B&H LifeWay Review

Stop Asking Jesus Into Your Heart
Teen Edition
How To Know For Sure You Are Saved
J.D. Greear

Reasons I chose this book to review:
The Title (Hello!)
Teen Edition (Two of them reside in our home)
The Subtitle (Everyone wants to know FOR SURE)
The Author (Was just elected to a high office in the SBC)

Exterior:
Eye catching
Hard Back
7ishX5ish

Love it, especially for teens. WHY? Because it's easy to stick in their string bags or backpacks. It's PORTABLE. Necessary, right?

Interior:
Reputable reviews: (I would name drop here, but I really don't think its necessary. A couple who stood out to me were Dr. David Platt and Dr. Russell D. Moore)
Foreward: Dr. Paige Patterson (If you follow him, you'll understand the controversy. If not, no matter. I found his review honest and relatively straightforward *pun intended)
118 pages of content
8 chapters with simple titles

Very user friendly, guys. You won't be intimidated to start reading. Table of Contents and thorough Notes section included.

Content:
The title of the first chapter is Baptized Four Times. This immediately caught my attention because I grew up as a Southern Baptist preacher's kid. The whole "rinse and repeat" cycle when discussing the repentance prayer/salvation/baptize comparison Greear describes in this book is overly familiar. My childhood and early adulthood was riddled with fear that I wasn't truly saved and the gut-wrenching what-if-I'm-nots that kept me awake at night.
Attention-getting quote: "You can ask Jesus into your heart without repenting and believing, and you can repent and believe without articulating a request for Jesus to come into your heart. Repentance and faith are heart postures you take toward the finished work of Christ."
Here's the journey. Problem: Have I really been saved? In discussing this question Greear covers the topics of doubt, belief, repentance, once saved/always saved, losing your salvation, vital signs of salvation, baptism, assurance, and faith.

Y'all.

As a kid who grew up in the church, I can relate to the premise of this book. It's an issue for teenagers—especially for those who are reared in the pews. My own children have struggled with it and during our family discussions I flash back to my adolescent fears. Greear does an outstanding job of compiling a lot of information into a non-intimidating package. I'm buying several for friends/family. Invaluable resource.

My big takeaway: Repentance is not a prayer. Repentance is a posture.