My Review of THE GOSPEL OF YES by Mike Glenn

How we view God is the most important thing about us and the thing that shapes our approach to all of life, but what if your view of God could be summarized in his use of the word “no”? That seems to be the struggle for many Christians and even non-Christians, that God wants to limit you and keep you from anything you might truly enjoy. And this view of God in itself is very limiting to how we live our lives. It either keeps us from doing things that God may in fact want for us because we believe just the opposite. Or it may keep us from God himself because we want to do what we want to do, and we don’t want God stopping us. Really, either way we’re kept from a close connection to God because we greatly misunderstand who he is and what he wants for us.

Mike Glenn, pastor of Brentwood Baptist Church in Brentwood, Tennessee, argues that our view of God should really be summarized by the word “yes.” In his new book THE GOSPEL OF YES, Glenn walks us through a journey of a God who is passionate about the great purpose for which he created all things and humanity specifically. God, who is infinitely good and loving, is really all about saying yes, and this is affirmed throughout the Bible beginning with God’s “yes” to create. Of course, God does tell us no when the things we’re doing are destructive to us. Glenn carefully and beautifully articulates the heart of God toward humanity in his great love for us and great sadness at our sinfulness, which mars the image of God in us and corrupts the purpose for which he created us. God’s “yes” is his divine intention, and it is unbelievably good.

God’s divine intention for our good was so great that not even our sinfulness was going to stand in the way of God doing everything he could to undo what our sin has done. Jesus is the summation of God’s “yes” to humanity. Jesus is the fulfillment of God’s “yes.” In Christ, we find new life and a unique destiny that each of us are meant to fulfill. God created each of us for a purpose. We can choose to deny God’s divine intention for us, but we’d be missing out on a truly satisfying purpose for which we were made.

Using personal stories and God’s revelation of himself in Scripture, Glenn invites us into a journey with God as he really is. THE GOSPEL OF YES does a great job of dismantling our misconceptions about God’s character and repaints a biblical picture of a God who is passionate about his glory and our good. Christians everywhere need to read this book.

I received this book for free for review from Waterbrook Multnomah, and the opinions contained in this review are completely my own