Confronting Casual Christianity: A Call to Total Commitment

by Charles F. Stanley

CONFRONTING CASUAL CHRISTIANITY is a call to total commitment to following Christ. What would you say is the greatest enemy of the Christian faith? Many of us would point to society's influences that diminish the role of God in our lives, or to a decline in values. But Charles Stanley argues that our most dangerous threat doesn't come from outside the faith at all. Instead, he believes that complacency and apathy in the hearts of believers is depleting "the vitality of the body of Christ." So what can we do to change that? What can we do to put ourselves and our church communities in touch with the risen Lord? According to Stanley, we need to commit ourselves wholly to Christ. As he explains it, "Commitment means that a person has deliberately, willfully chosen to give, the abandon his/her spirit, soul, and body to Almighty God through His Son Jesus Christ to the glory of God." Using the examples of Moses, Abraham and other figures, Stanley shows how obedience and a true commitment to God can turn apathy to peace and complacency to joy. Stanley's impassioned words will inspire you to commit to making Christ the Lord of your life.

Genres: Christian, Christian Living, Nonfiction

206 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1985

About the author

Dr. Charles F. Stanley is the senior pastor of First Baptist Church Atlanta, founder of In Touch Ministries, and a New York Times best-selling author who has written more than fifty books, and has sold more than nine million copies. He demonstrates a keen awareness of people's needs and provides Christ-centered, biblically-based principles for everyday life.

Charles Frazier Stanley was born September 25, 1932, in the small town of Dry Fork, Virginia. The only child of Charley and Rebecca Stanley, Charles came into the world during a time when the entire nation felt the grip of the Great Depression. To make matters worse, just nine months later, his father Charley died at the young age of 29.

However, Charles refused to let the Great Depression or the difficulties of his life define him. Instead, like his father and grandfather before him, he clung to God’s Word and took up the mantle to preach the gospel to whoever would listen.

Dr. Stanley’s motivation is best represented by the truth found in Acts 20:24, “Life is worth nothing unless I use it for doing the work assigned me by the Lord Jesus—the work of telling others the Good News about God's mighty kindness and love.” This is because, as he says, “It is the Word of God and the work of God that changes people’s lives.”

Dr. Stanley’s teachings can be heard weekly at First Baptist Church Atlanta, daily on “In Touch with Dr. Charles Stanley” radio and television broadcasts on more than 2,800 stations around the world, on the Internet at intouch.org, through the In Touch Messenger, and in the monthly, award-winning In Touch magazine.

Reviews

[Alyson Wills · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great convicting book about the state of our faith commitment. Recommend.

[Leah Adams · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an old book by Dr. Stanley, but the words are timeless. He presents a clarion call to examine our faith in Christ and root out those things that do not look like Jesus...apathy and complacency being the most prominent. Most of the western Church today lives out a half-hearted commitment to Christ that yields partial obedience in many things and this book mirrors that lack of commitment in ways the believer must pay attention to.

A few quotes that really hit home with me were:

1. God's people, most of them, have made a decision about Jesus...but have never made a commitment to Him.

2. You and I have no right to tell God what we will do, where we will go, what we will think, and what we will give. It is not fitting for a believer to draw boundaries around his life and assert 'I am willing to do anything and everything You want, O Lord, except this or that.'

3. You will never please God until you follow His instructions to the letter, until you start right at square one where God wants you. And remember that partial obedience is still disobedience to God.

The copy of the book I read was from 1985 and needed a skilled editor to work on it, but I imagine that later versions of the book were cleaned up quite a bit.

This is a book that every Christian needs to read at least once.

[Kelly · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book has great information but is very difficult to read because of the grammatical and syntactical mistakes as well as typos. The author is an amazing preacher but he really needed to get an editor to work on the book before publishing it.

[Jeff · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had read this book many years ago, and as I read it again I was reminded of the dedication Pastor Stanley puts into helping create a people who are all-out for Jesus Christ. If you read this book and aren't convicted of falling short in your commitment to Christ, then you must be a very solid believer. Dr. Stanley has been a solid preacher of the Bible for decades, and this book is a testimony of how much he values God and that book, and how much he wants us to do so as well.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rated: B+