Deeper: Real Change for Real Sinners

★ ★ ★ 1/2 (rounded up)
This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader.
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WHAT'S DEEPER ABOUT?
The goal of this book is to call believers to grow in Christ, to experience a deeper kind of Christian life. Ephesians 4:15 and 2 Peter 3:18 call for the Christian to grow, and that's where Ortlund wants to focus.

He eschews the typical calls for greater discipline, certain acts/habits, intellectual pursuits, or behavioral changes for this aim. Instead, Ortlund wants to pursue this through a focus on Christ we are changed as we look to Him and his benefits.

Growing in Christ is not centrally improving or adding or experiencing but deepening...deepening is that you already have what you need. Christian growth is bringing what you do and say and even feel into line with what, in fact, you already are.

The Life Of God In The Soul Of Man

DEEPER

I do not have nine things to say. I have one thing to say. Look to Christ. You will grow in Christ as you direct your gaze to Christ. If you take your eyes off of Jesus Christ and direct your gaze to your own growth, you will prevent the very growth you desire...

The nine chapters of this book are not sequential steps in growing; they are different facets of the one diamond of growth. In order to grow, we need to see who the real Jesus is (chap. 1), collapsing into his arms and continuing to do so all our lives long (chap. 2) as those united to him (chap. 3), drinking down his undeserved love (chap. 4) and full legal exoneration on the basis of his own finished work (chap. 5), being therefore freed up to walk in the light (chap. 6) and receive the anguish of this life as the gentle hand of God to help us rather than to punish us (chap. 7), seeing the love of Christ by inhaling the Bible and returning our love to him in exhaled prayer (chap. 8), and actually experiencing the love of heaven through the indwelling Spirit (chap. 9).

Deeper

Easily one of the best books on the life of a Christian I have ever read.

I picked this book up because I was, in a very typically Alex fashion, looking for some practical life-hack system for deeper growth. It was of course, not at all what I was looking for, but was much more of what I needed in my search. A kind, straightforward reminder that growth in the Christian walk starts and ends with Christ. “The message of this book is that THE way we grow is receiving the heartful love of Jesus. The gospel of grace not only gets us in but moves us along.”