Tim Keller has done it again. In a new and short book entitled The Prodigal God, Pastor Keller addresses both those with only a faint understanding or exposure to the Christian faith and those who have considered themselves Christians for years.  This is why the use of one of Jesus’ most famous stories (parables) is so appropriate in articulating the real heart of the Christian message: the gospel.

I was very glad to get ahold of the book, as the sermon he gave on this topic really adjusted the lense through which I see the world and our desires (or lack thereof) to connect with God. It came at a time when I felt stagnate and in need of a fresh hearing of the good news of Jesus and to really understand what that would look like fleshed out in my life. It is a quick read at 133 pages but the brevity manages to pack quite a punch and also facilitates coming back to it again. I’ll leave you with a heavy recommendation to pick this book up and a quote to inspire you to do that sooner rather than later:

“There are two ways to be your own Savior and Lord. One is by breaking all the moral laws and setting your own course, and one is by keeping all the moral laws and being very, very good.  Jesus does not divide the world into the moral ‘good guys’ and the immoral ‘bad guys.’ He shows us that everyone is dedidcated to a project of self-salvation, to using God and others in order to get power and control for themselves. We are just going about it in different ways. This means that Jesus’s message, which is ‘the gospel,’ is a completely different spirituality. The gospel of Jesus is not religion or irreligion, morality or immorality, moralism or relativism, conservatism or liberalism.  Nor is it something halfway along a spectrum between the two poles–it is something else altogether. The gospel is distinct from the other two approaches: In its view, everyone is wron, everyone is loved, and everyone is called to recognize this and CHANGE.“

Whenever you mention Keller, you must also link to Steve McCoy’s Tim Keller Resources. I’m pretty sure this is a blog rule.