Unchained (Review)

This review is for the book "Unchained" by Noel Jesse Heikkinen. This book is a beautiful reminder of the freedom we have in Christ. Heikkinen feels that we often feel trapped by Christianity, and we miss out on the freedom we are supposed to be feeling. This book teaches us how to understand the freedom that we have and how to get there mentally and spiritually.

We so often set God up against the things we have felt in this world. We feel like he must be disappointed with us, because our parents are disappointed with us, as are our teachers, our coworkers, our children, our siblings, etc. The problem is that we believe in eternal forgiveness, but we can't allow ourselves to feel that forgiveness for what we did today. An example of this is is our prayer life. We know we're supposed to pray. We want to pray. So we buy a prayer journal. We download an app on our phone to remind us to pray. We hit several days in a row and we feel great! But then... we miss a day. And we feel this guilt about breaking our streak. Do you see that? We don't necessarily feel guilt about not praying, we feel guilt about not following the structure we set up for ourselves.The same goes for our Bible reading. If we miss one day we beat ourselves up because we got off track. Sometimes our man-made rules become more important than Jesus, and that isn't freedom.

Heikkinen assures us that we have been set free from the Law, religion (we don't have to do anything to be made right with God), sin, shame, and guilt. We want to obey out of love for God and what He did for us. Live to say yes to Jesus. Instead of focusing on all the "don'ts" in the Bible, search out the "dos" in the Bible. Do the dos, and you'll be obeying, and that will lead to freedom.

This book is chock full of wisdom, humor, and there are even discussion questions thrown in to help you take it a bit further. I really enjoyed it, and this book is going on my bookshelf!

Thank you to Litfuse Publicity for a copy of the book.