The Answer to Our Cry: Freedom To Live Fully, Love Boldly, And Fear Nothing by Rick McKinley

The Answer to Our Cry: Freedom To Live Fully, Love Boldly, And Fear Nothing Reviews

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  brian d rogers

  An absolute inspiration, a divine breath of fresh air. Some believers might not like what pastor McKinley has to say, those that are ready to hear what he has to say will drink this book up like a thirsty man in the desert seeking water. Truth. Honesty. In a simple way to understand the church community from a man that had to lead a community in the most unchurched state in the union, Oregon. I initially set this book down for quite a while, and return to it months if not a year or more after I started. I spent the last week or so finishing it, and can’t believe I ever put down a book that would mean so much to me. Highly recommended. Especially if you like me, you’re attempting to leave your spiritual life in the environments that do not support it.The answer to our cry, May just take you on a path to the answers that you’re looking for. Highly recommended for the believer in eating a quick refresh.
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  Ryan

  Excellent book on Trinitarian theology and living in the freedom that Christ offers.
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  Ryan

  This was a great book focused on Trinitarian theology and having a relationship with God in order to experience freedom. Fantastic writing, excellent application, and easy to understand.
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  James

  If God is good, live fully, love boldly and fear nothing because all is grace.
  
  Rick McKinley's The Answer to Our Cry explores what real freedom is. If you grew up in Sunday School or have imbibed your share of Christian publishing, you know 'the answer to our cry' is probably Jesus (♪♫Jesus is the answer for the world today♪). Well that is part right. McKinley leads us through a mediation on how 'freedom comes only when we are attracted to the communion between the Father, Son and Spirit (15). You see, God, as Trinity, is the one being free from any need or obligation:
  
  The Triune God is entirely free in himself as Father, Son and Spirit; They are happily united and fulfilled by their own communion within their own being. . . .They created everything seen and unseen so that we can share what they have. That's just how good God is. (27)
  
  The human experience of freedom is always within bounds. Freedom without boundaries, would lead us to death (like when a man jumps off a building or cheats on his wife). McKinley argues that for freedom to be sustained it needs a form, and that form is relationship. Thankfully God has made a way for us, in Jesus, to share in the life and relationship of the Triune God. This allows for the fullest expression of sustainable human freedom.
  
  So the answer to our cry (for freedom) is the Triune God, but our example of what real human freedom looks like is Jesus (yay! Sunday School answer still works!). Like Jesus, McKinley says Jesus:
  
  Lived Fully--because he came from the Father, the Giver of Life
  Loved Boldly--exemplified especially by his life poured out on the cross for our freedom
  Feared Nothing--because no power on earth could shake him (28)
  And So McKinley exhorts us also to live fully, love boldly and fear nothing. This book explores the nature of what the Christian life is, and can be. McKinley draws on trinitarian theology (recommending Michael Reeve's Delighting the Trinity)(157). This book is the gospel reexplained and examined in trinitarian terms. It is theological--exploring the themes of God's love and justice but it is also pastorally sensitive.
  
  I am an occasional listener to the Imago Dei podcast (the church McKinley pastors) and have read a coupe of McKinley's previous books (This Beautiful Mess and The Advent Conspiracy). I like McKinley's conversational communication style and appreciate how substantive he is (a rarity for famous pastors). I would say that this book is deeper than his early volumes, but not necessarily a compelling read. McKinley lays his thesis out early and spends the rest of his chapters expanding the theme. All and all great stuff, but repetitive in places. I give it four stars.
  
  Notice of material connection: I received this book free from the publisher for this honest review.
• 
  Michele Morin

  Everyone is looking for freedom. Most of us are looking in all the wrong places with the idea that freedom involves getting what we want. The Answer to Our Cry is not a series of steps, but a spotlight on the truth that true freedom is the ability to:
  
  1. Live fully — As an author, Rick McKinley has a unique voice: casual, pastoral, with a touch of urgency. He calls his readers away from the awkwardness of standing around at the junior high dance and into the self-forgetfulness of David’s dance when the ark of God returns to Jerusalem. Moving away from self-centered living is a move toward fruitfulness.
  
  2. Love boldly — As the father of a special-needs child, Rick McKinley has seen first-hand the heartbreak of feeling unloved. He reminds his readers that we are already the beloved of God as His children, and this is not a status based on our competence or our merit. Based on this safe foundation, we move beyond the safety of “nice” and into the grace of loving like Jesus, because we see His face in “the thirsty, the naked, the sick, and the imprisoned.” The result of this kind of love is the courage “to work where things are not the way they should be,” thereby effecting change and justice.
  
  3. Fear nothing – As a pastor, Rick McKinley has a high view of God as One who can be trusted in the hard places of life. The freedom of trusting changes the desert from a place of fear “to a place where God is meeting me in His love.” Letting go of the need to control and to fix everything opens the hands to receive freedom.
  
  From this kind of love, boldness and others-centered living comes a “persuasive life,” free of guilt, compelled by love, and, therefore, imaginative, grounded in Truth, and completely new:
  
  
  So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come. The old has gone, the new is here! (I Cor. 5:16,17)
  
  I received this book free from Baker Publishing Group. The opinions I have expressed are my own, and I was not required to write a positive review. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255
  http://www.access.gpo.gov/nara/cfr/wa....
  
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  A.C. Cuddy

  “We all long for freedom. Freedom from anxiety, fear, and sin. Freedom to love others completely as God loves us. And yet we are shackled by insecurity, prone to selfishness, and wary of letting down our guard. That's not the life God designed for his followers. When his people cry out to him for freedom, he hears--and responds.
  
  Now pastor Rick McKinley shows how true freedom--the kind we see as God delivers his people in the Scriptures--is always in the form of relationship with God rather than our popular notion of complete independence. He calls us to look to the Father, Son, and Spirit for the model of perfect, self-giving freedom and shows how that kind of freedom can utterly transform us.”
  
  The Answer to Our Cry. The freedom to live fully, to love boldly and fear nothing. These are huge words that so many of us cannot seem to grasp. How do we live and love? Without fear? Yes. Any life other than that is not what God has in mind for the lives of His children. He sees us. He sees and hears our cries and He sends a rescue. He sends a deliverer.
  
  The author, Rick McKinley, points out that over and over again throughout scripture, when He sees His people oppressed and crying out for freedom, He sends the deliverer.
  
  Let your heart start to heal, explore the journey to The Answer To Our Cry and learn true freedom in Christ alone.
  
  Disclosure: I received this book free from Baker Books through the Baker Books Bloggers
  www.bakerbooks.com/bakerbooksbloggers program. The opinions I have expressed are my own, and I was not required to write a positive review. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255
  http://www.access.gpo.gov/nara/cfr/wa....
  
  *Reviews of this book were posted at the following locations:
  Amazon, Christian Book, Deeper Shopping, Goodreads, and to be featured on my blog at
  http://titus3.wordpress.com
  
• 
  Kekoa

  I received this book for free through Goodreads First Reads.
  
  In this book, Rick McKinley addresses our innate desire to be free. Be it a freedom from oppressions, a freedom to live the way we were meant to be, or a freedom from fear, McKinley shares personal testimonies, as well as biblical ones, to help us understand common pitfalls and see a way out.
  
  Personally, I'm not sure if I agree with the inclusion of an excerpt from Ellis Potter because it leads to a simple equation of what freedom looks like. In my opinion, freedom looks more like a choice along a plane leading from life to death or vice versa. Rather than freedom needing form, I think freedom is about conforming or rebelling from any structure or rule.
  
  That aside, I can't argue with the rest of the book. I was delighted to be introduced to some new thoughts about previous questions and themes that I personally studied prior to reading this book.
  
  McKinley stresses that our freedom depends on an intimate relationship with God. "Freedom comes from desiring God for who he actually is, not what he has done for us." This is McKinley's definition of the difference between relation and religion.
  
  I believe that anyone who desires to live in freedom and build an intimate relationship with God will greatly benefit from reading this book.
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  Lelee Dow

  This was not what I thought it was! Still I did very much enjoy this book!
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  Andee

  This book is a great reminder of so many basic principles, yet to read it is to acknowledge the love given to us and give us peace.
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  Robert Terrell

  Really a very good book. Good thoughts. challenging, and enjoyable to read. I wish there were half stars because I would rate it 3 1/2:stars if I could.
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  Shawna

  A truly splendid book.