LIFE OF SPIRIT, FAITH, AND LOVE

An impassioned prescription for Christians seeking to renew or deepen their faith.

Orgill’s nonfiction debut urges readers to consider two crucial truths: first, that the “power of the Gospel of Jesus Christ is the only propitiation” for human sin, and second, that the Gospel of Jesus Christ can function as a “High Priest” mediating between the faithful and God. Counterpoised with these essentials is the ever-present current of human backsliding that Orgill identifies as having started with Adam in the Garden of Eden and having continued to the present day’s “depraved America.” The alternative to the sin that can lead to a downward slide, according to Orgill, is love. “We could write libraries and still not say all there is to say about love,” he writes. “Simply stated, love is about the focus of your life.” The explicitly Protestant angle of the book is reflected in its insistence that salvation isn’t earned but bestowed: “We are saved by God’s Grace not by what we have done, but according to His mercy.” A key component of this belief is for the faithful to realize that their preoccupations can get in the way of their spiritual journey. “God’s voice is quiet and gentle and hard to hear when your own spirit is screaming about what it wants,” Orgill writes. “God desperately wants this relationship with you, to have you walk with Him.” The narrative gives detailed examples of the spiritual covenant with God, providing extensive quotations, many from the New American Standard Bible, and consistently interesting exegesis. This covenant, the author stresses, “is all about Jesus and His coming to establish God’s covenant through His shed blood.” Orgill is a reassuring and emphatic presence throughout, presenting readers with a simple and almost old-fashioned view of how Christians can look for faith and love within themselves. “God is there, in the peace, the quiet voice, when you are calm,” those readers are reminded, and that message is the most memorable takeaway of the book.

A calming and scripturally literate examination of how Christians can grow closer to God.