Living Loved: Knowing Jesus as the Lover of Your Soul

by Peter M. Wallace

Book Overview

Short, inspiring lessons and prayers based on John's gospel

A devotional book of meditations based on specific verses or passages from the Gospel of John. It uses the highly acclaimed and popular translation, The Message, by Eugene Peterson. Consisting of short and very accessible meditations, the author Peter Wallace approaches Jesus through the eyes of the disciple whom Jesus loved. From this perspective, readers can begin...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1596270659
• ISBN13: 9781596270657
• Release Date: July 2007
• Publisher: Seabury Books
• Length: 176 Pages
• Weight: 0.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 5.7" x 8.4"

Customer Reviews

Spend a Season Traveling Through a Gospel of Love with a Gentle Guide

Peter Wallace probably knows more about great preaching, these days, than anyone else in America, because he works with many of our greatest preachers in producing the weekly Day1 radio broadcasts -- and in developing the Day1 web site, as well. What he has learned is that the most important spiritual messages are sincere, interwoven with compelling stories and directly address the daily lives of ordinary men and women -- folks like you and me. Peter begins the book by admitting that this 90-day journey through lessons from the gospel of John -- with Peter's reflections on the nature of love -- were the direct result of an especially painful period in his own life. What was that painful period? It doesn't really matter. What matters is that most of us hit periods like this in our own lives. I've read hundreds of spiritual books over the past couple of decades and have an eagle's eye for false assumptions and spiritual bravado that says more about the writer's pride than our needs as readers. And, so, it is high praise from me to say: There is not a single false note in this book. The daily readings are short -- but there's great strength here that builds through the weeks we spend with Peter and his meditations on what it means to love -- and what it mean to let God love us. That may be the toughest section of his book for many of us. And, then, he carries us forward in the final third of the book to the calling we all have to share God's love with others.

A beautiful book

I was given Living Loved as a present from a dear friend for my 50th birthday. It is a powerful, beautiful and soulful book that I return to often.

Living Loved quite literally lives up to its title.

Vice President of the Atlanta, Georgia Alliance for Christian Media Peter Wallace presents Living Loved: Knowing Jesus as the Lover of Your Soul, a heartfelt tour of Jesus' overflowing love as seen in the scripture of the New Testament. Offering in-depth reflection upon Jesus' words, emphasizing on the glory of knowing, experiencing, and sharing His love, Living Loved quite literally lives up to its title. "When we live in his love, experience it as real, and let it overflow our hearts and spread to others, there can be no doubt that we too are disciples that Jesus loves."

A Joyful Journey of Discovering Love

Martha Sterne, in the Foreword to this book, says "Peter Wallace invites us to come in from the cold and to `choose to live loved.'" It is a magnificently simple, to-the-point, description of this delightful book, Living Loved. I first met Peter Wallace in the lobby of the First Baptist Church of Nashville, Tennessee. The occasion was the annual Festival of Homiletics, an event that is, in part, sponsored by Day1, the program for which Peter is Producer. He noticed the logo on my shirt, "Questing Parson", and immediately engaged me in conversation. During the course of that talk, he wrote down the address of this blog and promised he'd check it out. It was less than a week following I received an email from him commenting on The Questing Parson. I relate this to simply reveal something about the author of this book. Peter Wallace is one who deeply cares about persons because he sees them as children of God. He is one who, when he engages you in conversation, actually listens. And he listens not just to hear the words but to discover who you are and to see the possibilities of the holy within. Wallace is the Vice President of Production of the Alliance for Christian Media. In this responsibility he oversees the staff which produces the highly respected Day1 weekly radio program (formerly known as The Protestant Hour). It is heard over 150 stations throughout the United States, on the Armed Forces Radio Network, and on stations in Canada and overseas. One cannot help but think it is his exposure to the leading preachers of this land through this program that encouraged Peter to the publication of this work. Living Loved is a delightful book. I read it in two sittings. Peter Wallace's unique talent for coining a phrase, weaving words, and giving flesh to the message of love from Jesus through stories from our contemporary life provide for an ease of reading that captures one's attention and forces the turning of page after page. The work is divided into three sections: 1) Knowing His Love (Why can't we know Jesus' love more profoundly?); 2) Experiencing His Love (The experience of love brings both beauty and pain.); and 3) Sharing His Love (The love of Jesus is too big to keep bottled up in our own hearts.). Each chapter can be read as a daily devotional or the book can be read in sections as a whole. I have found this work to be both a devotional source (Following my initial two session reading of the entire book, I re-read it in more devotional settings.) or as a wonderful source for homiletic material. I think it was Sam Keen who said, "Tell me your story and you'll tell me mine." In many of the personal narratives that populate this book, Peter Wallace has told us his and our story as children of a loving Savior. From Peter's revelation that it took him years "to open my clenched fist in major areas of my life ..." to his revelations of spiritual drought as seen in the tubing trip he took with his kids down a river where the tubes drab bot

Praise for Living Loved:

LIVING LOVED is a devotional book of meditations based on specific verses or passages from the Gospel of John. It uses the highly acclaimed and popular translation, The Message, by Eugene Peterson. Like Wallace's earlier book, Out of the Quiet, it consists of short and very accessible meditations, approaching Jesus through the eyes of the disciple whom Jesus loved,- so that men and women can begin to see themselves in John's place as the beloved one, and, as a result, take up the responsibilities of discipleship in a world that needs Jesus' loving touch. Praise for Living Loved: "An open-hearted book on knowing, experiencing and sharing love. Peter Wallace has thoroughly studied the Gospel of John, and he brings to us fresh words and loving insights." Nora Gallagher, author of Changing Light "Peter Wallace's wonderful book Living Loved teaches us how to do just that. With touching examples and personal stories he interprets the sometimes abstract language of the gospel of John to help us feel and experience the love we so desire. Edward L. Beck, author of God Underneath: Spiritual Memoirs of a Catholic Priest "With the Beloved Disciple as his muse, and using Eugene Patterson's ear-catching translation of John's gospel, Peter Wallace reminds us that 'the Word became flesh and blood and moved into the neighborhood." Martha Sterne, author of Alive and Loose in the Ordinary "Peter Wallace takes us on a breathtaking voyage, seeking along the way the kind of love that doesn't pander to sentiment, but puts wind in our sails and sends us out into the deep sea of meaning and service." Thomas G. Long, Candler School of Theology, Emory University "Encounter by encounter and phrase by phrase, I was led into the presence of Jesus and his love. Living Loved is a profound meditation on scripture, accessible to anyone who hungers and thirsts for the abundant life." Kenneth H. Carter, Jr., Providence United Methodist Church