With all your heart: orientating your mind, desires and will toward Christ
A. Craig Troxel
Crossway, 2020

To be honest I would probably have passed over this book if I hadn’t been alerted to it by the Bishop of Ealing. But that combined with glowing endorsements from Sinclair Ferguson, Beeke, Trueman and Van Dixhoorn persuaded me to have a look. And while I struggled to read it right through, it certainly seems to be a useful resource to have, which I suspect I will refer back to when preaching on certain passages.

The book is divided up into four sections: knowing, loving, choosing and keeping. I found the chapter on ‘the desires of your heart’ particularly helpful. The legend of Orpheus is a good illustration of how ‘we can pass some tests by restricting our bodies or limiting our access to temptation. But in the end, the holy desires of our heart must arise and conquer’.

I also found it helpful on the different words the Bible uses for sin.

Some chapters are so dense with references that they seem more like Bible dictionary entries. Also an illustration of people queuing up to buy a ‘Play Station 3’ in 2006 (the year before the iPhone was launched!) suggests that this is tried and tested material, but which perhaps hasn’t been updated for publication the way it could have been.

Overall though it’s a helpful resource which I’m sure I’ll come back to.

Thanks to Crossway for a complimentary copy of this book through their Beyond the Page review programme.