Deeper: Real Change for Real Sinners (Union)

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Not only are there plentiful productive analogies, but numerous times I highlighted whole sections due to the way in which truth was expressed with concise creativity. This lovely, easy-to-read primer by Dane Ortlund grounds our discipleship in the glowing center of Christianity―our Lord Jesus. Ortlund (PhD, Wheaton College) is the executive vice president of Bible publishing and Bible publisher at Crossway.

We need more of Jesus if we’re to find, like the subtitle says, “real change for real sinners,” rather than “surface change for theoretical sinners” (17–18).It really is a book that should be meditated on and put down while you think and breathe in the realities of Christ and his work. We’re forgetting growth isn’t about finding something new but rather about going deeper into what we already have. Nevertheless, in my opinion, more emphasis on true mortification would have provided a helpful balance to the overall presentation. And as if things weren't bad enough already in the heat and darkness, he stumbles across a Styx plot with terrible implications for the world above – and a sister who isn't finished yet . Deep beneath the Pacific Ocean, a doomed science expedition killed the subterranean fabled leader, and suddenly, it seemed that evil was dead, and all was right with the world.

I never met a deep Christian who did not have a correspondingly deep sense of his or her own natural desolation” (41). Only when it finally vanished from sight behind the briar hedges did she turn to gaze at the grassy slopes that rose on either side of the road.There aren’t reflection questions, but I’d recommend journaling alongside your reading to let biblical truths seep in and to give your life an honest look. Angst, per Kierkegaard, is the feeling of one’s soul and self being pulled apart when we recognize our freedom amidst bondage, and the infinite amidst our seemingly finite lives. As I was reading it, conscious of being not fully engaged, I did think that maybe I’dread it again in the future and connect with it more successfully.

The book is filled with Puritan wisdom and a biblical, theological richness that is often lacking in other works on this subject.Ortlund navigates angst without froth, sanctification without legalism, justification without arrogance, pain without a quick-fix, and the need for the common elements without patchwork procedures.

To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. In this incredibly helpful, pastoral book, Dane works out the implications of that vision of Jesus for personal growth, showing us how the key to going further with Jesus is going deeper in his finished work. The basic point of this book is that change is a matter of ‘going deeper’, rather than through ‘outward improvement’, ‘intellectual addition’ or ‘felt experience’.What are the processes, the steps, the programs necessary to satisfy these endless thirsts for significance? Ortlund offers nine meditations that push and encourage readers to a biblical model of sanctification. Further, in his chapter on acquittal, Ortlund highlights the stories of three Christians (Martin Luther, C.