ONE:
Being United to Jesus Changes
Everything
By Clive Bowsher
Union Publishing. 139 pages. £9.99
ISBN 978 1 739 342 623
This book, one of my candidates for book of 2023, takes the big idea at the heart of the authors’ book Life in the Son (previously reviewed in April’s en) – what it means for us to participate in the relationship between God the Father and God the Son – and makes the material more applied and accessible for the general reader.
In eight brief chapters the author explores how God connects with His people.
He reaches out – relates – befriends – comes close – partners – makes alive – fathers and invites.
In the epilogue, the author concludes with the idea that God embraces us.
One of the things I particularly liked about the book is how the author’s personal story is woven together with Biblical reflections on what it means to have an intimate relationship with God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Bishop Handley Moule said that: ‘All theology should be devotional and all devotion theological.’ This is something that is on offer here. To give a flavour of this, here is the author talking about an encounter with God on a sunny Sunday evening at church: ‘It’s now 6:50pm, and the God who is vaster than the universe is coming up close. Suddenly, life isn’t trivial. Perhaps for the first time, I figure God really does want me to love Him back. To sing my heart to Him, to turn my face to heaven without shame and in freedom. To open my arms to Him as he opens His heart to me.’
As evangelicals we rightly value getting our thinking about God right, but sometimes we can be less concerned about spiritual formation. True evangelical spirituality is concerned not only with knowing the truth, but seeks to experience the truth too. This is a hugely helpful resource enabling Christians to join the dots between evangelical thought and evangelical experience. Each bite-sized chapter usefully concludes with a reflection section, and provides an excellent resource for a week or so of daily devotions inviting us to draw near to the God who delights to draw near to us.
