Rankin Wilbourne - The Cross Before Me: Reimagining the Way to the Good Life

At David C Cook, we equip the local church around the corner and around the globe to make disciples. Come see how we are working togethergo to www.davidccook.org. Thank you!

What people are saying about

RANKIN WILBOURNE AND UNION WITH CHRIST

Everyone seems to agree that union with Christ is a biblical teaching crucial to understanding and communicating the gospel, but preachers today do not give it the same emphasis that the New Testament does. One reason is that, unlike the new birth, justification, and adoption, it requires multiple metaphors to draw out its rich meaning. Rankin does so clearly and compellingly. This is simply the best book for laypeople on this subject. It is grounded in exegesis and theology and yet is lucid and supremely practical. While not unaware of the recent controversies about union and justification, which are briefly sketched in the endnotes, Rankins whole concern is to make the biblical teaching accessible and applicable to the reader. He does this with excellence.

Tim Keller, senior pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church, New York City

Im trying to remember the last time I was more excited about a new book or a new author. Rankin Wilbourne brings a remarkable flair for writing, a great breadth and depth of learning, and a passionate heart to the most important subject in the world: What is the true and sufficient destiny for human life? Rankin does a masterful job of articulating what union with Christ consists of, how central it is to the writers of Scripture and to great thinkers through the centuries, why it has been lost in our day, and most importantly how to pursue it as a concrete reality in daily life for ordinary people. So thats why Im excited for you to meet Rankin and enter a new world.

John Ortberg, senior pastor of Menlo Church; author of Id Like You More if You Were More Like Me and Eternity Is Now in Session

Before 2016, we had no readable survey of union with Christ for lay readersa book that is theologically robust, but not too heavy, well-illustrated, and also well-applied to the demands of everyday life. Thats because such an approachable feat is nearly impossible. Wilbourne pulled it off. What I find most impressive about this book is the balance between celebrating the truth of our union and calling us to feed off this glorious reality in our labors toward holiness.

Tony Reinke, naming Union with Christ one of Desiring Gods top books of 2016

Highly recommended for all readers. Offers biblical, historical, and practical perspective on this most vital doctrine.

Collin Hansen, editorial director of The Gospel Coalition

THE CROSS BEFORE ME

Published by David C Cook

4050 Lee Vance Drive

Colorado Springs, CO 80918 U.S.A.

Integrity Music Limited, a Division of David C Cook

Brighton, East Sussex BN1 2RE, England

The graphic circle C logo is a registered trademark of David C Cook.

All rights reserved. Except for brief excerpts for review purposes, no part of this book may be reproduced or used in any form without written permission from the publisher.

The website addresses recommended throughout this book are offered as a resource to you. These websites are not intended in any way to be or imply an endorsement on the part of David C Cook, nor do we vouch for their content.

Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture quotations are taken from the ESV Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version), copyright 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Scripture quotations marked KJV are taken from the King James Version of the Bible. (Public Domain.); THE MESSAGE are taken from THE MESSAGE. Copyright by Eugene H. Peterson 1993, 2002. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.; NASB are taken from the New American Standard Bible, copyright 1960, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. (www.Lockman.org); NIV are taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION, NIV Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Library of Congress Control Number 2019939640

ISBN 978-0-7814-1333-6

eISBN 978-0-8307-7859-1

2019 J. Rankin Wilbourne and Brian Gregor

Published in association with Legacy, LLC.

The Team: Alice Crider, Jeff Gerke, Rachael Stevenson, Kayla Fenstermaker, Susan Murdock

Cover Design: James Hershberger

First Edition 2019

To my children,

May you grow to see that this is the way to the life that is truly life.

R. W.

To Thomas and Esm,

In love and joy.

B. G.

For whoever wants to save their life will lose it,

but whoever loses their life for me will find it.

Matthew 16:25 NIV

Im just sick of ego, ego, ego. My own and everybody elses.

Im sick of everybody that wants to get somewhere, do something distinguished and all, be somebody interesting. Its disgusting.

J. D. Salinger, Franny and Zooey

If I had a message to my contemporaries it is surely this: Be anything you like, be madmen, drunks, and bastards of every shape and form, but at all costs avoid one thing: success. If you are too obsessed with success, you will forget to live. If you have learned only how to be a success, your life has probably been wasted.

Thomas Merton, Love and Living

Twelve hundred Yale University studentsnearly one quarter of the entire undergraduate bodyenrolled in a 2018 course on happiness entitled Psychology and the Good Life, taught by Dr. Laurie Santos. It was the most popular course in the history of the school, so popular it was only offered once, as its massive enrollment affected so many other classes. A similar course at Harvard in 2006 had drawn nine hundred students and was touted as the most popular course in the history of that university. Why would so many of the most gifted students in America flock to courses on personal happiness?

The fact that a class like this has such large interest, one of Dr. Santoss students speculated, speaks to how tired students are of numbing their emotionsboth positive and negativeso they can focus on their work, the next step, the next accomplishment. Perhaps these students had thought that getting into the university of their dreams would make them happy. They must have made many sacrifices to get where they were. But they found themselves still feeling anxious, not yet happy, and they didnt know where they went wrong.

If our intuitions are totally wrong, how can we learn what we should pursue? How can we know what will make us happy? Its an important question because while we may not know what will bring us the happiness we seek, we do know that what were trying isnt working. And its not just highly motivated college students who are experiencing this frustration.

Andre Agassi hated tennis. One of the most decorated American tennis players, eight-time Grand Slam winner, Agassi went from the long-haired rebel people loved to hate to the shaved-head champion people loved to root for. Yet Agassi has now confided that through it all he hated tennis, even at his moments of greatest personal triumph.