At Work Within by Rick Osborne

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At Work Within: Be Transformed Into All God Created You To Be by Rick Osborne is not at all the book I thought it'd be. I was expecting yet another book that would walk me through all kinds of steps to help me be what God wants me to be. Nope. This book is a series of seven Truths of transformation (one per chapter) - each explaining what you already are, and what truths you need to recognize in order to collaborate with God's efforts to transform you from within into what He's already said that you are. The overall lesson is that the moment that we are declared a new creation in God, we start being transformed into what God already knows us to be. This is a lifelong process.

Rick encourages you to rethink pretty much every core concept you've been taught about this transformation and your discipleship to Christ. He uses personal dreams to illustrate common misconceptions and new ways to look at salvation, transformation, righteousness, grace, faith, redemption, prayer, and more. The lessons that hit me the hardest were Righteousness and Grace (Number 3) and From Faith to Faith (Number 4).

At Work Within reads more like a college dissertation than most of the Christian living/improvement books available these days. I'm not considering this a negative thing, just that it's not a casual book that reads like a conversation with an old friend over a cup of coffee. Instead, it's more akin to sermon or adult Sunday school class transcripts, with all the notes and Bible references in place. I think it'd be hard to follow and keep up interest for those that have a hard time staying awake during church service; but - if you're up to the challenge - there is a lot to be learned from the pages within. 4/5 stars.

*Disclaimer: I received a free print copy of this book from the publisher through BookCrash in exchange for this honest review.*