Book review

Satisfy your soul: restoring the heart of Christian spirituality by
Dr. Bruce Demarest

Dr Bruce Demarest is a man of great talents, with great achievements and so rich in life. Also gifted with extra-ordinary insights and ability in the care of the inner man. Bruce is a Christian raised from childhood who has firm grounding in the bible. He was educated at Wheaton College, received seminary training at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, and earned doctorate in biblical and historical theology at the University of Manchester, England. Thereafter, developed a passion to live as a follower of Christ, because of this passion he has served as missionary educator and university worker in both Africa and Europe. His primary call is to be a professor at Denver Seminary where he teaches courses in theology, Christian spiritually, and mentoring. Dr Demarest is also an author for some books and many articles on various aspects of Christian theology and Spirituality. The goal of his teaching and writings has been to defend orthodox Christianity against unbiblical challenges and to instruct and edify others in the gospel. Bruce and his wife Elsie and their three children live in Littleton, Colorado.

In Dr Demarest’s own soul, he has wrestled with questions about deeper Christian walk with Christ. And with the mind of a biblical scholar, he has thought through the distinctions between authentic Christian Spirituality with it soul-building practices and the misleading counterfeits. ‘Satisfy your soul’ is a book of information and formation for the deeper walk with Christ. It gives us insights on how to identify ourselves as Christians and our needs for spiritual growth (Ch 1-3), Psalm 42:1-2 Gives us insights on how to develop and nourish our souls as Christians by developing a deeper relationship with God (Ch 4-6), Psalm 63: 1-2. It also gives us insights on why we need spiritual formation and how to maintain that growth for the rest of our journey (Ch 7-9), Psalm 126: 5-6. And on the last chapter Dr Demarest is challenging us to start our journey with Christ as all Christians should do.

Dr Demarest believed that God’s grace was something that you experienced at the moment of salvation and you relied on that grace for a future with God in heaven until he began to experience a deeper formative work of God in his life in the mid-1980s. Since the 1980s a new journey for Dr Demarest started and now he is taking us through his personal experience and his knowledge of how to restore the heart of Christian spirituality. He believed that the path to discovery and transformation is trough balancing our understanding of what brings a soul to conversion with what keeps us on the path of growth in Spirit. Dr Demarest believes that restoring the hearts is by knowing God as Intimates. To know God is to connect with Christ through relationship, intimacy, face to face by dwelling in the presence of God, communion, a deep sense of connectedness with Christ through the Spirit, and an encounter with God in the Words. To know God is to cultivate a love relationship with Him. This relationship is thru feeding the soul with the Words and by exploring the power of contemplation. Dr Demarest mentioned the art of meditating on God’s word by quieting and composing the soul, the formative reading of scripture, and by imagination in meditation. So if we want to be so in love with God, so “new” that we can turn from our deadness and our sins, we must come under the influence of the Spirit of God.

This book gave me new insights for a better understanding of Christian formation. I knew that our souls need growth but I did not know how to develop that growth. I knew about reading the bible and prayers but not in depth as how Dr Demarest described it. With my understanding now, Christian spirituality involves the whole person: knowing, being, and doing. The mind’s understanding of God from the Word must seep down to the heart so that we engage Christ intimately in a transforming relationship of love. The spiritual vision and passion fired by knowledge of the heart then propels us into the world as the hands, feet, and lips of Jesus. In this way we fulfil our calling as knowers of God’s Word, lovers of Jesus, and doers of the Father’s will.

I would be happy to recommend this book to everyone who wants to follow Christ. We can only fulfil God’s purpose for us is by restoring the heart of Christian spirituality. I strongly believed that this is the tool that we need for his work. Knowing God and letting him be known in our lives is the way to breach the gospel.

“May the God of peace make you holy in every way, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless until that day when our Lord Jesus Christ comes again.” 1 Thessalonians 5:23

By Lopeline Tonga