Working out Salvation with Fear and Trembling

Readers of this blog will know how much I love books. I love collecting, I love reading, and I love learning, especially about the Word of God and the Christian life. I have been given the privilege of being a part of Crossway Books’ May Blog tour of Tullian Tchividjian’s Surprised by Grace: God’s Relentless Pursuit of Rebels.

Tullian Tchividjian is pastor of Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, and the author of Unfashionable: Making a Difference in the World by Being Different and Do I Know God? Finding Certainty in Life’s Most Important Relationship. He also blogs at On Earth as it is in Heaven.

Here’s the press release from Crossway,

Most Christians assume that the gospel is something non-Christians must believe in order to be saved, but after we believe it, we advance to deeper theological waters. In Surprised by Grace, Tullian Tchividjian shows how when God rescues sinners, his plan isn’t to move them beyond the gospel, but to move them more deeply into it. The only antidote to sin is the gospel—and since Christians remain sinners even after they’re converted, the daily preaching of the gospel is essential for all Christians.

For Tchividjian, it was through the story of Jonah that he came face-to-face with the fact that the gospel is not only for non-Christians.

Surprised by Grace is a storied presentation of the gospel from the book of Jonah. It’s a story of sin and grace, of desperation and deliverance. It reveals that while we are great sinners, God is a great Savior. While our sin reaches far, his grace reaches farther. This story shows that God is in the business of relentlessly pursuing rebels—a label that ultimately applies to us all. He comes after us not to angrily strip away our freedom, but to affectionately strip away our slavery so we might become truly free.

This book is for anyone who is tempted, struggles, or continues to battle against sin. “I wrote Surprised by Grace (Crossway, May 2010) because we all need to be,” explains Tchividjian.

Over the next little while I will be reading and reviewing the book and including excerpts from the book for our enjoyment and edification. But here’s the exciting part.

YOU CAN WIN A COPY!

Here’s how you can win. Leave a comment below about how the sovereignty of God helped you make it through a calamitous situation in life. When the world seemed ready to end and everything was blowing up all around you, how was it that knowing that God was sovereign helped you make it through? I’ll randomly pick one of the answers to award a free copy of this book. And stick around as we interact with the book in the near future!