I like to chat back and forth with my friend Luma in Arabic because I know how hearing her heart-language makes her heart glad. Have you met Luma Simms yet? If not, check out the two-part interview we conducted with her last year and the guest post she contributed to Domestic Kingdom.
Luma has just written a book that is releasing today on the Gospel-Centered Discipleship website.
Gospel Amnesia opens with a jolting story:
“I used to be a Christian who did not think about Jesus. I used to be a Christian who was bored with Jesus. I remember telling my husband one day that I was tired of him telling me ‘Jesus loves you, Luma.’ It all seemed trite and superficial. I wanted, I needed, something deeper. Something more challenging to my mind, more impactful than ‘Jesus died on the cross for your sins.’ That tired story, heard countless times since my father first spoke the gospel to me in a train station in Thessaloniki, rang hollow.”
Perhaps what is most alarming about this story is that it could also be yours. Who of us has not experienced a spiritual desert where we felt as though the weighty truth of the gospel was but an apparitional mist? Maybe you’re among those who can identify with this testimony of God’s grace:
“At the end of hope, feeling and believing myself to be on the receiving end of the hot displeasure and disappointment of a holy God, I crashed. And then, when there was nothing left of me, there was Jesus. Savior, Redeemer, Friend.”
Gospel Amnesia is about what can happen before and during the aforementioned “end of hope.” Although this book is one of the most descriptive pieces I’ve read on what it practically looks like to assume, forget, and marginalize the gospel, the author is not content to merely point out the hot sand and the suffocating air of the desert. Luma writes to refresh thirsty souls and she points to where the oasis of hope lies—in Jesus Christ the Living One who declared, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give from the spring of the water of life without payment” (Rev. 21:6).
The Apostle Paul is known for his “you who were once” statements about our lives apart from Christ, which he always follows up with glorious pictures of our new life in Christ. In Gospel Amnesia, woven throughout the definitions of assuming, forgetting, and marginalizing the gospel, you’ll find personal testimonies of God’s rich mercy toward sinners. Readers can appreciate this edifying fellowship as Luma is compelled to stir us up by way of reminder and is reminding herself, too.
Worn out by gospel-centrality talk, bored with the Good News, or not, Gospel Amnesia will awaken your affections for your First Love.
*You can order your copy of Gospel Amnesia ebook on the Gospel-Centered Discipleship website.*
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Gloria, looks like a great book and I think very common today to become almost numb to the gospel after years of hearing….I think of how often I see the word “Remember” rolling off of God’s lips as he pleads with Israel.
I did a blog “launch” like you recommended today with my book giveaway here: http://www.nourishingpassions.com/. I so much appreciate your help and advice in getting started
Excellent lesson to learn over and over again. The Good News is the greatest news.
Cheers,
Tim
Beth, that’s awesome! I’m on my way over right now to check out your blog…
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