The Grave Robber: How Jesus Can Make Your Impossible Possible
New York Times bestselling author and pastor brings to life the seven miracles of Jesus as recorded in the book of John, offering readers the assurance that God still performs the miraculous today.
The Grave Robber: How Jesus Can Make Your Impossible Possible. By Mark Batterson. Grand Rapids, Michigan, Baker Books. 2014. 288 pages. ISBN 978-0-8010-1594-6. $22.99
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The Grave Robber comes to us from one of my all time favorite authors and speakers. It’s a book about the miraculous nature of Jesus and what that miraculous nature has to do with our daily following of Him.
The miraculous is a supernatural phenomenon that brings question to our minds and often leaves us with more challenges to ponder than answers to hang out hat on.
Yet, the miraculous is what draws us to Jesus. Here was this carpenter’s son from Galilee, a blue collar man’s man turned Rabbi. A regular ordinary guy who ended up leading one of the greatest revolutions of all time that still continues on today in the hearts of men. Jesus, God incarnate, was a man of miracles. He healed the sick, gave the blind sight, made the lame walk, fed hungry bellies with a small lunch magnified beyond imagination, and brought the dead to life both physically and spiritually.
Miracles surround Jesus. They were a major part of his ministry to people. They not only showed the kind generous nature of God, they also proclaimed his deity with displays of power.
When speaking to all of those who were following him and those who would come to follow him, Jesus said, – “Whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing; and they will do even greater things than these.” (John 14:12)
Greater things?
When I read that, there is an inner working within me that begins to doubt. Patterson describes this as a “subliminal skepticism”. This is when a miracle defies natural law (it must or it wouldn’t be a miracle) and it takes me (the skeptic) some time to either diagnose the problem on my own to explain away the miracle, or to believe in the supernatural.
It’s interesting to me how few Christ followers, that I know, don’t believe in the miraculous. If a miracle wielding God is at the center of our faith telling us that we will do greater miracles that he ever did… why do we doubt? “If you cut the miracles out, you cut Christianity off at the knees.”
These doubts are tackled by examining seven miracles (or signs) of Jesus. The Grave Robber is an excellent edition to Batterson’s library of work and as always it challenges us to believe that our God is bigger than we believe him to be and it dares us to trust.
This book was provided free from Baker Books with my promise to post an unbiased review. Originally posted at Micah’s blog, here.
