John Piper’s Finally Alive addresses a very important topic for today’s church. The title finally alive stresses the biblical inherent result of salvation. Scripture terms this as “born alive.” Piper introduces this work with some strong statements against the Barna association’s recent statistical findings regarding the state of the evangelical church in America. The survey compares divorce rates and other similar demoralizing trends within the church and outside the church. The problem, as Piper mentions, is in the “born again” terminology used to label these sin-bound people within our churches today. Though painful, I was pleased to read Piper’s verdict…basically saying that the problem lies not within worldly Christians but in churches filled with religious non-born-again people. Bringing the Scriptures (2 Cor. 4, 1 Peter, as well as others) to bear on this critical subject, Piper unpacks the implications and actual meaning of being “born again.”

In the introduction, he makes mention of the Gospel’s implications on evangelism and how it relates to God’s sovereign heart enlightenment. As the book comes to a close, the last section fully addresses this in a succinct, simple, and profound manner. The Gospel is to be proclaimed by the redeemed as we then trust God to do the actual heart-enlightenment work all for the Father’s glory. We have this awesome responsibility and we must be fulfilling it. At the same time, we must learn to focus on God’s active involvement in the evangelism process. It is not us who get people saved, but God. That should be encouraging! Both aspects, however, are involved and Piper does a great job of balancing them for us.

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