library
Monday, 13 September 2010 22:12
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
Book of the Month
You Can Change: God's Transforming Power for Our Sinful Behavior and Negative Emotions
by Tim Chester
What would you like to change (about yourself), and how do you expect it to happen? Self-help books abound in the Christian market, but their new-you-in-five-easy-steps approach is usually based on popular psychology rather than the Bible, and any change is both superficial and temporary. In this book, the author stresses that we cannot change our hearts by following external rules; only God can bring true and lasting change. So, if your desire is to become more Christ-like, this new book can will set you on the right path.
It starts right in with core issues like motivation and how lasting change actually comes about. Self-reliance and pride keep popping up as hindrances here, and he forces us to be uncomfortably honest with ourselves and the ways we pretend to be more pure than we are. And it comes up again in the chapter about our struggles against sins.
Chapter 5 is the center, the very heart, of the book: learning to speak truth to ourselves. This is no easy cliché, but a call to careful and prayerful consideration of the painful truth behind our sinful patterns, a chapter to be read slowly, over and over until it sinks in. After we recognize that God really is our highest Good, we can begin to look at our sinful desires more honestly.
So, the next step is to recognize what is the desire behind the sin. In chapter 6, he asserts, "We always do what we want to do. The question is, which of our desires is strongest at any given moment?" For example, when we turn from a temptation to do right, it is because our desire for right is stronger at that moment than the desire of the temptation. The Bible reminds us that "each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death" (James 1:14-15)
As you can see, this book is no exercise in theory, but eminently practical throughout. In later chapters, he discusses strategies to reinforce faith and repentance, how change is supported in small groups, and finally sets forth a call to change as a life-long endeavor.
If this book is checked out when you come to the library, here are some books from his Further Reading list that we have in our library:
The Discipline of Grace (BRIDGES)
The Pursuit of Holiness (BRIDGES)
Idols of the Heart (FITZPATRICK)
How People Change (248.4 LANE)
The Cross-Centered Life (MAHANEY) we have the CD (CD 248.4 MAHANEY)
A Passion for Holiness (PACKER)
Future Grace (PIPER)
When I don't Desire God (PIPER)
Holiness (RYLE)
When People Are Big and God Is Small (WELCH)
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ?subject=Library" mce_href="mailto: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ?subject=Library">email or phone, x5117.< >< ><-->