Dying to Live
The Paradox of the Crucified Life
by Clive Calver
GoodBookStall Review:
Clive Calver presents the challenge of taking up our cross in this slender but challenging book, reinforcing the message out of his own varied Christian experience and with many other stories. “The cost of daily crucifying our old life and resurrecting into a new way of living”, he writes, “has drifted into the background of Christian thought”, overtaken by a diet of the latest programmes, processes and strategies, and by what we regard as more important matters of life. Of course, Jesus died for us, but we are called to die, too, and to live “on the far side of the cross”. Crucifixion precedes resurrection. Calver firmly puts dying to self and taking up our cross into the foreground where it belongs, in such chapters as ‘Crucified’, ‘Surrender’, and ‘Sacrifice’, ‘Dying’ and ‘Broken’. Reading this will forcefully remind Christians of something of fundamental importance, which we may be in danger of forgetting. It will help to counter the ‘Me-culture’ that affects the church as well as the world. It won’t take long to read, but will take a lifetime to put into practice! (Please don’t be put off by the excessive number of ‘typos’ in the book.)
Reviewer: Barry Vendy (30/10/09)
Clive Calver presents the challenge of taking up our cross in this slender but challenging book, reinforcing the message out of his own varied Christian experience and with many other stories. “The cost of daily crucifying our old life and resurrecting into a new way of living”, he writes, “has drifted into the background of Christian thought”, overtaken by a diet of the latest programmes, processes and strategies, and by what we regard as more important matters of life. Of course, Jesus died for us, but we are called to die, too, and to live “on the far side of the cross”. Crucifixion precedes resurrection. Calver firmly puts dying to self and taking up our cross into the foreground where it belongs, in such chapters as ‘Crucified’, ‘Surrender’, and ‘Sacrifice’, ‘Dying’ and ‘Broken’. Reading this will forcefully remind Christians of something of fundamental importance, which we may be in danger of forgetting. It will help to counter the ‘Me-culture’ that affects the church as well as the world. It won’t take long to read, but will take a lifetime to put into practice! (Please don’t be put off by the excessive number of ‘typos’ in the book.)
Reviewer: Barry Vendy (30/10/09)
