19. Good News at Rock Bottom. Ray Ortlund. 2025. [March] 160 pages. [Source: Review copy] [5 stars]
First sentence (from the preface): My plan here is to ask of you as little as I can and to give you as much as I can. You have a busy life to live. But right now, while we are together, literally on the same page, let's make the most of it. Here is what I promise you: I will try to explain the gospel of Jesus honestly and helpfully for your needs. I will not lie to you. And I will try to believe the gospel honestly and helpfully for my own needs. Here is what I ask of you: Give Jesus a chance. Allow for the possibility that the good news about him is relevant to what you really, really care about--maybe more relevant that you have ever dared to believe.
Good News at Rock Bottom began its life as a series of talks given at Immanuel Church in Nashville, Tennessee in 2023. The book is about being at ROCK BOTTOM. It is about how there is good news--no, great news, fantastic news--at rock bottom. The book illuminates in particular Isaiah 57:15 though I am not limiting the book's use of Scripture just to one tiny--though important--verse.
There are just five chapters:
Way Up High, Way Down Low
Betrayed
Trapped
Lonely
Dying
The book is about sorrows, trials, tribulations--anything and everything which could lead you--the reader--to being at rock bottom and in need of refreshment [and spiritual healing] that can only come from the Lord Jesus Christ.
It was a fantastic read--always timely and relevant. I do think it falls close to being a must read. If you yourself are not at rock bottom--at the moment--you probably have been or might soon be. OR perhaps someone you love dearly is there now and you could be an encourager.
Quotes:
- What helps us most, when we need help urgently, is to discover who Jesus is for people like us. His wisdom is better than our escapism. What we want deep down is Jesus himself, with us, even us.
- By God's grace, you can bear the burden of the actual life you're living. He is lifting you into your true dignity and destiny. And on your way there, you'll be encouraged by your fellow sufferers as they walk with you...If we savor Isaiah 57:15 for the rest of our lives, it will keep us going.
- God has settled on an arrangement that does two beautiful things at once: it does justice to who God is, and it brings mercy to where we are. The one high and lifted up has mercies for us way down low. And he wants us to be sure of it.
- Let's always leave room for God to exceed our highest thoughts of him.
- Whatever others might think of you, the risen Christ doesn't despise you.
- There is only one thing more costly than giving our hearts away. And that is not giving our hearts away at all.
- You are never more like Jesus, never more powerful, than when you forgive the real evil that ruined your life. That merciful you is the most alive you, the most beautiful you, the most consequential you that could exist in this generation.
- Our very efforts to make ourselves more presentable only add another layer of sin on top of the sin we committed in the first place. Everything about us is mixed with sin. If evil were color-coded, like yellow police tape at a crime scene, then everything about us at all levels would glow yellow--including our attempts at proving to God that this time we're serious, this time we really mean it. Our grovelling is why verse 14 is here. God lovingly invites us to come now, as we are, and just collapse in his arms, even with all our mess.
- The only real barrier between us and the embrace of our Father is our hesitancy is to come.
- "Church" isn't one more item on our weekend to-do list. It is an island of humanness in a sea of loneliness. It is God's provision for us. It is a major way he cares for us in our suffering.
- Our loneliness is a sorrow God never meant us to bear.
- Death is the bottom of rock bottom. Death is the underside of the bottom of rock bottom. And that is why the high and holy one will be so present with you at the moment of your death.
- If our majestic Lord is present with us at our death, and he will be, then he is surely with us in all our sufferings leading up to death.
- God has dynamic energy. We have exhausted lethargy. The two go really well together, as long as we don't mind staying low before God.
- Stake your eternity not on your obedience or your attainments or your virtues, but stake all your hope on the atoning work of Jesus alone. He lived for you the virtuous life you've failed to live, and he died for you the atoning death you aren't even able to die.
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