Review: "Growing Up in Grace: the Use of Means for Communion with God"

Murray G. Brett’s book, Growing Up in Grace: the Use of Means for Communion with God, brought me before God in prayer and repentance, pleading for growth and forgiveness. It is a book, as the Puritans would have called it, of “experimental religion.” It is a book about how to receive the grace necessary to grow spiritually – how to commune with God in such a way as to engender sanctification.

Each chapter begins with Scripture, exposits it with the help of Puritans and other biblical authors, and ends with a study section, a scenario to solve, and a list of books for further study. This work is a goldmine to all those who will use it – individually and in study groups.

He begins by explaining that our happiness (I would have preferred he used the word “joy”) is found in God. The he goes on, chapter by chapter to explain how God’s Grace is give to us through our learning humility, confession, repentance, keeping from presumptive sin, fellowshipping with God, experiencing sorrow for Christ’s suffering, repenting daily – and then he has a chapter “a catalogue of sins seldom confessed or repented of,” prayer – and then he explains how to pray – after the model of the Lord’s Prayer, delighting in God’s Law, and giving up all that we have to gain all that He is.

This is a book I will read and refer to again and again.