Fix Your Eyes: How Our Study of God Shapes Our Worship of Him. Amy Gannett. 240 pages. [October] [Source: Review copy]
First sentence: “You are a theologian,” he spoke calmly into the silent classroom. Something about the thin, round glasses hanging on the end of the professor’s nose and the bow tie neatly tucked beneath his white collar made him feel all the more believable, and made my eyes widen in surprise. “You already are a theologian,” he continued to insist, “. . . but are you a good one?”
I loved, loved, loved the premise of this one. Our worship is shaped by our view of God--our beliefs about God. To worship truly--genuinely, heart-soul-mind-body--we need to know God truly. And to know God truly, we must seek Him as He is. We must read the book He authored. Not just know in a head-knowledge sense. But KNOW in a loving, saving, trusting relationship. What we believe about God matters precisely because it relates to how we worship and glorify God. To clarify, this book isn't about a checklist of right beliefs, a practical guide to getting everything right giving you permission to be smug. No, this book is about the whole of Christian experience--heart, mind, body, soul. We are to love God with everything we are and everything we have. He is to be the center of our focus. HIM. Not his gifts. Not his blessings. Not his works. But HIM. Our seeking is to be a life-long seeking. Our knowledge should lead to MORE thanksgiving, MORE praise, MORE delight and adoration, MORE worship.
She writes, "The whole of the Christian life is worship of God. To be a Christian is to put a stake in the ground in terms of our highest affections, letting the God of the Bible lay claim on our hearts and lives in such a way that everything we are and everything we do wraps around our worship of him. Worship is what happens when what we love shapes us—when we submit our character, choices, wills, and ways to God out of love and reverence for him. Worship is love for God that seeks to obey, honor, praise, and adore him; it is setting the eyes of our hearts on him in love and responsively lifting our faces toward him in awe and affection."
The book is an overview of the basics, a brief overview of theology as a whole.
- Introduction: The Necessary Marriage of Theology and Worship
- Chapter 1: Theology Proper: Worshiping the God Who Is
- Chapter 2: The Trinity: Worshiping God Triune
- Chapter 3: Christology: Worshiping God Incarnate
- Chapter 4: Pneumatalogy: Worshiping God the Spirit
- Chapter 5: Soteriology: Worshiping the God Who Saves
- Chapter 6: Bibliology: Worshiping the God of the Word
- Chapter 7: Ecclesiology: Worshiping the God of His Body
- Chapter 8: Eschatology: Worshiping the Coming King
I found it a thought-provoking read.
I'll leave you with this as food for thought:
Imagine with me a woman is single and craves all the benefits of having a husband. Living alone, she is reminded every time she changes a high-perched light bulb or carries groceries up three flights of steps to her apartment that the ample help her married friends enjoy is absent in her life. She files her taxes in April and wishes for the tax break a spouse would afford her. She budgets her income each month with a distant desire for someone else to add to the monthly bank account as well. And so she does something that seems altogether reasonable: she marries. She meets and marries a man who will provide to her all the things she longs for. He will help around the house, he will supplement the income, he will walk the dog when it’s raining and start her car when it’s cold. He’ll take three of six grocery bags up the apartment complex stairs and his very status in her life will save her a few dollars the next time April rolls around. It’s everything she wanted—except him. She doesn’t want him or love him. There is nothing about who he is in his person that is desirable to her. His work is what interested her. His person she could take or leave. Here’s the question in front of us in this chapter: Is that marriage? Is that a holy union? But sometimes the way we talk about the gospel is just as disjointed as our hypothetical woman’s faux marriage.
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