The God-Shaped Heart by Timothy Jennings, MD

Psychiatrist Dr. Timothy Jennings wants to help Christians better understand this love that God has for us. It is a word that is often used vainly, and in Jennings opinion, needs to be connected with how much of the world understands laws.

What if we could mature out of our current understanding of rules. Dr Jennings calls them the seven levels of moral decision making.

1) Reward and Punishment
2) Marketplace Exchange
3)Social Conformity
4) Law and Order
5) Love for Others
6) Principle-based Living
7) Understanding friend of God

Jennings believes most people live around the 3-5 range most of their lives. Some can reach higher and a few stick to the lower numbers. The desire is to reach level seven.

Dr. Jennings often comes back to these levels as he explains certain ideas that have been confused or misunderstood by Christians.

I like a lot of what I read in this book. There was some great food for thought and challenging concepts that I wound up pondering and chewing on. But there are other times when his conclusions got me a little riled up.

He goes after the death of Jesus on the cross and the purpose of that pretty heavily. He challenges that belief of God demanding payment for sin. He challenges quite a lot of what most mainline Christians have held on to for their doctrine and beliefs.

He dives into how Christians should treat one another including those who identify as homosexual. It was refreshing to read a point of view that was hate-filled (for either position).

I really enjoyed how calming and enjoyable his writing style was. It felt like I was reading a deep book but it was not at all boring. If nothing else, this book gave me so much to consider and challenge by way of my own beliefs about God, Jesus, Sin, and humanity.

This book was provided for review, at no cost, by Baker Books.