Book Review: Enjoying Jesus | by Bill Muehlenberg

Book review by Bill Muehlenberg originally published at CultureWatch.

This new book by Tim Chester is well worth the read:

Christianity is Christ. Jesus is the most important person to ever walk this earth. He is also God incarnate, and the living Saviour of those who come to him in faith and repentance. As such there are countess books about him, be they devotional, historical, theological, academic, popular or scholarly.

Oftentimes a useful volume on Jesus is one that is devotional in nature but undergirded by solid theology and biblical depth. The new Tim Chester book Enjoying Jesus (The Good Book Company, 2024) falls into this category. It has a solid theological foundation (chiefly reflecting a Puritan and Reformed perspective), coupled with a vibrant and spiritually uplifting set of short but powerful chapters.

The British pastor had already done a similar book, Enjoying God (The Good Book Company, 2018). If you have that volume and were blessed by it, you know what to expect here. One assumes that Enjoying the Holy Spirit will also appear at some point.

    Enjoying Jesus by Tim Chester

In his Introduction he informs us of what he seeks to do in this book: “I’m interested in what it means to have a real, living relationship with Jesus. What is the give-and-take, the to-and-fro of our day-to-day interaction with Jesus? How is he acting towards you in this moment, and how should you respond?” He goes on to say this:

Before we delve deeper into the ways in which we can relate to Jesus day by day, we need to establish something important about the dynamics of that relationship. First, our union with Jesus doesn’t depend on us. Our relationship with Jesus is created by Jesus through the Holy Spirit—it starts with him and not with us. We didn’t go searching for Jesus; he came to earth to redeem his bride, and now he sends his Spirit to win our hearts….

But second, our on-going experience of that union (what John Owen calls our “communion” with Christ) is affected by our actions. When we resist Christ or ignore him, our sense of being connected to him weakens. When we respond to him in faith and love, then our sense of connection deepens. We are saved by Jesus into a two-way relationship with Jesus.

All up Chester looks at 14 areas in which we can and should enjoy Jesus. These include:

• Enjoying his glory
• Enjoying his compassion
• Enjoying his reign
• Enjoying his presence
• Enjoying his voice
• Enjoying his intercession

While each chapter is brief (perhaps around a dozen pages each), they are filled with practical and helpful material, based on basic biblical and theological truths. One way to give you a flavour of the book is to look at a few of these chapters, and present some useful quotes from them.

In his chapter on enjoying the shelter of Jesus he reminds us that Jesus is with us in the storms of life. Of interest, during this past week Melbourne has had some big storms with wild winds. Many folks lost power and some even lost their lives as large trees crashed onto their cars, and so on.

I have some quite large trees around my house, and for a few nights there as the winds were howling so ferociously, all I could do was pray and ask God to protect me, my home, my dog, my cat – and I prayed for my neighbours as well. As I was praying I recalled the windstorm the disciples were in and how Jesus calmed the raging waves.

Chester begins his chapter with that very story as found in Luke 8. He then says this:

The word of Jesus to the storm is described as a rebuke: “he … rebuked the wind and the raging waters”. Then, as they reflect on what just happened, the disciples use a related word: “he commands even the winds and the water” (v 24-25). Both “rebuke” and “command” indicate authority. The wind and waves obey Jesus because he’s their boss. Perhaps the one thing the disciples get right in this story is calling Jesus “Master”. Jesus is the master of the disciples, but it turns out he’s also the master of the weather.

This makes Jesus a useful man to have around in a crisis! It turns out that being in the boat with Jesus was the safest place to be, even in the midst of a storm. Jesus is a refuge for his people. We still live in an uncertain world. I wonder what you do to make your world feel safe. The problem is that the world is bigger than us….

Our attempts to manage the world are very limited. We’re not in control, and we can’t eliminate risk. But into our world of threat steps Jesus. In the stilling of the storm, we’ve seen the authority of Jesus over the natural world. In his Gospel, Luke follows this up with three more stories that spotlight the authority of Jesus over the spirit world, over sickness and ultimately even over death (v 26-56).

He quotes Paul in Ephesians 1:22 about how God gave Jesus authority over all things, and then writes:

The point is that right now Jesus is using his God-given authority for the sake of the church. For your sake. His power is given to protect his people, to govern his people, and to further the mission he’s entrusted to us. What is Jesus doing now? He’s shaping the affairs of humanity to further our cause. He is guiding and governing the church to safeguard our faithfulness. The Puritan John Flavel says:

“All the affairs of the kingdom of providence are ordered and determined by Jesus Christ for the special advantage, and everlasting good, of his redeemed people … He rules and orders the kingdom of providence by supporting, permitting, restraining, limiting, protecting, punishing, and rewarding those over whom he reigns providentially."

Consider also his chapter on the anger of Jesus. Yes, Jesus has anger as well and love. And yes we can enjoy that aspect of Jesus! Chester says in preparing to write this book he spent a fair amount of time reading the gospel accounts to learn further about the attitudes and actions of Jesus. Much was as expected he says, but how often we read about Jesus being angry and sharp with people was somewhat surprising.

He homes in on the story found in Luke 11:37-54, where Jesus responds to issues like hypocrisy and injustice. His description of the situation is worth repeating here:

Imagine the scene with me… Jesus enters a home. Instead of washing his hands, as custom dictates, he goes straight to the table and sits down (v 37-38). This is not a failure of personal hygiene—the Pharisees had extended the ceremonial cleanliness required of temple priests into everyday life. But Jesus deliberately ignores this expectation. Make no mistake: this is a provocative act.

A shocked hush descends, into which Jesus speaks, “Now then, you Pharisees clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness” (v 39). These are the first words anyone speaks. Jesus skips all the social niceties and dives straight into confrontation. This is not a discussion that turned into an argument that then got heated. Right from the start, Jesus is confrontational. “Woe to you . . .”, he says three times. It’s as if Jesus is firing off accusations from a verbal machine gun. An expert in the law intervenes. “Teacher, when you say these things, you insult us also” (v 45). Big mistake. For Jesus then turns his fire on the experts in the law. They too get three “woes”—just like the Pharisees (v 46-52).

Then Jesus leaves. There’s no record of any food having been eaten! The religious leaders follow him out “to besiege him” with questions. It’s the language of violent assault, as if Jesus is a city under attack. Luke says they “began to oppose him fiercely.” We might say that things have turned ugly, but that would imply a preceding moment of calm!

Chester mentions a number of other such confrontational passages in Luke. And he goes on to distinguish between good anger and bad anger. The former involves responding to the right things in the right way. And anger is the flipside of love.

When Jesus met a man with leprosy he was indignant. Not at the man, but at the leprosy (Mark 1:41). He was angry at the cause of his suffering. Says Chester: “What makes Jesus angry is his love for people. Imagine a person who never got angry. They would look at injustice and feel nothing. That’s not a sign of virtue, but of callous indifference. Jesus is full of love and when love sees injustice it expresses itself in rage. His compassion is his sympathy with those who suffer; his anger is his opposition towards those who create that suffering.”

Let me mention one final chapter, on the intercession of Jesus. Scripture makes it clear that we have an advocate in heaven, we have one who always lives to make intercession for us. We have a High Priest who represents us before the father. Passages such as John 17, Hebrews 5, and 7:23-25 should be of great comfort to every one of us. Says Chester:

The 19^th-century Scottish preacher Robert Murray McCheyne invites us to imagine we had hidden away in the upper room. As we listen to Jesus praying, we’re astonished to hear our own name. My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me – for Tim Chester…. “Will you not find comfort in this?” asks McCheyne. What’s your answer to that question? Elsewhere, McCheyne says, “If I could hear Christ praying for me in the next room, I would not fear a million enemies. Yet the distance makes no difference; He is praying for me.”

When I don’t feel able to pray or when I don’t know what to say, Jesus is already praying for me. He’s not only praying for me when I feel overwhelmed Jesus also prays for me when I should feel overwhelmed, but don’t! The theologian Louis Berkhof says Jesus prays for needs for which we neglect to pray, including protection against dangers of which we’re not aware. “Christ is praying for us even when we are negligent in our prayer life.”

Think about this for a moment: the ascended Son of God is so invested in your life and so committed to your good that you are the subject of his conversation with the Father. When you feel threatened, by faith hear Jesus interceding on your behalf. When you fall into sin, by faith see Jesus in heaven on your behalf. You are safe while Jesus lives in heaven, and Hebrews 7:16 says his life is “indestructible”. By faith, see the Father delighting to receive the intervention of the High Priest he himself appointed as your advocate.

These are just some of the inspiring and uplifting gems that you will find in this brief volume. We all need to know more about Jesus, and know Jesus more. A book such as this one will go a long way in helping us do just that.