By Larry Crabb
(Thomas Nelson, 2010, 121pp)
God’s Love Letters to You is a condensed sampling of the finest of Larry Crabb’s thinking and writing on the loving purposes of God for the believer as revealed through the whole record of Scriptures. Each two-page devotional captures the theme of one particular Old or New Testament book working forward from Genesis to Revelation. Forty readings capture the essence of the larger edition, 66 Love Letters, in bite-size devotional pieces with penetrating questions for reflection, and a closing prayer of application.
Each devotional is written as if it were God’s own words to the believer. For example, from the Matthew reading:
“He [My Son] never intended to keep you visibly good and pleasantly happy until heaven. He came to reveal My nature for your sake and to change your nature to Mine.”(62)
These are not emotional, feel-good letters but bracing truths that cut through the blind spots and sloppy theology of a hedonistic culture. They reflect the idea that God is more concerned with our holiness than our immediate happiness.
I have long appreciated Crabb’s writing and very much enjoyed this latest devotional, marking lines to re-read on most pages. (I will conclude with a sampling of quotes!) There is much food for thought here. One potentially disconcerting factor is the way words that are not directly traceable to Scripture are put in God’s mouth. Scripture has been filtered through Crabb’s own spiritual walk and life experience as a counselor giving it a distinctive ‘Crabb’ flavor. While I happen to believe his emphasis is a timely corrective for a Christian culture addicted to self-fulfillment, still it would be good if the devotionals were more directly referenced to the Word. I would still highly recommend this book. Even if you don’t agree with every word Crabb speaks for God you will be challenged to face potential blindspots and misconceptions about what the Christian life is really all about.
This slim, concise (144pp) devotional book will whet your appetite for the original more fully expressed version: 66 Love Letters: A Conversation with God That Invites You into His Story (432pp).
--LS
P.S. [I received a complimentary copy of this book to review from Thomas Nelson Publishers through the BookSneeze.com bloggers book review program.]
And now for the meaty morsels:
“Spiritual leaders who teach that I am here to solve your problems and make your lives comfortable and prosperous underestimate the energy of unholiness in the human heart that I must severely deal with to get you to My party.” (11)
“Your love becomes trust only when you choose to believe that I brought you out of something bad to bring you into something good before you experience that something good. Then your love is sustained by confidence in My character, not by enjoyment of current blessings.” (14)
“You and everyone else are inclined to depend on Me for the good life of blessings and to mistake that dependence for love.”(20)
“Know this: holiness and only holiness brings joy.” (23)
“You must trust that I permit terrible things, natural evil that grieves My heart far more than yours, as part of the process of destroying the moral evil that offends My heart.”(29)
“Do not live with the priority of making your life in this world as good as you can make it.” (29)
“But desire with hope is sweet. It is the abundant life…for now. I want you to nibble on the appetizers now. But to do so requires wisdom.”(41)
“I make no promise to protect you from suffering in this world. I do promise the power to believe in My goodness when bad things happen, the power to hope with confidence that a good plan is unfolding when nothing visible supports that hope, and the power to reveal the goodness of My love no matter how distraught or empty you feel.”(44)
“Without an ongoing consciousness of sin, any sense of nearness to me is counterfeit.”(44)
“The greatest danger My people face today is prosperity, blessings that reinforce the false hope that nothing serious will ever go wrong in their lives if they just keep believing, expecting, trusting, and smiling…”(47)
“When your life hits a bump that I could smooth but don’t, will you continue to think I should surrender My wisdom to yours and do what you think best?”(50)
“Know this: those who live by faith will struggle in ways that those who live to make their lives work will never know.”(53)
“Happiness depends on present blessing, which I do not guarantee. Joy depends on future hope, which I do guarantee.”(56)
“In your heart, you rarely find a desire stronger than your wish to be satisfied with life’s blessings, to feel both confident in My goodness that they’ll continue and excited about life’s opportunities. Your desire for spiritual formation lies on top of those self-focused desires like and attractive veneer. It needs to lie beneath them, as the controlling foundation of your life.”(68)
“You are not alive in this world in order to experience Me or to enjoy the blessings of a comfortable life. If that were My purpose, I’d have brought you into My Presence in heaven the moment you were forgiven and adopted into My family.”(74)
“My Spirit is telling My story to your psychological culture, a culture that actually believes woundedness—how others treat you—is a more serious problem than selfishness—how you treat others.”(83)
“Your expectation of feeling everything you want to feel in this fallen world renders you vulnerable to false teachers who, in the name of My Son, offer you a strategy that promises to let you feel as complete now as you will feel forever in heaven.”(86)
“To be content does not mean to feel content but rather to know that in My Son you have everything you need to live in rhythm with My Spirit in any circumstance of life.”(92)
“You will be graced with the disaster your soul requires to find its way home.”—Tim Farrington in A Hell of Mercy (Crabb,98)
“With endurance, a joy will develop that frees you to appreciate the pleasures of life’s blessings without requiring from them a satisfaction they cannot provide.”(101)
“Don’t be surprised by your failure. Instead, be surprised, staggered by My response.”(116)
--excerpted from God’s Love Letters to You: A 40-day Devotional Experience by Dr. Larry Crabb (Thomas Nelson, 2010)
No comments:
Post a Comment