Okay, we’re midway through the first day of 2011. Anyone break their resolution yet? Frustrating, isn’t it?
Well, here’s my resolution: to love Jesus more and worry about everything else less. And the only way to do that is to spend more time in communion with God. Jennifer Kennedy Dean’s Live a Praying Life is a great source for doing just that. Here’s a little something to whet your appetite for this excellent book.
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The noun alter is usually understood to be a place of worshipful offering. Something of value is offered up and released on the altar. The offerer relinquishes ownership and yields control to Another– a Power beyond.
Author Jennifer Kennedy Dean, in her book Life Unhindered!, turns the noun altar into a verb. She challenges us to altar our fear, our failure, our possessiveness, our need to control… All those things that hold us captive and keep us from running the race at full throttle.
Live in an altar’d state: surrendered, yielded… Free. Not offering sacrifice to appease a god who is vengeful; or to placate a god who is witholding; or to win the approval of a god who is angry. Live an altar’d life to cooperate with the God who is committed to seeing you free of the toxic and hindering emotions that work against your freedom. Let the altar do its work in you, transforming fear to faith , worry to worship. Each time that old thought pattern starts asserting itself in your thoughts, overlay it with the new reality: I’m altar’d
On the altar, flesh is surrendered to crucifixion. Crucifixion is the prelude to resurrection. Altar’d living frees us to live in the power of His resurrection.
Jennifer is known for her imaginative reframing of eternal truth, and again she gives us a powerful revision of an ancient symbol. She first introduced us to the difference between a prayer life and a praying life, and now leads us to the power of altar’d living.
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Interested? Find out more and order at http://www.newhopepublishers.com/index.php/2010/09/jennifer-kennedy-dean-releases-new-and-revised-live-a-praying-life/