Be The Messenger, Live Like the Message

Be The Message: Taking Your Faith Beyond Words to A Life of Action, is written by a pastor, Kerry Shook, and his wife Chris. It is a book written from feelings of not doing enough. The authors "felt a gap between what they were saying and the needs of people around them", so they decided to start living out the Word, instead of just preaching it. The book is written in four sections:

Transforming: Your Words into a Life Message,
Discovering: Your Unique Life Message,
Understanding: The Message That Confounds the World, and
Taking: Your Life Message to the World Around You.


While I believe that this book is well-written and is full of good advice to motivate Christians to get out and actually live like Jesus did, I do not agree with some of what the pastor says. The biggest statement that I question is one of the basic building blocks of the book, which is why I even address it: "Jesus is the Word. The Word is the Gospel. Christ, the Word, lives in you, Translation. You are the gospel...Friend, you are I are the gospel." While I understand where the author is trying to get across, what he is saying is not that we are the gospel. To continue translating it the way that he does, he would end up saying we are Jesus. 

This is simply incorrect. I believe that we are to be messengers of the message, who is the Word, who is Christ Jesus, but no human will ever be perfect, like Christ. The message us messengers should send to the world is that OF Jesus, for He died on the cross and rose again for our sins, for us to tell the world of all He did for us, and continues to do.

I reiterate that much of the advice on how to get out and live like Christ in this book is very helpful and encouraging. I cannot, however, agree with the authors' main base for this book, which is that we are the message. We are simply the Messengers. 

For more information about the book, visit http://bethemessage.org.

I received this book for free from bloggingforbooks.com.