The Sacred Romance: Drawing Closer to the Heart of God

This is an epic book filled eith wonderful revelation of God’s heart and our role in this world. Although lacking in biblical proof, the points made were spot on

I've read a number of John Eldredge's books. This was is special because he wrote it with Brent Curtis. For me, Chapters 8 & 9 are worth the price of this book. Clearly laid out in these two chapters is what we, as Christians, are up against when it comes to spiritual warfare and a deeper communion with God. "All of us are partly living out the story line the enemy offers us." Sobering words. As Brent goes on to say, "Satan's desire is to keep us away from communion with God. He doesn't care how he does it." Like most of Eldredge's books, he is serious about spiritual warfare and I am forever thankful for his ministry making this very real for me.This is not just a book on spiritual warfare. It's about not losing heart. It's about showing the gospel is intended to free is to love God. And that love is the Sacred Romance that we all truly desire.

What broke my heart woke me up to the Romance I so longed for. This book was written for me and about me. May this journey of progressive sanctification be the life long adventure with my eternal lover of my soul.Thank you beyond all measure!!

Theologically a nightmare. Here are some examples: On page 1 the author starts out by saying that the heart speaks to us and continues this idea onto page two. "The voice in our heart dares to speak to us again, more insistently this time. Listen to me - there is something missing in all this. You long to be in a love affair, an adventure. You were made for something more. You know it." Following this sentence the authors speaks about Samuel and how God was speaking to him and then goes on to basically say that God is speaking to us in our heart in these moments. However, the authors completely misuse the text in 1 Samuel 3. The way the authors word their statement you could assume that Samuel heard from the lord in his heart, but in the passage (the instance being referenced here) God speaks to Samuel in a vision. This is vastly different, and I don't know of any text that supports God speaking to the heart, but rather God changes the heart through regeneration and sanctification.The authors go on to say that we fail to recognize God when he is calling through our heart, but we are taught to be led by the Spirit, though, not through the heart. Isn't our heart to be judged and fixed by the word of God (Hebrews 4:12), and not leading us? The authors never mention scripture here in regards to God speaking to the heart, or the issue of confirming it is actually God speaking. My biggest "what" started below the previous text. The authors assume the heart is good and even imply that by neglecting our heart we start to sin or get distracted (p. 2 starting on the last line until the end of the paragraph on page 3). The authors say that we put our hearts to the side and, "we have an affair, or develop a colorful fantasy life fed by dime store romances or pornography...." and explain it by saying, "We make sure to maintain enough distance between ourselves and others, and even between ourselves and our own heart, to keep hidden the practical agnosticism we are living now that our inner life has been divorced from our outer life." Though, Jesus said, "For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, slanders" (Matthew 15:19). It is because of the heart that we sin, "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?" (Jeremiah 17:9).They carry out this theme that the heart is good, and go on to say that we "lose heart because of addictions and affairs and depression and heartaches" (p. 4). Furthermore, "Very seldom are we ever invited to live out of our heart..." and "we divorce ourselves from our heart and begin to live a double life" (p. 5). But again, living out of the heart is the problem if it is not directed at God, not neglecting the heart as a guide. We live a double life because of the heart's turning away vs our new nature in Christ. The “deceptive heart” of Psalm 12:2 is a Hebrew metaphor, “double heart” (a heart and a heart).Consider these statements, “Starting very early, life has taught all of us to ignore and distrust the deepest yearnings of our heart” and “Very seldom are we ever invited to live out of our heart” (p. 5) yet as Jesus said it is out of the hearts that evil comes, and so sinful man is very much trusting, acting upon, and living out of the heart. Consider Romans 1:21 on the unrighteous, “although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.” And, 1:24, “Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves.” It is the heart that is the problem, and this is the corrupt nature of man at work, which wrestles within the believer as well. It is the “lusts of the heart” that caused the “affair” or “pornography” the authors attribute to ignoring the heart. We do not “lose heart” when we have affairs, we are acting upon it. “But because of your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God's righteous judgment will be revealed” (Romans 2:5). "This is the unfortunate thing about everything that happens on earth: the same fate awaits everyone; The hearts of all people are full of evil, and there is madness in their hearts during their lives - then they die" (Ecclesiastes 9:3).In one moment, the authors call the heart the "flame of the human soul", which I assume means "passion" as they later call it "the passion of our life", but at other times they seem to imply it means something more. If the authors mean the heart in the biblical sense of the word (the whole man in his entirety) then they appear to be teaching against scripture. Note page 3, “a life without heart is not worth living”, but you can’t live a life without yourself. If they mean to define the heart as "passion" and tell us to listen to those passions that still seems rather strange to me. The authors say, "However we may describe this deep desire, it is the most important thing about us, our heart of hearts, the passion of our life. And the voice that calls to us in this place is none other than the voice of God" (p. 7). The voice that calls to us in the passion of our life is God? The authors seem to imply that God speaks to us through our emotions as passion is just an overwhelming emotion of excitement or enthusiasm. Yet Timothy 4:3-4 tells us, "For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths." Their passions led them to embracing false teachings and so I read a statement about God speaking to us through passions and it just seems wrong.The authors never really seem to truly identify what they are implying the heart is. If they hold that the heart is the "passion of our life" then they misrepresent Jesus' actual teachings (see page 7, paragraph 3) on the heart as Jesus knew the Hebraic meaning of the heart. Robert Saucy in his book, Minding the Heart, notes that there are 814 occurrences of “heart” (lev and levav) which solely relate to the human heart. The heart is the center of our being, it is who we are, the seat of our thoughts, emotions, and actions. “More than the soul and spirit, ‘the heart’ is the all embracing term for the human psychological phenomena” (Bruce Waltke). Hans Walter Wolfe, in Anthropology of the Old Testament, said, “The most important word in the vocabulary of the Old Testament anthropology is generally translated heart”. This being said, to neglect all of scriptures teaching on the heart is problematic. On pages 8-9, the authors say a lot that I could agree with, but I am still unsure about how they define the heart given some of their text. On page 10 they start talking about finding “the lost life of the heart” and I must admit I don’t know what to think of this statement. It appears the texts focus is on those who have strayed since they describe this all as, “this pilgrimage brings us to the destination, set within all of our hearts, which in some way we have known, longed for, and been haunted by since we were children" (p. 10). They blatantly describe the destination as the “intimacy, beauty, and adventure of life with God” but this gained in Christ and is maintained by abiding in Christ, his word and by shaping the heart with the Word (Hebrews 4:12). The authors state that “Most Christians have lost the life of their heart and with it, their romance with God (p. 10), and if this be the case than most Christians are failing to repent and return to the Lord. What is the “life of the heart” and how is its loss responsible for removing romance with God when the heart is wicked? Are they saying that Christians have lost the abundant life given to us in Christ? It is just unclear. These kind of statement makes me think that the authors define the heart by “passion”, but every now and then they say something that seemingly indicates that it is more than that such as, “It is our aim to help you ‘guard your heart,’ to see more clearly the enemies of your heart and the hearts of those you love; to enable you to better enter the battle for hearts to which our Captain calls us” (p. 11). It may be best to begin with the notion that we need to pray for God to create in us a clean heart as David did (Psalm 51).The Authors then mention “God’s resurrection of the heart” (p. 10), which sounds like regeneration to me, but that wouldn't make sense being that their audience is Christian. They then say, “we hope to help you discover your souls deepest longing and invite you to embrace it as the most important part of your life” (p. 11). This statement only makes sense to me if the writers are writing to unbelievers, yet they say they are writing to Christians. The souls’ deepest longing is communion and fellowship with God and that is embraced so long as you are abiding in Christ.I want to note that I am not neglecting the importance of “guarding your heart”, or the heart itself. In fact, the heart is extremely important, which is why I said there are some things they said that I could agree with. My main issue is that the authors seem to place too much emphasis on living out of the heart, and have not yet mentioned that the heart must be changed if there is a problem, because the heart is the sources of those problems. Robert Saucy once said, “If our heart controls the “issues of life” – our thoughts, attitudes, aspirations, feelings, talk, and behavior – we can only conclude that the problems of our life are ultimately problems of the heart. We don’t experience the abundant life of love, joy, and peace for which we were created because something is seriously amiss in our heart.”There is no clear understanding of what they mean by the heart, and if they mean it in the biblical sense they completely neglect a theme running throughout all of scripture, “The intent of man’s heart is evil from his youth” (Genesis 8:21). “The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually” (Genesis 6:5).In the Author's emphasis of the heart, and living from it and through it, I can’t help, but think of this quote “Other places in the Old Testament speak of the heart “lifting up” the person (2 Kings 14:10) or the heart being “lifted up” (Deut. 17:20). The arrogant heart is also pictured as “great” or “important” as well as “wide” or “broad” and in some cases, simply literally “proud” or “insolent”” (Saucy, Minding the Heart, p. 51). Proverbs 16:5, “Everyone who is proud in heart is an abomination to the Lord”, and to be “proud of heart” literally means to be “high of heart” here.

I am a huge fan of John Eldredge and his books. There is no other author I’ve found whose words I can relate to so precisely. I first discovered Eldredge in 2001 with his book Wild at Heart. And though I’ve read nearly all of his other major writings, I never completed this book. It is worth the read even if you are already familiar with Eldredge’s philosophy and message.Eldredge and (the late) Curtis have a gift of engaging the heart. Through the nostalgia of times past before Curtis’ death following the writing this book, my heart was immediately exposed, vulnerable to the truths presented in this book.I recommend this book to anyone wanting to rend their hearts, as if watching an epic drama, in order to awaken it to the life in was originally intended to have.

I liked this book for its unusual approach to God’s love for us, His unceasing pursuit of us in our waywardness and our flight from Him.It brought me up short when I was in severe depressionI had been complaining to my older son and he recommended this book.The book is not for the faint or lighthearted. Be prepared to meet the Person Who can and will change you, given your permission.Remember the command: You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and mind and strength.”This book will help you do just that.Sincerely yours,Dennis R. McKnight, (DOB 01/08/1942-Pearl Harbor + 1 month & 1 day)

Secular things that people associate with “living” are false promises that leave us empty if they are all our dreams are about. They are just pointers to the true fountain of Romance that our heart always long for, the fellowship with the Triune God.

Excellent book! It is a book that you will want to re-read and you will find something new each re-read. Also you will want to highlight & make notes throughout the book. I would not have ordinarily chosen this book as I am not typically a non fiction reader. But this was a Book Club choice & I am so happy to have it in my library to read again & again!

Such a great wake up call to the church. Eldredge has opened the door on long held truths which provide the antidote to boring church and a potentially boring and dead Christianity. Read this with other books to rekindle your first love for Christ. Such a challenge but what an adventure we are being called to

An absolutely amazing book. one of the best Christians books I have ever read. It shows you the love of God in a true and life changing way. Couldn't stop reading and as soon as I finished I read it again.

Great book. Gave me the inspiration to find true, deep and lasting romance with God/Christ

Excellent read.

wonderful book, highly recommend