Do you like to read? Of course you do. You are doing it now.
Do you have favorite authors? I have added Ted Dekker to my short list. I have enjoyed his fiction for years. But I am especially encouraged by his new non-fiction book, The Forgotten Way: The Path of Yeshua for Power and Peace in This Life. “Yeshua” is the Aramaic form of the name Jesus.
Dekker’s literary mission has caught me up in its passionate hope. The more people who know who they are in Jesus Christ, the more life in this world will improve. Whether political issues or problems with personal temptation, Jesus is the Way (John 14:6). He enters all of our humanness while enrapturing us with the completeness of His divinity.
The Forgotten Way consists of five meditations on the life and work of Jesus that are as old as the pages of Scripture and as new as our deepest need. I encourage you to get the book and read it cover to cover. Here is an excerpt to spark your interest:
“You have in Yeshua [Jesus] an elder brother who understands your life. He was tested and stretched in every way you have been and yet did not separate Himself from the Father when the trials came.
“Yeshua, because He was fully human, though fully God, learned obedience through his suffering. As it is written, ‘during the days of Yeshua’s life on Earth, He offered up prayer and petitions with fervent cries and tears to the One who could save Him from death, and He was heard because of his reverent surrender. Son though He was, He learned obedience from what He suffered and, once made perfect, He because the source of eternal salvation for all who obey Him.’
“Fear entered the world through Adam in the first garden. Yeshua overcame fear in the second garden as the second Adam. There He surrendered His will and restored perfection so that we too may overcome fear, for He has overcome the world.
“Where the first Adam said, ‘Not your will but mine,’ and so plunged the world into darkness, the second Adam, Yeshua, reversed the first Adam’s fall, saying instead, ‘Not my will but yours,’ and restored the world to light.
“Although Yeshua, in His incarnation, struggled between His own human will and His Father’s will, He surrendered His will to His Father’s. He had no desire to be tortured. His human will was to avoid such a protracted, brutal death. But through tears and anguish He surrendered that will. Thus he prayed, ‘Not my will, but yours be done.’
“What a beautiful savior” (pp. 168-169).
There is so much more. Whether through fiction or non-fiction, Dekker witnesses to how God’s love for us in Christ transforms us for good. In his words, “We seek to know a love that holds no record of wrong. We seek a love that knows no fear. There is no fear in love.”
Russel Jarvis has lived in Hancock County since 1989 and has served as the lead chaplain at Hancock Regional Hospital since August 2003. This weekly column is written by local clergy members. Send comments to [email protected].
