain what you do.

So I'm in a moment of transition, but I have for the last three years been the provost of a small seminary in Arkansas called Grace Bible Theological Seminary. And I taught theology at that school. And the school has about 80 students.

Before that, I was at Midwestern Seminary, which is where I crossed paths with Evan. And that was a very different school. That was like 4 ,000 students. And I ran a PhD program and taught theology. So I went through a major job change and our family went through a major life change in moving to Arkansas.

Now I'm actually changing jobs again. Three years after coming, I think by the call of God. And you guys know James Dobson. He started Focus on the Family, but then he started a different ministry in 2009 called the James Dobson Family Institute.

And they have a radio program called Family Talk. I don't know if anyone has heard it. I'm seeing some nodding heads. It's a very good program. Anyway, Family Talk. I would have a few differences with Dobson on some things.

And I'm not changing on those matters. But anyway, Dobson has been a bold voice in the public square on a lot of tough issues. And I started doing some writing and stuff for them three years ago. And I just got named to be Senior Director of the Dobson Culture Center.

So that's gonna be my new full-time role. It's gonna be a remote role. And I'm moving my family to Louisville, Kentucky to be near family. And then I'll work remotely. JDFI is in Colorado Springs.

So earlier I talked about everything kind of crashing down on you at the same time. That's all happening right now while you're coming out here to minister with us.

I told Jim I signed the rental truck moving agreement from the Atlanta airport today. And the amount of money I signed my name to from the Atlanta airport was a little staggering. Like it is good business moving books and T-shirts.

Like I'm in the wrong line of work here. But no, the Lord is giving us a lot of grace. It is an intense time for my family and for me if you out there can pray for me. And if you would be so kind as to pray for my voice.

It's been a just intense season for us. We've had a lot of meetings and stuff because we're leaving and we wanna leave well. And we love many people where we are in our church. And it's just been a wrapped up season for me.

I lost my voice earlier this week. So I'm praying that God will give me strength while I'm here.

Conservative Christian Engagement in the Public Square

So I wanna ask us a question of clarification on that because James Dobson is typically not known as hanging out in our theological circles. More Arminian, more kind of a political wag, not necessarily theological wag.

You being named to that center to direct that center. When I heard that on the phone with you a couple of weeks ago, I instantly thought obviously one of two things is happening. They're bringing you on because they want a distinctly theological, cultural engagement voice there that is of your theological camp, or they have no idea what they're getting when they ask you to come and head that up.

And this will be about a year and then you'll be moving somewhere else and looking for some other place. So which is it? How do you navigate that? What's going on there that some guy like Owen Strand and Strachan would be welcome at, yeah.

Yeah, that's a very good question. It is, I don't remember which one of the options it was, but yes, it is that I am a conservative Christian voice in the political realm, in the public square. And that's where, I overlap with Dobson a good bit, but that's especially where their mission overlaps with my work.

JDFI is the ministry, you can look it up. I just put on my social media a link to all of this. So if you look up my name, it's in the booklet, Owen Strand Twitter, you'll get my account. This is not the way to do this, but I need like a QR code on my hand.

Just scan this code. Anyway, but there's a website you can go to and I'm doing a new weekly newsletter and those sorts of things. And so what we're trying to do with this new venture with the Dobson Culture Center is we're trying to equip the church to be salt and light in these evil days and extend Dr. Dobson's legacy in terms of marriage, the family, religious liberty, human dignity, culture of life, those kinds of things.

And that's what I'm speaking to. I'll be doing articles, videos, resources and that sort of thing to try to help Christians, exactly what I'm doing at this conference. I'll be trying to do a lot more of that through this ministry, just like Dobson did in his own way for decades.

What church do you attend now?

I currently attend Grace Bible Church in Conway, Arkansas.

What kind of a church is it?

It's a Reformed Baptist 1689 church.

Large, small?

Medium.

It's medium to large, I guess. It's about 400, 450.

And what's your role there? Do you serve as an elder there?

I haven't been an elder. I am a care group leader. So put that on your CV. I lead a care group and my wife and I have loved doing that. I've been an elder in past days and hope to be an elder at a church going forward.

How much do you preach in your home church?

I haven't preached a whole lot in part because of a speaking schedule. I typically preach or speak one to two times a month. I try to watch that carefully. But I haven't preached a whole lot at my home church.

Calling, Identity, and the Path into Full-Time Ministry

How did you decide to go into full-time ministry? Evan had a seizure and was listening to Jim Elliott.

I don't have any. I wish I had something so cool and Jim Elliott was involved. That's like the Christian gold standard right there. When I was a freshman in college, I got, yeah, this is my exciting testimony.

I got cut from the basketball team. Why is that? I couldn't even make a division three basketball team is what I'm trying to say to you as a five foot seven overheated point guard from Maine. So I got cut from the team.

And as we were talking about earlier, I was a Christian, but basketball, this is silly, but it was kind of an idol for me. And in all honesty, I was trying to find my identity in it. And so when I see young people who are Christians perhaps, or maybe are grappling with Christianity and they're struggling with identity issues, I understand that because I tried to find my identity in being a good basketball player.

And I was never satisfied. I was living under law. I was living under performance. So I got cut and I was like, I was just devastated. And then I went to church. I went to a midweek church at my college church, Berean Baptist Church.

And the speaker was my youth camp speaker that I'd known all growing up. And he preached on blind Bartimaeus crying out to Jesus as Jesus passed by. And he was like, this was Bartimaeus' shot. He was, Bartimaeus was not in a great position.

He wasn't gonna be able to follow Jesus all around. This is it. The Messiah is here. Like the Messiah of heaven and earth is 10 feet away from you and your moments now. And he cried out to him and received his sight.

And I was like, that's me. I think I was a believer, but I need to live for the Lord. I need to find my joy and my identity in Jesus. So that kick-started two years of very intense growth, study, prayer, preaching, and so on.

And then my college roommate, a different one than the Jonathan Edwards Freedom of the Will one, my other college roommate went to Washington DC and came across Capitol Hill Baptist Church under Mark Dever, this is 20 years ago, and told me about it and said they had a pastoral internship that would pay you,.

Pay you to go there.

So I applied and got in and went to Washington DC in 2004 and trained under Dever. And it was just explosive for me. It was so formative. And I was like, that's what I wanna do. But I thought I was gonna be a pastor because when you're in seminary, nine of 10 guys or 19 of 20 are gonna be a pastor.

And so that's the norm and that should be the norm. But Moeller took an interest in me and other theologians at Southern. And they were like, I think you should do the PhD. And then when I did the PhD, I got called to teach at Boyce College and then Midwestern Seminary and then Grace and on it goes.

So the Lord redirected me from the way I thought I was gonna go.

So it wasn't a single moment of calling. It was just kind of you. Pursuing what interested you and what people suggested is a good fit for your ministry, for your giftedness, your capacity.

I'm an impatient guy. And I've always wanted the Lord to give me, remember MapQuest, you would print out MapQuest and you would have 29 different directions. Those were good days, weren't they? Because the iPhone, the screen goes out and you're, I don't know where I'm going.

But anyway, the MapQuest days when you printed out the two sheets and you had 29, that's what I want. I wanna MapQuest Christianity. And the Lord has frustrated me because he's never let me know what's coming.

He doesn't let any of us know. But it's been a spiritual battle for me to trust him in that respect. And it's been really good for me because he has just led me turn by turn directions.

Biblical Manhood, Womanhood, and a Podcast on Grace and Truth

How did you come to serve at the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood? You're stepping into big shoes with Wayne Grudem and John Piper.

Yeah, definitely. I was writing on my blog. I started blogging because of Mohler because he was blogging and I loved seeing Al Mohler. This was a little different than Debra, doing the expository preaching that you do and others do.

I saw Mohler do something different. I saw Mohler do what Francis Schaeffer and Cornelius Van Til and apologists and other figures like that did. And that was take the culture and what it's thinking and take the Bible and smash them.

And I watched Mohler do that on his radio show and stuff. I interned for him and I was like, you can do this. Like I know about the pastor thing, but you can do this. You can be a thinking Christian and that's good.

People want that. So I wanted that. And I started blogging about manhood and womanhood. And then I get this call out of the blue in late 2011 that CBMW was kind of, some of the energy behind it, I'll put this carefully, had diminished.

And they wanted like a young guy. And I was a young guy, I was like 28 years old. And so they hired me to be the executive director. I wasn't planning on this, but I took it over. And by God's grace, we kind of turned it around financially and it grew.

And we started getting fire from a lot of people because we kind of came back online. And it was a very formative. It was a hard time, but it was a formative time for me.

How long were you there?

2012 to 2016, I became the president of the organization, which was truly intense for me in the second half of that.

And you were married by that point?

I was very much married, yeah. Yep.

Did this issue of gender, human sexuality, complementarianism, egalitarianism, biblical manhood, womanhood, et cetera, did that become a special interest to you through the influence of Moeller, Endeavor, and your time there in crashing together culture and Christianity?

It was Moeller. He wrote a good bit about manhood. He did a booklet called From Boy to Man, The Marks of Manhood that you can find online. It was a three-part series. It was excellent. And I was like, I was just all in on biblical manhood because growing up in New England, there wasn't a lot of strong manhood.

It was very much kind of a feminist context, especially the academy that I was in. And there were a lot of women preachers in New England and that sort of thing. And I was never drawn to that. I always knew that was wrong biblically.

And then I go to Southern Seminary and I see Al Moeller in this kind of Winston Churchill way, standing against culture, but doing so respectfully and thoughtfully and with the gospel at the center. And again, I was just like, that's what I want to do.

So over the years, the Lord has done a lot of work on me because I'm no perfect guy in ministry. You know, the grace and truth balance of John 1 17 is hard to hit. It's easy to be a truth guy or a grace guy.

And the Lord's done work in me to convict me. And I think I'm growing into more of the balance, but that's what I wanted to do. I wanted to speak and call a spade a spade, but at the same time, hold out the hope of the gospel.

You grew up in a free will Baptist church.

Yep.

Arminian to the core, were you exposed to independent fundamentalist Baptists at all in that neck of the woods?

I was.

A little bit of the legalism side of that. Recently, for those of you who don't know, Owen has a podcast. Tell them a little bit about the podcast.

I podcast called Grace and Truth. That's aspirational. As I was just talking about, because I'm trying to be like the post-it note that you put on the dashboard, like be a Christian as you drive this car.

It's hard for us. I want to hit that grace and truth balance. And so my podcast is on the Salem Podcast Network, the large conservative network. And on the podcast, I try to tackle a blend of theology and culture.

That's just my thing.

Legalism, Gothardism, and the Freedom of the Gospel

Recently, you've done a series with Tomah on the subject of Gothardism and Bill Gothard's influence in Christianity, sort of the legalistic side of that. Gothardism was huge here in North Idaho for a long period of time, especially in early years of my spiritual walk formative.

I went to a Gothard conference and had a lot of that influence there. Talk to us a little bit about what you learned about that. Were you ever exposed to any of that? What were some of the dangers that you've talked about in your podcast?

A lot of my work in a kind of molar influence fashion has been try to understand what is hitting the church, what Satan is slinging at the church in terms of systems and ideologies and grapple with that and get your arms around it and then communicate that to the church so the church understands the system and then communicate the truth and the grace that God gives.

And so I did that with Wokeness, like we were talking about that, this book, The War on Men, I did that with Toxic Masculinity. And with Gothardism, that's been a recent one where I'm like, whoa, I've been dealing with like Beth Moore and the Southern Baptist Convention.

I wrote a blog when not many guys wanted to speak against Beth Moore preaching on Mother's Day, for example, and I got a ton of heat for it in the SBC. I don't regret it because I was dealing with soft complementarity like five to seven years ago, so much of that, like people saying they're complementarian, but then kind of softening things with women preachers and stuff.

So I thought, oh man, that's where the threat to the church is, the softness, the squishiness, the liberal stuff. What I have learned in getting my arms around Gothardism because a bunch of people in Arkansas were very much influenced by it.

I mean, that's where the Duggar family was based and the Duggar family was really the export internationally for Gothardism. And let me just say, Gothardism didn't get everything wrong and there were a lot of good people who embraced Gothardism to some degree because they were told it was good and sound and faithful.

And so I wanna be careful in how I handle it. I think there were genuine Christian families who loved Christ, who nonetheless embraced Gothardism. So with that said, it is not a good system. It is a twisting of scripture.

And it really is a system where Gothard's opinions reign supreme over even the word of God. And Gothardism really approaches the Christian life from a fear-based paradigm and tells you that you need to be under the umbrella of authority and authority structures.

And if you get out from beyond the authority structures, you're gonna be in a really bad place. It anchors you in that instead of anchoring you in the gospel of grace, which is what the New Testament does, where you're not living according to a fear-based paradigm as if God is gonna get you if you listen to secular rock.

No, instead, you know the goodness and the mercy and the kindness of God in Christ who shed his blood for your sins and has brought you to the Father and now the Father actually loves you.