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The Divine Conspiracy
Rediscovering Our Hidden Life In God
A Powerful,
Thought-Provoking Guide to Living the Life Jesus Intends
for Us
 Is
Jesus part of your daily life—here and now? Or, by
failing to take him seriously, have you relegated him to
the realm of the "hereafter"? In The Divine Conspiracy,
biblical teaching, popular culture, science, scholarship,
and spiritual practice are weaved together to capture the
central insights of Christ's teachings in a fresh way and
show the necessity of profound changes in how we view our
lives and faith.
Christians for the most part consider
the primary function of Christianity to be admittance to
heaven. But a faith that guarantees a satisfactory afterlife,
yet has absolutely no impact on life in the here and now,
is nothing more than "consumer Christianity" and "bumper-sticker
faith." In an era when so many consider Jesus a beloved
but remote savior, readers of The Divine Conspiracy will
explore a revolutionary way to experience God—by knowing
Him as an essential part of the here and now, an integral
part of every aspect of our existence.
The Divine Conspiracy calls us
into a more authentic faith and offers a practical plan
by which we can become Christ-like. It challenges us to
step aside from the politics and pieties of contemporary
Christian practice and inspires us to reject the all too
common lukewarm faith of our times by embracing the true
meaning of Christian discipleship.
"My hope is to gain a fresh hearing for Jesus, especially
among those who believe they already understand him.
Very few people today find Jesus interesting as a person
or of vital relevance to the course of their actual
lives. He is not generally regarded as a real life personality
who deals with real-life issues, but is thought to be
concerned with some feathery realm other than the one
we must deal with, and must deal with now."
"[A]ctual discipleship or apprenticeship to Jesus is,
in our day, no longer thought of as in any way essential
to faith in him. It is regarded as a costly option,
a spiritual luxury, or possibly even as an evasion.
Why bother with discipleship, it is widely thought,
or, for that matter, with a conversational relationship
with God? Let us get on with what we have to do."
"This book, then, presents discipleship to Jesus as
the very heart of the gospel. The eternal life that
begins with confidence in Jesus is a life in His present
kingdom, now on earth and available to all. So the message
of and about him is specifically a gospel for our life
now, not just for dying. It is about living now as his
apprentice in kingdom living, not just as a consumer
of his merits. Our future, however far we look, is a
natural extension of the faith by which we live now
and the life in which we now participate." -- from The
Divine Conspiracy
What is "the divine conspiracy"?
It is God's plan to intervene in human history... now.
384
pages, hardcover from Harper SanFrancisco.
Table
of Contents:
Foreword
Introduction
Acknowledgments
Chapter 1: Entering the Eternal
Kind of Life Now
Chapter 2: Gospels of Sin Management
Chapter 3: What Jesus Knew: Our God-Bathed World
Chapter 4: Who is Really Well Off? — The Beatitudes
Chapter 5: The Rightness of the Kingdom Heart: Beyond
the Goodness of Scribes and Pharisees
Chapter 6: Investing in the Heavens: Escaping the Deceptions
of Reputation and Wealth
Chapter 7: The Community of Prayerful Love
Chapter 8: On Being a Disciple, or Student, of Jesus
Chapter 9: A Curriculum for Christlikeness
Chapter 10: The Restoration of All Things
Notes
Index
Look
Inside the book at Amazon.com
See also an excerpt, "A
Curriculum for Christlikeness," posted on the
George Fox University web site.
Reprint
permission information.
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