The author of bestselling Christian living book Gentle and Lowly is back to help us plough even further into the depths of Jesus’s grace. This time his target audience is surprising: obedient Christians.
In Surprised by Jesus (April 1, 2022), Ortlund argues that we all have “law-marinated hearts.” That deep down we want to resist God’s grace, instead conforming our lives to a moral framework, playing by the rules, meeting a minimum standard.
We rightly recognize our inadequacy and feel safer this way. But it’s exhausting and Jesus has so much more for us.
Written in Ortlund’s signature pastoral tone, he helps us to see our need to be surprised by Jesus and for him to defy all our expectations. “Left in neutral, all of us tend to slide away from the wonder of the gospel,” Ortlund says. “My aim in this book is to help us cherish the gospel.”
Dane Ortlund is senior pastor of Naperville Presbyterian Church in Naperville, Illinois. He is the author of the bestselling book, Gentle and Lowly: The Heart of Christ for Sinners and Sufferers. Dane and his wife, Stacey, have five children.
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Quotes from the book:
“Like a bad back that needs to return repeatedly to the chiropractor for straightening out, our understanding of Jesus needs to be straightened out over and over again as our poor spiritual posture throws our perception of him out of line — domesticating him and conforming him to our image, rather than transforming us into his image.”
“However much we may pay tribute to grace with our lips, our hearts are so thoroughly marinated in law that the Christian life must be, at core, one of continually bathing our hearts and minds in gospel grace.”
“This book is a call to embrace the flooding liberations of the gospel all the way down — not the decaffeinated grace that pats us on the hand, ignores our deepest rebellions, and doesn’t change us, but the high-octane grace that takes our conscience by the scruff of the neck and breathes new life into us with a pardon so scandalous that we cannot help but be changed.”
“Jesus doesn’t crowbar us into change. He surprises us into change. Keeping the rules no more extinguishes the sin in our hearts than buckets of gasoline extinguish the flames in our fireplace.”
5-star reader reviews
“Life shattering” • “See afresh the amazing grace of Jesus Christ” • “You’ll love the real Jesus more by the end of this book.” • “Had me leaping for joy”
