One of the books that has been transformational for me on my walk with Christ is The Joy of Fearing God by Jerry Bridges. Transformational because it redefined what “fearing God” meant for me. Reverent awe doesn’t quite describe it because some cases in the Bible the “fear of God’ was literally trembling in fear while other times it was reverent worship. I think we take for granted that we have a relationship with the Creator of the universe so we don’t know how to approach Him.
The word ‘awesome’ took on a whole new meaning after reading that book. It’s such a throwaway word; “that was awesome!”, when God alone is truly awesome. I stopped using the word unless I was describing God or something I saw God doing. That lasted only a couple of years. I need to get back to worshiping our awesome God.
But how do we fear God? The first chapter of Crazy Love by Francis Chan challenges us to remember how holy God is, how big, how awesome. Then we’re left with the question: if we met God, how would we describe him?
Crazy love was a life changer for me. Awesome book
i haven't read those books, but, one that gave me a similar nudge was "the knowledge of the Holy" by a. w. tozer.
@Katie, thanks for stopping by! Really enjoyed your guest post yesterday over at Alise's. I need to go check out your blog! It is an awesome book and we're praying it's a life changer. Funny though, as Nance points out, it isn't wholly original. I think there are a lot of books like this because this is a great need.
@Nance: Francis Chan references Tozer right away: "The most important thing about you is what you believe about God." (paraphrased) And the book builds off from that fundamental point.