The Heart of Christ for Sinners and Sufferers

Since the beginning of the year, I have been blessed to get to know my church’s new pastor and his family. Each week since January, he and I have been meeting on Tuesdays to chat, plan, and pursue the Lord together with this book as our guide, and it’s been a very pleasant, growing experience.

Neither of us had heard of Dean Ortlund before, but according to the book’s flyleaf, he’s the chief publishing officer at Crossway, an elder in his Presbyterian church, and has a PhD. from Wheaton College. Now that I’ve read the book through, I’d also add that he’s an avid fan of Puritan writers and an author who knows how to wield a good metaphor.

The Premise of the Book

Ortlund informs his readers that he’d laid this book’s chapters out in no particular order, that one thought doesn’t necessarily build the next. Instead, each chapter is like a new angle on that singular diamond of Christ and his deep love for us. The book’s central theme stems from Christ’s words in Matthew 11:29, where He tells the crowd in verses 28-30:

“Come unto me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

This is the only place in Scripture where Jesus opens up to the people about His very heart, and out of a world of adjectives, He chooses to call Himself “gentle and lowly in heart.” Not “loving” or “forgiving” or “powerful” or “divine,” but “gentle” and “lowly,” two words that both reference his humility and point to his being an accessible Savior (20). For the rest of the book then, Ortlund hashes out from Scripture (and from a great deal of those Puritan texts) what exactly this means.

Jesus Calls Us Because We’re Sinner!

Because this was our book-study manual, my copy is so filled with underlines and highlights that I can’t actually tell what lines were so good that I’d have underlined them under normal circumstances. What I can recall, however, as a standout feature of almost every chapter is Ortlund’s emphasis on Christ’s Christ’s draw to us sinners. He is drawn to us because of our sin, not in spite of it. He wants the weary and the heavy-laden. He came to call sinners, not the righteous. Only the sick need the Physician.

While we’re tempted to think that we need to clean ourselves up before coming to Him, we’re wrong. Jesus wants us to come to Him when we’re dirty, because that’s our reality all day, every day. The only difference between a cup that’s filthy both inside and out and one that’s been cleaned only on the outside is that the first one isn’t trying to be something it’s not.

Jesus wants us in our brokenness, our nakedness, our weakness. Jesus wants us to know that He is gentle, lowly, humble, and accessible, because that’s the kind of Savior who would dare gravitate to us in natural, wicked, selfish, horrible, filthy state.

I know there’s weeks’ more information that I’ve gleaned from this book here inside these pages, but three weeks later, this is what stands out to me the most. I need never think that I need to clean myself up before running to my Savior—He’s the one to clean me, and only arrogance or unbelief would convince me that ain’t enough.

Conclusion

I really enjoyed this book. It’s one meant for meditation, so don’t run through it in an afternoon. Digest it and discuss it. It’s well worth your time.

©2021 E.T.

Personal Note:

This is my 700th book review to be posted on thelittlemanreviews.wordress.com since I first started posting in July, 2011. Hard to believe! Thanks for reading.