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Relationships Matter

by Michael Deutsch

August 3, 2012

@Mishana

This book is a reprint of a 2004 book, entitled "Out of the Question . . . Into the Mystery," and is subtitled, "How we got the point but Missed the Person." This is a very powerful book by Sweet and is very challenging. The premise for Sweet is that we've lost our first love. Jesus should be our first love, we should have a dynamic faith, yet we have allowed belief to trump faith

Of course we need both, but Sweet believes we've bought into rules over faith. We talk about belief, but not about the relationship which should come from our belief in Jesus. We don't exhibit the transformed life Paul talks about in 2 Corinthians 5:17.

Sweet believes we are missing the point and relationships should be the cornerstone of our faith. Without relationship, relationship with Jesus; then relationship with one another, we cannot demonstrate love.

Some quotes from Sweet include ~

• "We are more in love with our principles of peace, than we are with the Prince of Peace."
• "We don't follow Jesus because we understand Him or because we know the truth about Him. We follow Jesus because He is the Truth, and He leads us into truth through our relationship with Him."
• "Faith in God is a relationship involving all of who you are and all that is around you. Faith is a lived encounter, a relationship of truth with the divine."

There are great study questions at the end of the book. As this would be great for a book study, albeit a very deep one. Overall, this is another excellent book from Leonard Sweet.

I received this book for free from WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group for this review.