Trying or Trusting God

I highly recommend Active Spirituality not only because it is well-written, but also because it stands with the Bible Although this book was slow at the start, I also found that it picked up speed rapidly until I was engrossed. Not heavy reading at all.Active Spirituality has an interesting angle on the perseverance of the saints in that it is written in a letter format. Each chapter is one to three pages with thirty-one chapters in all.At the heart of this book is the hope “that this book will help some Christians to see a little more clearly why God wants us to trust him.One of the quintessential issues in the Church today is the issue of sanctification, specifically assurance. Many Christians struggle their entire Christian lives with knowing whether they are saved and continually feel the need to “accept” Jesus into their hearts.

This was good!“To the frozen north are the arctic dangers of icy legalism and frigid formalism, where religiosity and self-righteousness freeze the heart, leaving us brittle, cold, and hard towards both God and fellow human beings. The church veers north when she loses her wonder at the freedom of grace, when the heart-warming doctrine of justification by faith alone slips from her grasp. But to the swampy south, there are the tropical dangers of sultry self-indulgence and lazy licentiousness, where grace is twisted into license, and even biblically-warranted, faith-fueled effort is condemned as legalism. Bonhoeffer called this “cheap grace.” (The theological word for it is antinomianism, which means against law.) The church wanders south when she loses her wonder at the power of grace; neglects the biblical demands for effort, perseverance, and watchfulness; and collapses the action-laden language of the New Testament (walk, fight, run, conquer, etc.) into overly simple, reductionist formulas that vacate sanctifying faith of all effort. While the doctrine of justification by faith alone rescues us from the frozen glacier of legalism, it’s the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints that liberates us from the miry bog of antinomianism. At its heart, this book is about the perseverance of the saints” (page 12).

It is well worth the read. It shows how normal men seek God!There is a lot to be thankful to the Lord for in regards to this book.I highly recommend this book and pray the Lord uses it to awaken a slumbering and apathetic generation to the glory and excellencies of the gospel, including its warnings, for His glory.

I received this book for free from Reformation Heritage Books via Cross Focused Reviews for this review. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

I received this book from the publisher in exchange for my honest review.