Love Beyond Reason by John Ortberg Essay

BOOK REVIEW

1. Writer of the Book: John Ortberg
2. Title of the Book: Love Beyond Reason
3. Name of the Publisher: Zondervan
4. Topographic point of Publication: New York
5. Date of Publication: 01^stFebruary 2001
6. Genre: Non-Fiction

About the Writer

John Ortberg is a senior curate at Menio Park Presbyterian Church in Menio Park, California. He is the bestselling writer of Who is this Man? ; The Me I want to be ; Know Doubt ; When the Game is Over, It all goes back in the Box ; God is closer to you than you think ; The Life you’ve ever wanted ; If you want to walk on H2O, you’ve have got to acquire out of the boat ; Love Beyond Reason and the multimedia course of study – Old Testament challenge.

Summary of the Book

God loves you non because you are a perfect individual, non because you are without defects, but he loves you for the individual who you are.

In Love Beyond Reason, John Ortberg reveals that God who loves you unconditionally, a Father who is in love with you and who desires your ultimate joy. John Ortberg takes you to the really nucleus of God’s being who loves you passionately with love that gives, gives and gives. This love which is life altering is expressed itself through Jesus. And he shows how you, like Jesus, can love your partner, your household, your friends and the universe around you with the same transforming love.

Chase awaying you misconceptions about God, Love Beyond Reason convey you face-to-face with the love that transforms you, frees you and empowers you to love others as Jesus loves us.

Reappraisal

John Ortberg, the writer of Love Beyond Reason, has a subject that he mentions throughout his book. This subject revolves round a shred doll. John Ortberg begins the book by stating the narrative of his sister’s childhood doll – called Pandy. Pandy was a new, beautiful doll and in a heartfelt way loved by the author’s sister – Barbie. Wherever Barbie went, Pandy would attach to her. When Barbie went to bed, Pandy lay following to her. When Barbie had tiffin, Pandy Ate beside her at the tabular array. Pandy used to take bath with Barbie. Barbie loved her. She loved her with a love that was excessively strong for Pandy’s ain good. Ortberg decribes a clip when they had gone for a holiday to Canada ; on their manner back to place in Rockford, Illinois when Barbie realised that she left Pandy back in the hotel in Canada. Without vacillation their male parent drove back to the hotel in Canada and got back Pandy back from the hotel. The love she had for her doll was about a fatal attractive force.

Old ages passed and Barbie grew up. She got married and moved off. Finally Pandy became a old shred doll, about forgotten and was wrapped and stored in the Attic for 20 old ages. Barbie had three kids, the youngest was a small miss named Courtney, who shortly reached the age where she wanted the doll. Barbie went back to the Attic and dragged Pandy out of the box. By this clip, though, Pandy was more rag than doll. Because Pandy was in such bad status and was unsuitable for her girl to play with, Barbie took Pandy to a doll infirmary in California. At this particular infirmary Pandy had to travel through rehabilitative surgery. The infirmary gave a face lift to the doll and Pandy became one time once more every bit beautiful as she was originally. Even though Pandy was new and beautiful once more, Ortberg states that ”Barbie did non love Pandy because Pandy was beautiful. She loved her with a sort of love that made Pandy beautiful” .

Ortberg goes on to state his readers that the love which Barbie had for her shred doll Pandy, the same sort of love God has for each of his kids. Ortberg says that we are all shred dolls – flawed and wounded, broken and dead set. We all are rag dolls. But we are God’s shred dolls. But still God loves us. This is a love beyond ground. This love turns rag dolls into invaluable hoarded wealths. This love makes the ragged small animals cherished and valued beyond computation. God doesn’t love us because he has to, he loves us because he wants to. God delectations in us. Throughout the book, Ortberg portions stories about different sorts of shred dolls – a adult male with leprosy, a brother death of AIDS, a kid born anacephalic ( with merely a encephalon root to transport on the most basic maps ) , a cocotte ( Agnes ) in Hawaii, the parents with the Down Syndrome kid. We all are rag dolls in some manner, yet, God loves us still the same.

Based on the different shred doll illustrations, Ortberg brings out the of import issues that help readers understand the deepness and the world of God’s love. He besides explains how Christians are supposed to move, react based on this love. Some of the points that were discussed in this book that aid in understanding this sort of love include:

1. Paying attending to God and people: The first work of life in God’s love is larning to pay attending to him. The first undertaking in religious life, the one to which we must return over and over, is merely this: to pay attending to God. This is disputing plenty, sing the the trouble we have paying attending to anyone. To pay attending to God we must be still. Stillness is ever the pre-requisite for receptiveness. In add-on to go toing to God, I am called to go to to the people who mean so much to him. The work of love is the work of paying attending. If you want to make the work of God, pay attending to people. Notice them. Particularly notice the people cipher else notices.
2. Giving and accepting 2nd opportunities: Our God is a God of 2nd opportunity. The Bible is full of images of God’s hankering to give 2nd opportunities. The truth is, shred dolls need 2nd opportunities all the clip. If you are holding a conflicting relationship with your parents, you are involved is dishonorable fiscal patterns, you fail in something that affairs – at your life’s work or matrimony or parenting ; dont concern, you would be given a 2nd opportunity to get down once more.
3. Finding contentment in being loved: Ortberg provinces that discontent was a major subject in the life of people of Israel. The people of Israel complained for H2O, for staff of life, for meat. And each clip God satisfied the desires of their bosom. And so it went for 40 old ages. No affair what God gave them – release from bondage, godly counsel, the gift of Ten Commandments, manna and H2O, and hope and a hereafter – it was ne’er plenty. The people died grouching. Ingratitude is one of our most ragged qualities. But God loves us even with our ragged, insatiate desires. We must be content with what God has given us in our lives and thank him ever for these gifts – the gift of life, being a kid of God, holding confidence of God’s love through Christ, the counsel and the power of the Holy Spirit.
4. Accepting the traffic circle ways: When the people of Israel were acquiring ready to travel to the Promised Land ; they could non hold expected it would take long. It was non a awfully long trip – less than 200 stat mis. They could make it in a affair of hebdomads. But God had an alternate path in head. God did non take them by manner of the land of the Philistines, although that was nigher ; for God thought, ’If the people face war, they may alter their heads and return to Egypt. So God led the people by the traffic circle manner of the wilderness which took 40 years.If we take religions in God earnestly we excessively will larn something of his traffic circle ways. We endure fiscal crisis, we cherish a dream for old ages looking frontward to the twenty-four hours when it is traveling to come true, and so one twenty-four hours we realize non merely it has non come true, but it is non traveling to go on. The dream dies and so make we. We are confused and inquire why, but receive no reply. We pray but there is no response. Our spirit, our psyche feels dry and bare. But God has non forgotten us. He has non abandoned us. He leads us in traffic circle ways. He is non in a haste. God’s manner is seldom the quickest manner. It is sledom the easiest manner. But it is ever the best manner.

The book closes with the humbling chapter that presents God as a ragged doll. He became every bit ragged as the 1 he loved. His roughness became the really signature of his presence. He was born in a trough, lived as a hapless carpenter, he hung out with evildoers and castawaies. This is the God who removed his robe and wrapped a servant’s towel around him with which to rinse his disciples’ pess. The God who at last was mocked and stripped of a violet robe and crucified have oning a Crown of irritants. Of all the Gods of myth, literature and faith, this alone is the Ragged God.Through the cross God reveals his humbleness and servanthood. In the cross we see God in all his roughness.

To reason, Ortberg states that the glorification of God is non merely his power and might and majesty. His glorification is that he would come to this corner of the existence, to this undistinguished planet, to a ragged people he could non convey himslef to fling. His glorification is that one twenty-four hours he laid aside his stateliness and cloud nine and came strike harding at our door.

Decision

I exhaustively enjoyed reading this book. This is the perfect book to read about God’s ne’er stoping and unconditonal love for us. Before we can be transformed, we must hold an apprehension of how much God truly loves us.

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