Saturday, December 15, 2012

Book Review: God Loves You

God Loves You: He Always Has, He Always Will. Dr. David Jeremiah. 2012. FaithWords. 320 pages.

I believe this is my first David Jeremiah book to have read. I thought it had some good ideas and messages in it, though I didn't find it a perfect read. (I disagreed with a few sentences here and there.) The chapter titles:

God Is Love
God Loved You Before You Were Born
God Carved His Love in Stone
God's Love Never Quits
God Wrote His Love in Red
God Loves You Even When You Don't Love Him
God Loves You When He's Correcting You
God's Love Will Never Let You Go
God Loves You and Wants You With Him Forever
God's Love Changes Everything.

Each chapter has its own focus. Some chapters focus specifically on one passage of Scripture. There is a chapter, for example, on the ten commandments; another chapter is focused on the prodigal son. Other chapters focus less on one specific passage of Scripture and instead focus on a concept drawn from several places in Scripture. Stories are brought in and incorporated to make the author's point. While I'm not generally a big fan of this in nonfiction, I felt it worked well for the most part. In particular when David Jeremiah shares the ministering heart of Pastor John Harper.

My favorite quotes:
The profound thought of God's love should begin and end your every day. It should define your every goal, your every action. (3)
To begin to understand love, we must begin to understand God. And to begin to understand God, we must begin in no other place than the revelation of His love in the Bible. (6)
You know that God loves you now, but do you realize that He always has--even before you were born? Even before the world was created? He has loved you from the very foundation of time. (29)
Throughout history, millions of words have been written about John 3:16. Yet none of them are necessary to grasp the meaning of the verse. God communicated the heart and meaning of the Gospel--the most profound, far-reaching message of all time--in only twenty-five simple words of English text. When translated into any language, this verse is supremely easy to understand. (118)
John 3:16 opens with a bang, starting not only with God, but with God doing something--God loving. Excuse me--God so loving. The most intense word in this verse is the smallest. Bound up in those two letters, s-o, are all the agonies of the Cross; all the sufferings of the Son as He walked among men; all the exertion of a God willing to leave heaven and take on flesh, not because He simply loved, but because He so loved. Hands that hold us are loving. Nail-scarred hands that hold us are so loving. (123)

© Becky Laney of Operation Actually Read Bible

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