God’s Love by Barry Gaddis is unquestionably Christian literature written from a heart that hopes to reach a lost generation. The author shares his testimony of how God radically changed his life of drugs, alcohol and partying to one of wholehearted devotion to God. The book may easily be summarized by the following excerpt from 2 Corinthians 5:11-15 (NIV):
As a Christian, I applaud Gaddis’ passion for evangelism. He recounts several experiences he has had in outreach work – he has seen the good, the bad and the ugly in people and is still willing to minister to them. Throughout the book, he admonishes readers to turn from their ways and pursue a relationship with God through faith in Christ. Even if you are a Christian, you are still encouraged to become more intimate with your Lord and saviour.“Since, then, we know what it is to fear the Lord, we try to persuade others… For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all… that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.”
I would have loved to be able to award this book a perfect rating and recommend it to everyone and their one drunk uncle. Unfortunately, this book suffered heavily from a lack of a professional editor. Gaddis does make mention of a friend helping him with the editing, but I cannot begin to imagine a book more littered with grammatical errors than this one. The frequency of misplaced and missing punctuation marks and misspelt and missing words was staggering. I especially disliked several instances where sentences were split into phrases due to misplaced periods. It would be especially difficult for anyone who appreciates grammar to read this book.
Moreover, the work was poorly formatted. Gaddis would be preaching to rebellious folks one moment and praying to God the next. This created confusion, as I was not always sure whether he was praying or speaking to the reader. The book is also very repetitive. I appreciate emphasis as a device to drive home a message but repeating yourself like a broken record is counterproductive. Once again, the problems stemmed from the lack of professional editing.
Of note, I must mention that I did not agree with every theological claim that was mentioned in this book. The author seemed to imply that every one of us is a child of God. However, according to the Bible, God’s children are only those who have accepted Jesus as Lord and saviour and are led by his Spirit (Roman 8:14).
In conclusion, I rate God’s Love by Barry Gaddis 2 out of 4 stars. The author shares a very powerful testimony of the love and grace of God, so I would still recommend this book to readers interested in such a story.
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God's love
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