Another Really Bad Book

They just keep coming!

I have seen the devotional book, Jesus Calling by Sarah Young being floated around as a a wonderful devotional book.

Tim Challies offered a GREAT review of it. You can read the entire review here.

Here are a few excerpts from his post I found very interesting.

A quote from Young:

The following year, I began to wonder if I, too, could receive messages during my times of communing with God. I had been writing in prayer journals for years, but that was one-way communication: I did all the talking. I knew that God communicated with me through the Bible, but I yearned for more. Increasingly, I wanted to hear what God had to say to me personally on a given day. I decided to listen to God with pen in hand, writing down whatever I believe He was saying. I felt awkward the first time I tried this, but I received a message. It was short, biblical, and appropriate. It addressed topics that were current in my life: trust, fear, and closeness to God. I responded by writing in my prayer journal.

(emphasis mine)

Another quote from Young:

“This practice of listening to God has increased my intimacy with Him more than any other spiritual discipline, so I want to share some of the messages I have received. In many parts of the world, Christians seem to be searching for a deeper experience of Jesus’ Presence and Peace. The messages that follow address that felt need.”

(Did you catch that? The practice of listening to God increased her intimacy with Him for than ANY OTHER spiritual discipline??? I would be safe to assume that means the study of HIS word which is alive and active and sharper than any two edged sword? REALLY---better than the Bible???)

Tim Challies adds:

James Montgomery Boice once said that the real battle in our times would not be the inerrancy or infallibility of Scripture, but its sufficiency—are we going to rely on the Bible or will we continually long for other revelation? In Jesus Calling we see this so clearly. Young teaches that though the Bible is inerrant and infallible, it is insufficient. It was not enough for her and, implicitly, she teaches that it cannot be enough for us. After all, it was not reading Scripture that proved her most important spiritual discipline, but this listening, this receiving of messages from the Lord. It is not Scripture she brings to us, not primarily anyway, but these messages from Jesus.

Jesus Calling is, in its own way, a very dangerous book. Though the theology is largely sound enough, my great concern is that it teaches that hearing words directly from Jesus and then sharing these words with others is the normal Christian experience. In fact, it elevates this experience over all others. And this is a dangerous precedent to set. I see no reason that I would ever recommend this book.


As always, Tim does a great job. I write devotions and really try to make the focus on a theological point, pointing directly to scripture. There is always room for improvement and as I see more and more of this stuff floating around and enticing women, I want to be more aware of what my words are. I need to be sure they are God's words, directly from Scripture and not focused on experience.

As I posted yesterday, my experience is subjective. My hearing from God is Subjective to my falling mind. I can never be sure I heard a direct word from God, and to put it to paper as fact is really bad.

Again, God's Word is SUFFICIENT. It is all we need and has God's direct spoken words for us. I think if you spend time actually studying it, really really studying it...you will see this is true and there will no longer be a longing for extra biblical revelation.