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Enjoying God

I have enjoyed reading Tim Chester's Enjoying God.  It is helpful because it encourages to go beyond intellectual knowledge of God and love and enjoy Him. Tim wants us to like God. All true followers of Jesus would say they love God, but are we fond of God? Is your spiritual instinct to think well of God and His intentions for your life? Tim believes the key to enjoying God is give ourselves to dance to Him n a trinitarian fashion, Father, Son and Holy Spirit

I have read a number of Tim Chester books, so I must confess that I think what  he says in this book in individual chapters is better stated elsewhere in his other works. Also there is a part of me that feels that though most of our gifted modern writers like Tim are saying wonderful things, they are merely paraphrasing what old writers have said. It would be nice if many of us can read Owen and Bonhoeffer for ourselves. I believe that is much more beneficial in the long term than getting a few helpful quotes from Tim. Of course we often discover the existence of such older writers by reading about them in such books like Enjoying God. So I do appreciate Tim's effort in this regard. A good book, do read it if you can!

Here are some one liners that stood out for me:

"We are not only saved from sin, we are saved for God" 

"Faith looks beyond our circumstances to our relationship with God" 

"We pursue joy in God for God's sake, because He is the source of joy" 

"God is the loving Father you've always wished you had" 

"If you are in Christ, you always bring pleasure to the Father. He sees you and smiles with delight" 

"We don't need to worry because the world is full of signs of our Father's intimate involvement. We live in a fathered world" 

"Jesus asks everything of us, but he asks nothing of us that he himself has not first endured"

"The Spirit gives spiritual life in the present and physical life in the future"

"All the good we do is done in the power of the Spirit"

"If you want to to see the Spirit at work in your life, then attempt things that you feel you can't do without His help"

"For most people groaning is a backwards look....but for the Christians groaning is a forwards look"

"We go to the Bible to hear our Saviour speak to us"

"You can't enjoy God's love on your own"

"Brotherly love isn't a poor substitute for the real thing. For brotherly love is divine love. God loves us through the love of other Christians".

"You will never be happy while you are pursuing your own happiness"

"Our cities and towns are places in spiritual darkness. But every time a new church is started, it's as if God switches on a light. Light shines through Christian love".

Copyright © Chola Mukanga 2020

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