Book Review: God is Not Mad at You by Joyce Meyer

.

BOOK review

Started on: 13.April.2014
Finished on: 16.April.2014

God is Not Mad at You by Joyce Meyer

Title : God is Not Mad at You
Author : Joyce Meyer

Publisher : Faith Words
Pages : 239 Pages
Year of Publication : 2013

Price : $ 10.54 (www.bookdepository.com/)

Rating: 5/5
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

You may think, "There is absolutely no reason for God to love me," and you are absolutely right. But God does love you. He chooses to do so, and because He is God, He has every right to do so.... God loves us because He wants to, not because we deserve it.

God is Not Mad at You is a book written by Joyce Meyer who is a Charismatic Christian author and speaker; and it discusses about our fear of God based on Christian teachings. This book explains why we should fear God, but not be afraid of Him. And the book also discusses the reasons why most of the time we are afraid of God being mad at us. The title itself is very encouraging and it calms my heart, knowing that God is not mad at me. There are 20 chapters in total, and I will briefly describe the contents (with tons of quotes!) for you to have a better idea about this this book ;)

The first chapter is titled Is God Angry?, and it explains the fact that God's anger is different from ours. We get angry when other people hurt us, but when God gets angry, it is not because of what we are doing to him - but because of what we're doing to ourselves by not following His ways. Joyce Meyer stated that "His anger is for us, not against us.". When we sin, that is usually the time we are afraid that God will be angry at us and punish us. But the truth is, God hates sins, but he loves sinners. This chapter corrects our wrong mindset about God, and encourage us to believe that God can forgive our sins if we repent - and our gratitude for His mercy will make us want to please Him rather than be afraid of Him.

"The word of God teaches that it will be done to us according to how we believe. In other words, when I believe that God is angry with me because of my imperfections, no matter how much He loves me and wants to forgive and restore me, I will not receive it because I don't believe it."

"I now know that God is not angry with me; He isn't even annoyed with me! And it isn't because of my wonderful self; it is simply because He's in love with me. I'm no longer afraid to face Him just as I am."

The second chapter is Performance Mentality, which discusses about the people who feel like they have to do something to be able to get God's approval and acceptance. Some people woke up everyday thinking they had to pay for all their sins and mistakes of the day before, so they planned how good they would be - hoping God would favor them. Joyce Meyer emphasize that we should get off the treadmill and change this performance mentality. We need to realize how much God loves and already accepts us; so that every action and good works that we do is based on the right motive. The next chapter, Perfectionism and Approval, also talks about a similar topic; but it discusses more about sin and how we can never be perfect. Because we have weaknesses, that's why we need God to help us get back up and change for the better.

"God is not like the baseball coach who is disappointed in us when we strike out in the last inning and cause the team to lose the game. God knew that we would strike out before He let us play the game.... God has already accepted us; therefore, we don't have to try to perform in order to earn His acceptance."

"We cannot do enough right to make up for our wrong. We cannot pay God back; He doesn't want us to try to."

Chapter eight is about Guilt and Shame, which tells us that there's unhealthy form of guilt. If we feel guilty when we did something wrong, that is healthy - because it reminds us that we need to ask for God's or someone else's forgiveness. While unhealthy guilt is a false guilt - the one that lingers even after we have asked for forgiveness. This chapter reminded us that God forgive and forget our sins when we ask for it. On the other hand, Satan use false guilt to make us feel ashamed by reminding us of our past sins. The next chapter is about Religion; it talks about how keeping the law never produces good fruit. Some people only have religious attitude - who can easily tell others what to do, but they don't always do it themselves. When they do good works, they do them in order to be seen, so even their motives for doing them are self-serving. This chapter helps us correct this attitude from the core.

 

There are still many chapters left in the book, but I won't write much longer before I write about the whole book in this review. It is full of encouraging messages that makes us understand "Why is God not mad at me? Even when I'm this bad?". The understanding about God's love can heal our spirit and make us live a better life ahead. At the end of this book, Joyce Meyer also discusses about Spiritual Growth - that explains the important things we need to do after we have receive God's love, mercy, and acceptance in our lives.

"If you are afraid that you are not perfect, you don't need to be afraid anymore. I can assure you that you're not perfect so don't even think about it anymore. But I can also assure you of one more thing and that is, "God is not mad at you!""

This is probably the first time I'm reviewing a spiritual/Christian book in this blog, but I actually have been a huge fan of Joyce Meyer since I read Battlefield of the Mind (which I read in 2010). I still have the same experience from back then; Joyce Meyer's book totally changed my thinking - or if I could say, the revelation she wrote in her book healed me somehow. I have had problems with guilt of sins my whole life, but after reading this book I'm totally convinced how God is not angry like I thought He would be. The book is actually not that thick, but it is packed with substantial content.

"God is not for sale! He cannot be bought with good works of any kind. We must understand that our motives are extremely important to God. Yes, He does desire that we follow His example and do good things, but they absolutely must be done for the right reason. Any good work done to "get" something is ruined and has no value before God."

Joyce Meyer explain things in a straight-forward way that is easy for us to understand. She uses metaphor and also stories about people that relates to the topic - which makes it a lot easier for me to absorb the meaning. So many stories managed to make me cry (yes, I did cry reading a non-fiction book), because some of the stories illustrates how big God's love is for us. And those stories are not complicated either, it comes in a really simple and heartwarming form. Besides that, of course she also included Bible verses that convince us that what she said in the book is based on God's Words. I love the way the book flows, and it ended on a strong note: reminding us that we need to grow spiritually, and don't just stay as babies (spiritually). The best thing about the book, is all the wonderful and awesome quotes that I keep wanting to read everyday ! So I decided to write them all here :))

"Worrying is like rocking back and forth in a rocking chair all day long; it keeps us busy, but gets us nowhere."

"Being angry is like taking poison and hoping that it will kill your enemy. It only hurts you! Do yourself a favor and forgive."

"Never apologize for being the person you are. That would be like an apple tree apologizing for not being a banana tree. If you're an apple tree, then produce apples; if you're a banana tree, then produce bananas! It takes all kinds of fruit to make a fruit salad. My point is that God created us all very different on purpose. Each of us is unique and we have something to offer."

Overall, it was an amazing read - I am so motivated an inspired by this book. I am also extremely blessed to be able to read this book, and I really want other people to also read this book to feel the encouragement that I got from it. This is the kind of book I need to re-read someday in the future, just to remind me how much God loves me and how I should always change for the better - because I can never be a perfect person. I still have so many Joyce Meyer's books in my shelves, and I'm planning to read more soon ;)

"God's mercy is so great that you may sooner drain the sea of its water, or deprive the sun of its light, or make space too narrow, than diminish the great mercy of God." — C. H. Spurgeon

"We don't merely need mercy once in our life or occasionally, we need it frequently. Thank God His mercy is abundant and available at all times.... You and I can never do so much wrong that there is no more mercy left for us."

"The fact that we are still hurting does not mean that we are not forgiven. Pain doesn't mean that God is angry with us, or that He is punishing us. It just means that He is working and changing things for the better."

Lastly, always remember that God is not mad at you :))

"Fearing God properly means having such a reverence for Him that it has a great impact on the way we live our lives. The fear of God is respecting Him, obeying Him, submitting to His discipline, and worshipping Him in awe. The reverential fear of God means that we know He is powerful and always just and right in all of His ways."

by.stefaniesugia♥ .