Surprised by Jesus

Dane Ortlund’s Surprised by Jesus is a very helpful guide to a gospel-centered understanding of Christianity. Drawing from material gleaned from all four Gospels, Ortlund presents us with the compelling picture of ‘subversive grace’ — so different from the pale and timid imitation of pallid, anemic religion. Read this book and soak in the gospel of grace!

The world wants justice and, truth to tell, the church often wants that too. In this book, Dane Ortlund makes the case from the Gospels that what the church and the world to whom she witnesses needs is grace. Grace is counterintuitive, beyond price, and yet totally free. Left to ourselves, we hate it. We see it as demeaning. We regard it as witnessing to our moral corruption and weakness. Yet grace is God’s way of salvation as revealed in the acts and sayings of Jesus in the four Gospels. This book is that strangest of things: the heartfelt rebuke which brings so much encouragement, freedom, and joy. Well worth reading.

I love the goal of Dane Ortlund’s Surprised by Jesus: to fill our heart tanks with “the high-octane grace that takes our conscience by the scruff of the neck and breathes new life into us with a pardon so scandalous that we cannot help but be changed”. This is the kind of grace that makes disciples so love the Savior that they will give their lives for his glory.

Dane Ortlund … is a craftsman of prose, and more: he writes with theological discernment and an eye for heart application. To read this book is to have a surprising encounter with the Savior. Dane walks us through the four Gospels, highlighting Christ’s astonishing words and actions — actions never more astonishing than at Calvary. More than anything, as I read these pages I was reminded of the Savior’s stunning love for me and of his surprising grace — grace that is shockingly unmeasured, vast, and free.