See also 2025-02-05 IAM: One-Sided
Write as how encountering Christ produces radical transformation through perfect acceptance via irrefutable presence.
ChatGPT Prompt (condensed)
The Experience Before the Explanation
Some encounters with Jesus in the Gospels feel strangely disproportionate.
No sermon.
No moral argument.
No extended teaching.
And yet people walk away:
- Restoring stolen money
- Abandoning old identities
- Becoming witnesses
- Or, just as intensely, plotting murder
What happened?
They were dis-covered.
Not merely seen.
Not merely accepted.
But stripped of every cover inside a presence that did not withdraw.
That is what we will call Dis-Covering Grace.
Dis-Covering: More Than Vulnerability
“Vulnerability” suggests choice.
“Confession” suggests control.
“Openness” suggests timing.
Dis-covering is different.
It is what happens when the cover is removed:
- The fig leaves fall (Genesis 3:7–10)
- The story cannot be managed
- The self cannot hide
And yet—astonishingly—
you are not rejected.
This is the paradox people experience with Christ:
- Seen without being reduced
- Exposed without being abandoned
- Emptied in a way that makes room for life
Salt and Light: The Two Forces Held Together
Jesus describes his followers as salt and light (Matthew 5:13–16). In him, these are perfectly united.
Salt — Total Acceptance
Salt stays.
Salt preserves.
Salt enters wounds.
Christ does not recoil from anyone:
- Zacchaeus before restitution (Luke 19:5)
- The Samaritan woman before reform (John 4:7)
- The rich young ruler before challenge (Mark 10:21)
Salt says: You are not going anywhere.
Light — Intolerable Presence
Light removes hiding.
Light clarifies.
Light exposes.
Nothing false survives Christ’s presence:
“Everything exposed by the light becomes visible”
(Ephesians 5:13)
Light says: You cannot stay who you are.
Together, salt and light create the conditions for dis-covering.
The Möbius Twist of Hospitality
In ordinary hospitality, roles are clear:
- Host has control
- Guest is vulnerable
With Christ, the roles twist.
Zacchaeus
Jesus says, “I must stay at your house”
(Luke 19:5).
Zacchaeus becomes host.
But by the end, his house, money, and life are rearranged.
He thought he was hosting Jesus.
Jesus was hosting Zacchaeus into a new life.
Samaritan Woman
Jesus begins as guest:
“Give me a drink.”
(John 4:7)
He ends as the source of living water:
She thought she was giving water.
She was being given life.
This is the Möbius twist:
You think you are offering hospitality.
You discover you are being hosted into truth.
Reaction, Not Response
When Christ dis-covers someone, they do not respond politely.
They react.
Reaction is involuntary. It reveals what was already there.
- Zacchaeus → restitution
- Samaritan woman → testimony
- Rich young ruler → sorrowful retreat
- Pharisees → rage and plots (Matthew 21:45)
“This child is appointed… so that thoughts from many hearts may be revealed”
(Luke 2:34–35)
Exposure without reaction is incomplete.
Losing Narrative Control
To encounter Christ is to lose narrative control.
Not to an omniscient narrator explaining everything from above,
but to the Incarnate Narrator who enters the story from within
(John 1:14).
He does not explain your story.
He takes it over by presence.
The old plot cannot continue.
Gethsemane: The Moral Justification
This narrative seizure would be abusive—except for Gethsemane.
“Let this cup pass from me… yet not my will”
(Matthew 26:39)
Here, Jesus loses the felt coherence of his own story.
He obeys without a plot.
This is what legitimizes his claim on ours:
He never asks us to surrender a place he has not already inhabited.
The Mechanism of Transformation
Radical transformation happens when:
- Perfect acceptance removes fear
- Irrefutable presence removes hiding
- The cover collapses
- Reaction reveals the heart
- Christ is formed within
“It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me”
(Galatians 2:20)
Why This Is Rarely Practiced
This is not a technique for others to apply.
Only Christ:
- Loses his own plot for the sake of ours
- Bears the cost of the reaction he provokes
- Covers our dis while dissing our cover
We imitate this only gently:
- By refusing distance
- By staying present
- By not rushing to explain
- By letting Christ remain the only true Narrator
The Final Shape of Dis-Covering Grace
Dis-Covering Grace is the experience of Christ as:
- Salt — total acceptance that refuses to let us be rejected
- Light — intolerable presence that refuses to let us hide
- Möbius Hospitality — where host and guest trade places
- Incarnate Narration — where our story is taken up into a truer one
- Love — that has already walked through Gethsemane
And it feels like this:
Everything I used to survive is gone—
and I am still held.
Radically Happy 
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