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With: Reimagining the Way You Relate to God [Paperback]

Skye Jethani
4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (114 customer reviews)

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Book Description

August 23, 2011

Stop Living Your Life Under, Over, From and For God and Start Living in Communion With Him.

Endorsements:

If we've grown weary of Christianity, if we find most any local church uninspiring, maybe the problem lies not in the Christian faith or these faithful bodies, but in our own disgruntled hearts.  In With, Syke Jethani tenderly unmasks the clichéd posturing that too often masquerades as genuine communion with Christ.  More importantly, he takes readers to the humble place they must occupy―in prayer, studying Scripture, with the Church―if faith, hope, and love are to truly mark our lives.  ―James H. Gilmore, author, The Experience Economy

Made of the stuff of spiritual classics and presented in simple, contemporary terms, Skye Jethani does each of us a great service in calling us to reimagine the way we relate to God.  We so readily fall prey to living out distortions and reductions to our Christian faith―with disastrous consequences.  You and I are far more than sinners, consumers, managers, and servants.  We are dearly loved by God and made for eternal communion with him.  Everything looks different when we live life in response to God's love.  Paul Louis Metzger, Ph.D., Professor of Christian Theology & Theology of Culture, Multnomah Biblical Seminary and author of The Gospel of John: When Love Comes to Town

Cleverly using four prepositions—under, over, from, and for, Skye Jethani convincingly diagnoses the reigning paradigms of life―whether secular or religious—and shows how each one has captured some element of truth but in the end is deficient; Ultimately, they miss the most important thing—real communion with the living God. Thus utilizing one final preposition, With, he lays out what it really means to know and experience communion with God—a life of faith, hope and love―the very things that we all desperately want and need. This is a helpful, encouraging, and inspiring book.  ―Jim Belcher, author of Deep Church

It doesn’t matter, as old theologians were rumored to argue, how many angels can dance on a pinhead. But it does matter which preposition governs your faith―over, after, against, for, from, under, with. Who knew what huge worlds turn on such tiny words? Who knew what theological riches were laced into the bones of grammar? Skye has done a great service to the church. In prose elegant and clear, with insights keen and deep, he shows how everything changes with just one word: With. It’s a book I want my whole church to read.  Mark Buchanan, author of Spiritual Rhythm

Who knew that a preposition had so much influence? Skye's book will challenge the way that you think about God and faith digging deep into our motivations and heart issues. You can't read this book and not see yourself and others differently!  Margaret Feinberg, author of Scouting the Divine and Hungry for God

This book will do for our generation what J.B. Phillips, in his classic Your God is Too Small, did for his. With reveals views of God that can't satisfy and opens up the possibility for exploring a life with God that more than satisfies.  ―Scot McKnight, author of One.Life and The Blue Parakeet, professor of theology and biblical studies at North Park University

Since I dove into With, I can't stop thinking about it. Skye Jethani's insights will change how you think about God...and you...and how the two of you relate.  ―Dr. Kara E. Powell, Executive Director of the Fuller Youth Institute 

There’s a good reason why Skye is a senior editor at Leadership Journal…he writes with a stylish verve, real intelligence, and spiritual depth. Suggesting that the basic posture that you adopt towards God determines the quality, meaning, and direction of your life, With is designed to head readers in the right direction.   ―Alan Hirsch, author of Untamed, TheForgottenWays.org


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Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Skye Jethani (@skye_jethani) is the executive editor of the Leadership Media Group at Christianity Today and also contributes regularly to Relevant, The Huffington Post, and radio programs around the country. His blog (www.skyejethani.com) was awarded 2nd prize for the best Christian blog by the ECPA. Skye earned his MDiv degree from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, Illinois. He and his wife live in Wheaton, Illinois, with their three children.


Product Details

  • Paperback: 224 pages
  • Publisher: Thomas Nelson; First Edition edition (August 23, 2011)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 1595553797
  • ISBN-13: 978-1595553799
  • Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.5 x 0.7 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (114 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #12,466 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Skye Jethani (www.skyejethani.com) is an author, editor, speaker, and pastor. He is the senior editor of Leadership journal, a magazine and online resource published by Christianity Today International.

Customer Reviews

I really enjoyed this book and found it very thought-provoking. Thunder  |  19 reviewers made a similar statement
Only Life With God, the life God intended for us will bring real hope, faith and love. C. Dalziel  |  26 reviewers made a similar statement
God wants us to be in relationship with him, to know him, to love him. B. Marquard  |  18 reviewers made a similar statement
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
8 of 9 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent read, highly recommended August 2, 2011
Format:Paperback
Skye Jethani's latest book is incredible. When was the last time and thought about the way you lived your life? Do you live it for God? Or under God? Or maybe even over God? Well this whole book is dedicated to getting you to begin to live your live with God. Not just say that's how you're living, but really live your life with God. You'll evaluate the way you were brought to Christ and what kind of teaching you are receiving on Sundays as you read through this book. You'll reconsider the attitude you have towards God, is He a police office? A grandfather? A genie? Or is He a friend who you live alongside? I strongly recommend this book for everyone who calls themselves a Christian. It's an excellent book for evaluating where you are in your relationship with God, and how you can live life with Him.

I received this book for free from Thomas Nelson in exchange for a fair and honest review. The opinions above are my own, no one elses.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars A gravity-defying read August 15, 2011
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
"Christianity isn't a religion. It's a relationship."

If you've spent any time at all in the evangelical world, you've probably heard some version of those words. In his book With: Reimagining the way you relate to God (Nelson, 2011) Pastor and author Skye Jethani explains that most of us settle for an erzatz version of this relationship:

* Life FROM God: People in this category are focused on what God will do for them, rather than being interested in God himself. Word-of-faith believers and those who search for God's blessing on their success both capture the essence of this posture.
* Life OVER God: "Proven formulas and controllable outcomes" define this category, best typlifed by people like the jaded agnostic and the pastor who relies on formulas and organizational principles to build a church.
* Life FOR God: Those in this camp are known for their drive to do great things in God's service and being a world-changer. "Full time Christian service" is the penultimate expression of faith.
* Life UNDER God: Our role is to learn what God commands, and toil with great intensity to remain within those boundaries. Legalists personify this category.

Jethani noted that he has spent time living in each one of these categories. (Me too.) But he makes a compelling case for learning to live life WITH God - which, he says, is the only sort of relationship God has ever intended to have with us:

The Life With God posture is predicated on the view that relationship is at the core of the cosmos: God the Father with God the Son with God the Holy Spirit. And so we should not be surprised to discover that when God desired to restore his broken relationship with people, he sent his Son to dwell with us. His plan to restore his creation was not to send a list of rules and rituals to follow (Life Under God), nor was it the implementation of useful principles (Life Over God). He did not send a genie to grant us our desires (Life For God.), nor did he give us a task to accomplish (Life For God). Instead, God himself came to be with us - to walk with us once again as he had done in Eden in the beginning.

It is just that simple. Which is why, in our broken state, we tend to bollux it, distancing ourselves from Him as we settle for a life lived by the wrong preposition. Jethani's writing is winsome and accessible, and his message is gospel - good news - in the truest sense of the word. The first half of the book explains how our errant categories impede and distort relationship with God. The second half offers a wonderful exploration of what it means live with God - to live into the faith, hope and love that is his character and our birthright as his beloved. A couple of appendices (a brief introduction to some ancient prayer practices in order to cultivate a "with-life" and a thoughtful set of discussion questions) round out the book's 207 pages.

One of the best-loved passages in Eugene Peterson's The Message paraphrase captures the essence of the message of With. Jesus is speaking to a crowd of people who'd lived under, for, from and over God when he offers this invitation: "Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you'll recover your life. I'll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me--watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won't lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you'll learn to live freely and lightly." (Matthew 11:28-30 MSG)

I am prone to slide to one of the unhealthy postures (from, over, for, under) in my relationship with God. It's like a bad case of gravity, pulling me downward. With is a wise, wonderful reminder that only way to experience the gravity-defying unforced rhythms of grace is by living in the reality that God is with me, and I with him. Highly recommended.

I received a review copy of this book from the publisher.
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20 of 27 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars Not Just Your Ordinary One-word Title August 15, 2011
Format:Paperback
I was initially disappointed with With. At first glance it was another one of those one-word titled manuscripts that are a fluff of common facts and anecdotal yarns spun in a way to tickle the minds of those blind to the emperor's new clothes and designed to land on the bestseller's list. Malcolm Gladwell did it with Outliers and Blink. And now Skye Jethani, is doing it with With, taking one-word titles to a new low by using a preposition, one of the English language's lowliest parts of speech containing only a singular meaning. If it seems as though I'm tired of one-word book titles, you have it right. However, my initial reservations were blown to pieces by the time I reached the halfway point in the book. Despite his overuse of prepositions, Jethani has crafted an expose worth reading. Jethani confronts the comfortable mindsets of believers and non-believers in Jesus, exposing those mindsets as deficient to satisfy our deepest longings and relieve our deepest fears. Drawn from his experiences as a pastor and his research into current events, Jethani points to four attitudes that deprive us of intimacy with God and fail to relieve our fears.

Jethani's four approaches to life are named, defined, and expounded in the first five chapters using personal anecdotes, observations from his life and ministry, and quotes from contemporary literature. Life Over God, the easiest to of the concepts to understand, is life lived apart from God; God is not part of the picture of daily living. Life Under God, is the second least difficult to understand. Commonly termed "legalism", it is the belief that adhering strictly to a set of rules will provide blessing from God.

The next two approaches hit closer to home. The person living Life From God views God as a means to an end, perhaps not overtly, but holding an interior view that God's gifts, His blessings, are more valuable than relationship with Him. Here, Jethani discusses consumerism and its contained spiritual lie, but his most valuable illustration is the wayward son in Jesus' parable in Luke 15. There we see the son valuing his inheritance and his way of life over relationship with his father. Indeed, don't we all sometimes feel that our relationship with God just doesn't cut it and we'll go out to eat, enjoy a movie, or indulge in some other pleasure to fill the void, while feeling secure in our salvation?

Finally, Life For God, is a life lived for the mission, the life-purpose, rather than for the One who created your life. It is a life lived for the purpose and authentication provided by accomplishing the mission or goal, rather than remaining in relationship with God and letting Him provide our value. The most poignant story Jethani related in this chapter is his encounter with Christian students at a Christian college who believed that God was disappointed with them because of their struggles. They weren't living up to God's standards; They felt that they had failed God. As I continued to read this chapter, I suddenly felt like I had gained understanding of the preceding chapters.

Everyone, everywhere, at some time, stands with their soul's arms and feet stuck in one or all of these non-relational positions, like a cruel game of Twister, never able to reach the goal because the goal changes with each turn of the wheel. That's exactly what I've found life to be like with a God who is spirit, interpreted by imperfect humans. I'm writing here about myself and the preachers in my life, from my parents to my friends to the ones in the pulpit. What God wants is relationship and we want it too, except we get scared and fall back to our fall-back positions which end up being one or more of these mindsets, Life For God, Life From God, Life Under God, or Life Over God, where we become users of God instead of people who value God. What is the solution? How do we move from these destructive attitudes to the faith and assurance we desire?

The final four chapters of With tell us the value and method of living Life With God, a Life With Faith, a Life With Hope, and a Life With Love. Life With God teaches us to treasure, unite with, and experience God. How do we do this? First, we must learn to practice prayer as communion with the Father, in constant connection with Him, even if no words are exchanged. Examples from the life of Mother Theresa and Billy Graham show how they prayed in just this way.

A Life With Faith is a life without fear. It is trusting surrender to the One who holds us. Not cited in this book, the 2nd Chapter of Acts song "Nobody Can Take My Life Away" (from the album Rejoice) illustrates this for me. "Nobody can take my life away, because I gave my life to You." It's that simple: we surrender our lives in trust and He holds our lives securely against all forces and foes and turns a dangerous world into a safe one. Jethani presents a modern example of this: the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., whose trust in God enabled him to walk into the dark places free from fear for himself or his wife and children.

Life With Faith is extremely important because it influences our entire vision of the world around us. With sobering words, Jethani writes: "An unaltered vision of the word means most other elements of the Christian life will fail to make sense to us as well." The Christian life as Jesus posited it will seem unrealistic, impossible, and foolish.

Why is it so difficult for self-identified Christians to believe, let alone obey, [everything that] Jesus said? Well, if they still see the world as a fundamentally dangerous place in which their wellbeing is in constant jeopardy, then the call to love your enemy, give, freely, and not worry can only be dismissed as ludicrous.

It is only when we live with God and come to experientially know his goodness and love that the shadows break and these commands begin to make sense. If I am eternally same in the care of my Good Shepherd, and I come to see the world as a safe place, then I am set free from my fears. I am free to give rather than hoard. I am free to enjoy each day rather than worry. I am free to forgive others rather than retaliate against them. And I am even free to love the person determined to harm me.

In Life With Hope, Jethani discuss our search for meaning and significance and how seek to satisfy ourselves with external constructs such as our career, our family, or deriving order and meaning from religion or morality. But they all may fall like a house cards as the squalls of life blow through our lives upsetting our careful constructs. We attain meaning and significance from God, not from what we do for God.

Are you married? Then engage your marriage with God and learn to love your spouse as God has loved you. Are you single? Then be single with God and devote yourself to him. Are you a mechanic? Then commune with God in your work and repair cars as an act of devotion to him. Are you an office worker? Then welcome Christ to your desk as you serve your employer. . . In other words, the fullness of Christian life can be lived anywhere, in any circumstance, because God is with us. No condition of life is more honorable than another, because nothing God does lacks value.

Jethani gives us the moving example of the African slaves brought in chains to our country, and specifically of a slave in Maryland called "Praying Jacob." No one had worse circumstances than the slaves, but more hope in Jesus. As Praying Jacob said to his owner, "I have two masters--Master Jesus in heaven and Master Saunders on earth. I have a soul and a body; the body belongs to you, but my soul belongs to Jesus." Jethani advises us to encourage our hope through regular corporate worship and snatched moments during the day when we can commune with God.

Life With Love starts with love that quelled a prison riot and focuses on filling ourselves with God's love by practicing silence and solitude that we might more fully commune with God. God's love binds us to him in a way that lets us see Him as He is and to see ourselves as we truly are: Beloved of the Creator.

At the end of the book are two short appendices. The first, Communing With God, are some practical exercises and references. The second are group study questions. And finally, the notes. My constant quibble with end notes is the inability to easily find them while reading. Because they are labeled only by chapter number and not name, you must first locate the chapter you are in, find its number, then the note. How difficult would it have been to include the chapter name in the notes?

If you, like me, abhor one-word book titles, get over it and take a look at With by Skye Jethani. Ignore the prepositional title and chapters and the difficult beginning and read it to the end for a look at renewed community with God and others, renewed faith, renewed hope, and renewed love.

NOTE: the publisher has provided me with a complimentary copy of this book. I am glad they did; I might not have read it otherwise.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars Refreshment for your heart and soul
If I could sum up the whole book in a single sentence, it would be "You're not failing, you just haven't ever seen true Christianity defined. Read more
Published 2 days ago by CJ
2.0 out of 5 stars My copy of this book is set to be returned
I am not returning the book for content reason,but because much of the text is unclear and off-focus. This makes trying to read the book annoying. Hopefully, it's just my copy.
Published 10 days ago by Mrs. T
4.0 out of 5 stars With: Reimagining the Way You Relate to God
This book is for anyone struggling to find their identity in Christ. Skye Jethani examines 5 different postures that we typically take in our desire to live out our Christian... Read more
Published 1 month ago by Don Keele
5.0 out of 5 stars This book changed my entire world view
I read this book 4 times. When I reached the end... I turned to the beginning and started it again. Each time gleaning a bit more. Read more
Published 1 month ago by Paula
4.0 out of 5 stars Well said!!!
The reason I loved the book is because he in my opinion discreetly wrote about doctrine without ever saying so. Read more
Published 2 months ago by kayla
5.0 out of 5 stars Phenomenal!
The book arrived in amazing quality and the content of the book is PHENOMENAL! Definitely would recommend it to everyone!
Published 2 months ago by hailey
5.0 out of 5 stars A fresh and needed perspective
I first heard Skye Jethani at a conference (ACSD) and went to buy this book afterwards. The main premise is that often times we try to live Over God, Under God, From God, or For... Read more
Published 2 months ago by Steve Conn
5.0 out of 5 stars With: Reimagining the Way You Relate to God
Excellent book...loved it! Very informative, couldn't put it down after the third chapter. Many other people I know have read it also and really like this book too!
Published 2 months ago by ireadnow
5.0 out of 5 stars important for every believer to read!
This book was recommended to me by a seminary student from Wheaton. I asked him at a New Year's Eve party what was the most amazing thing he's learned so far. Read more
Published 2 months ago by Tiffany L. Thompson
5.0 out of 5 stars FREEDOME
This book foster true freedom in my life. I highly recommend it to anyone who is seeking freedom in God.
Published 3 months ago by David Glass
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