I have been tremendously encouraged by the comments I’ve received from early readers of The Life You Were Reborn to Live: Dismantling 12 Lies that Rob Your Intimacy with God. If my words can help anyone renew and reinvigorate their relationship with and passion for God, I’m beyond grateful. An appreciative reader asked me what more we could do to “spread the word” about the book, and he suggested that making the epilogue available might whet some people’s appetites. It’s a summary chapter, and I thought, well, why not?
So, here you go. If you haven’t read the book yet, perhaps this will tell you what you might be missing. If you have read the book, could you consider writing a review on Amazon and Christian Books? It’s extremely helpful to a book’s visibility to get those reviews. Thank you all!
Thank you for taking this journey with me. You’ve probably noticed that it has been a very personal one for me. Each one of these truths, on its own, has represented significant changes in my life, outlook, joy, peace, and security. Together, they represent the dawn of a new spiritual life. I say “dawn” because I have by no means mastered them. As we just stated, dismantling is a lifelong process.
Our protest against the great illusion and the distractions of this world won’t be accomplished on a Saturday march. This represents a lifelong commitment to new learning, new surrender, and new discoveries. This book can get you going, but it represents just the first mile in a marathon. When Paul writes, “stop allowing yourselves to be conformed…continue to let yourselves be transformed,” the “transformation is not something which is brought about in an instant; it has to be continually repeated, or, rather, it is a process which has to go on all the time the Christian is in this life.”[i]
This age won’t stop trying to conform you just because you decide to stop being conformed. It’s dealt with rebels before and can overwhelm them with loud opposition. To be born into this world and to continue to live in this world means some force is desperate to shape you. Commentator C.E.B. Cranfield writes, “The good news, to which the imperative [do not be conformed] bears witness, is that they are no longer the helpless victims of tyrannizing forces, but are able to resist this pressure which comes, both from without and from within, because God’s merciful action in Christ has provided the basis of resistance.”[ii] Refusing to be conformed “must ever be a great part of the content of Christian exhortation, so long as the Church is ‘militant here on earth.’ For the pressures to conformity are always present, and always strong and insidious—so that the Christian often yields unconsciously.”[iii]
This is my plea not to put this book down and think the dismantling is over. It needs to be a life passion. Gerrit Scott Dawson counsels us, “It takes tremendous discipline to hold onto the truth that has been revealed to us. Without constant attention, our minds and hearts follow the worldview of the culture around us. We go with its flow automatically unless we are consciously swimming against the stream… The further from the mainstream of contemporary thought a piece of the gospel narrative is, the more difficult it is to maintain in our minds as a coherent part of our worldview.”[iv] To this end, I think this would be the kind of book best read and discussed in a small group.
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