If you read and apply the lessons found in the book The Pressure’s Off (WaterBrook, 2002,
2012) by Larry Crabb, you should see a difference in the way you interact with God.
You’ve probably heard that before, and then were given a bunch of rules to
follow, things to do, prayers to pray, journals to keep, and constant reminders
that if you would just do this, then God will bless you beyond anything you
could imagine.
I’ve tried a lot of those methods and systems, and they
never worked for me. Maybe I didn’t do it right, maybe something else was going
on, but they didn’t work. God didn’t reward my efforts. So I tried harder – and
God still didn’t follow my rules. The job offers didn’t come, relationships
soured, people died, I didn’t win the lottery. And I wondered why God wasn’t
impressed enough with my efforts to reward me.
Crabb calls that the ‘Old Way’ and suggests that it won’t
work because we have things backward. He suggests that all of our good works
may be an attempt to use God. But he offers an alternative. His ‘New Way’ suggests
that we start by growing closer to God, and in doing so we may just find the
answers that we’re looking for.
It’s not an easy path to follow: we’re asked to give up
control of our lives, to give up our idols (anything that comes between us and God)
to turn them over to God, to grow closer to him, to follow his will, and as we
grow in intimacy with God, our lives are transformed. It’s not what we do, but
what God does that changes us.
Crabb’s writing style is engaging, he uses many personal
examples of how to reframe things from the ‘old way’ to the ‘new way’, and simple
illustrations help the reader to understand the concepts.
This updated edition contains a ‘workbook’ which should work
well for individuals, accountability partners or small groups. I would recommend
this book to anyone who is ready to move closer to God, and seek His will
rather than just try to do enough to earn a blessing.
5 stars!
I received this book for free
from WaterBrook Multnomah
Publishing Group for this review.
Read the first Chapter here:
http://waterbrookmultnomah.com/blog/2011/12/07/the-pressures-off-by-larry-crabb/
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