This is a how to book about how to experience the God of the Bible. The author is a speaker and writer with Crown Accounting Ministries, a Christian financial nonprofit. He uses numerous anecdotal stories of experiences from his own life and that of his family, to illustrate his points. He also uses Bible stories to illustrate his points. This author's mission, through this book, is to show readers how to connect with the invisible God of the Bible in ways that are unmistakable. He discusses the three spiritual disciplines of prayer, giving, and fasting and shows from his own life, how they have helped him "connect with God and sense His divine applause." Part 1 of this book lays the foundation for his vision for this book. Part 2 lays out the principles for how to live so as to be "noticed by God" and to experience His "divine applause." Part 3 basically recaps his vision for the book and tries to inspire the reader to his or her own experience with God. Because this book is light on theology and research, there are no footnotes or end notes as sources didn't need to be cited.
The author of this book was unfamiliar to me before I read this book. This is his first book that I have ever read. The title fits this book's content pretty well. I expected the book to have elements of mysticism because of the topic, which is experiencing the invisible God of the Bible. I found it to be light on theology and heavy on personal experience. I found myself being a little annoyed by the author's sharing of his experiences with fasting, even of his fasts which have lasted up to 40 days. He had stressed that prayer, giving and fasting were designed by God to be "secret" so we can have "secrets with Him alone." As this author shared about some of his experiences with fasting, I found myself thinking: His fasting is not secret now! I know that a number of Christian authors will describe their fasting experiences; that is not uncommon. I thought it was rather hypocritical of this author to critique many Christians' practice of posting and publicly sharing of their experiences with prayer, giving or fasting on social networks--while he publicly shares about his fasting through this book. What is the difference anyway? I found myself thinking. He shares how in his ministry among poor people, he would challenge some of them to give, even of the very little that he knew that they had. While I know that giving by the most destitute is highly commended in the Bible, I was rather annoyed that the author would tell those with very little to give of the little they had. Isn't giving supposed to be voluntary, not something we do because we are challenged to do it? It is only near the end of this book that the author discusses the reader's need to live a blameless life in order to experience this "divine applause." I know that those who discuss giving and the Christian tend to get rather defensive about their right to do so, and that we in the Christian community tend to get testy about the subject whether we believe the tithe is binding for Christians today or not. Yes, we are to pray, give and fast in secret and the author does make a case for how doing these in secret enables us to be rewarded with "divine applause" and God's pleasure.
Do I recommend this book? Frankly, I'm not sure. It does not contain outright error and false teaching that leads readers astray. I do not recommend it for non-Christians. It is clearly meant for those who are "already in and who are Christians already. In reading all the material about fasting, prayer and giving and believing this material applies to them, non-Christians who are trusting in their own goodness to save them should stay away from this book. For the application of its principles to their lives will confirm many non-Christians who trust in their goodness to save them, in their legalism. I can recommend it to Christians who are neglecting these spiritual disciplines and need a refresher, including Pastors and others in Christian leadership.
I received this book free of charge from Blogging For Books, in exchange for my honest review of this book. I was not required to give a positive review of this book.
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