A Repentant Heart: The Joy of Restoring Intimacy With God

Dudley Delffs explores why repentance is essential to the development of a truly intimate relationship with our Father. Attempts to deal with our sin ourselves through denial, penance, and false feelings of self-sufficiency leave us mired and unforgiven.Simple repentence, however, brings liberation and communion with God.

Counselor and writer, Delffs, examines the need of Christians for true repentance, or turning to God, as the means of entering a deeply intimate relationship with the creator. While many Christians try to overcome temptation and sinfulness on their own, according to Delffs, it is only when they can come to depend on God's forgiveness and grace that repentance actually begins. Delffs offers no formula for repentance but urges prayer and involvement in a Christian community in the struggle to overcome temptations. The greatest strength of the book is the author's willingness to share his own very personal struggles with repentance. Recommended for most libraries.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Delffs offers another book in the long line of self-help material currently on the market. Using ongoing anecdotes about troubled individuals, Delffs invites comparisons, analyzes the problem, and suggests that each individual is longing for God and so needs to find the courage to repent for past behavior. At the end of each chapter, readers are encouraged to reflect on the stories and write down their feelings in a journal. To aid in the process, Delffs includes entries from his own journal. For those who are seeking a solution to some of the problems of everyday life, this book offers a valid solution. Although the approach is somewhat pious, Delffs' faith is obvious and his intentions are sound. The book would be more effective, however, if each one of his hypothetical anecdotes did not overtly or covertly point to women as the primary source of problems. Mary Deeley