Review: Does God Really Like Me?

Kathy Hillman reviews "Does God Really Like Me?" by Cyd and Geoff Holsclaw.

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Does God Really Like Me? Discovering the God Who Wants to Be With Us

By Cyd and Geoff Holsclaw (InterVarsity Press)

Sometimes parents remind siblings: “You don’t have to like them. You just have to love them.” Jesus says, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” He doesn’t say “like.” The Bible teaches that God loves the world, but does he really like us—individually? Cyd and Geoff Holsclaw, copastors of youth and families at Vineyard North in Grand Rapids, Michigan, answer that question in Does God Really Like Me?

The authors divide their response into four sections: God’s Idols (his plan), God’s House (his presence), God’s Body (his purpose), and God’s Movement (our place). The copastors fill the pages with biblical and personal stories and illustrations, applications and encouragement, practice, reflection, songs to hear, questions and diagrams. They explain how past events, positive or negative, “color our experience of God.” Being constantly ignored, shamed or reprimanded leads to feelings of rejection and the question, “Is God just putting up with me?” Cyd and Geoff describe how the joy of wanting to be with someone and their feeling the same way offers assurance they both love and like us, and God clearly wants to be with us in prayer, worship, his word and silence.

Does God Really Like Me? should be required reading for any Christian who feels undesirable, inadequate or unliked. As with human relationships, time spent with God in special places of joy gives confidence in how much he loves us, likes us, wants to be with us and desires to bless us. After all, God invites us into his family and into “the family business.”

Kathy Robinson Hillman, former president

Baptist General Convention of Texas

Waco


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