Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Review - Forgotten God

"Forgotten God: Reversing Our Tragic Neglect of the Holy Spirit" is the latest book by Francis Chan, the author of "Crazy Love." Chan, along with Danae Yankoski, aim to write "a compelling invitation to rediscover the Holy Spirit's power in our lives," and on this mark they succeed.

The message of the book is straightforward, not intending to break new ground but to concisely teach, remind, and exhort us to stop neglecting the presence and power of the Holy Spirit. Chapters include "I've Got Jesus, Why do I need the Spirit?", "What are you afraid of?", "Theology of the Holy Spirit 101", "Why do you want Him?", and "A real relationship". The most interesting and thought-provoking chapter for me was "Forget about His will for your life!" Here he points out that as Christians we often use our lack of a good understanding for His will as an excuse not to follow Him day by day, an excuse for inaction or even disobedience. "God cares more about our response to His Spirit's leading today, in this moment, that about what we intend to do next year. In fact, the decisions we make next year will be profoundly affected by the degree to which we submit to the Spirit right now, in today's decisions." The implication of ignoring the Spirit for both our lives and for the health of the church is a complete lack of power, and severely diminished ability to carry out God's will. Forgotten God is a solid book worth reading.

"Forgotten God" was received as a Review Copy from the Amazon Vine program. The book is published by David C. Cook and is available at Amazon.com and other retailers.



4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hello,
My name is Marie and I am working with Pastor Andy Deane who recently wrote the book: Learn to Study the Bible – it teaches 40 Bible study methods. We would love to send you a free copy to see if you would review it on your site. Recently we’ve received some exciting endorsements from Dr. Catt (pastor of church that produced the movie FIREPROOF) and Pastor Bob Coy (9th Largest church in USA). If you are able to blog about this new Bible study book please let me know if an internet ebook version would be possible for you to read (saves us money to do that).
TITLE: Learn to Study the Bible
AUTHOR: Andy Deane
ISBN: 978-1-60791-576-8

PUBLISHER: Xulon Press
BOOK WEBSITE: http://www.LearnToStudyTheBible.com

Larry Baxter said...

Marie, I would be happy to review Pastor Deane's book on Bible Study Methods. An ebook version via email would be fine. I'm at stepuptothecall A_T gmail d.t com

Tabitha said...

Hi Larry!

How was your fall class at Rockbrige? I saw you reviewed Forgotten God not too long ago. I just finished reading it too. I'm starting to blog about my books...you can read my review at tabithasreads.blogspot.com I loved this book...it's amazing how much more rich Bible reading has been since reading the book. It's like I'm seeing for the first time how large a role the Holy Spirit played in Jesus' life.

Take care!

Larry Baxter said...

Hi Tabitha! Just finishing up the core Discipleship course at Rockbridge. It went quite well - can't believe just two left now. In January I'm taking 'Lead Like Jesus', with the Fellowship course to follow.

So glad you like Forgotten God. Like "Primal" that I just reviewed, I thought it was a powerful book but one that I just wasn't connecting with. I'm finding that books, especially those that aim to inspire, depend a lot more on the state of the reader than books on theory or how-to. I've added your books blog to my Google reader. You should check out the Thomas Nelson blogger review program. Take care, and Merry Christmas :)