The Simple Secret: Choosing Love in a Culture of Hostility
Ebook
Jesus' understanding of love separates him from many of the great religious leaders in world history. Jesus believed it was possible to love every person we encounter: children, partners, friends, strangers, the vulnerable, the poor, enemies, and planet Earth itself. The meaning of life is not mysterious after all. According to Jesus, the purpose of our existence is to love and be loved. When we take our last breath, our life will be measured by the love we gave to each person we encountered. The secret of life, it turns out, is not a secret at all.
“If you want to explore the secret to loving every person you encounter, you’re going to love this book.”
—Sara Gaston Barton, university chaplain, Pepperdine University
“The Simple Secret is nothing short of a divine prescription for the ills affecting mankind today. Graves weaves together humor, storytelling, wisdom, and of course his usual profound philosophical understanding of religion, to remind us of God’s divine design, that love is our North Star in all we do and all we seek.”
—Kimia Ferdowsi-Kline, visual artist
“Joshua Graves is a thoughtful guide who engages both the head and the heart. If you feel a love deficiency in your experience of being a spiritual human, The Simple Secret is for you!”
—Ian Cron, author of The Story of You
“To speak of the divine is to speak in metaphor, but naming God as love comes the closest to moving past symbol and into the ‘really real.’ In this book, Joshua Graves helps deepen our understanding and embodiment of the deceptively simple word/idea/practice that is love. He explores love as the ultimate end and our path to get there, with a compelling invitation to receive and extend love to ourselves and to the world.”
—Mallory Wyckoff, author of God Is
“I believe love spoke the world into existence and continues to hold it all together, because as Scripture says, ‘God is love.’ This is why, as Joshua Graves says, love is the only thing that really counts. This brilliant and beautiful book offers inspiration for those of us who’ve grown calloused by a world that’s far too full of hate and hostility. If you need a little inspiration or maybe just a message about love, you need this book.”
—Luke Norsworthy, author of God over Good
“Everyone thinks they know what love is. For some love is gushy and warm like a bowl of something melted. For others, love is a hardened, crusted alignment to their vision of what the world ‘ought’ to be. Joshua Graves helps us move beyond these amorphous, self-centered definitions of love, calling us into an other-focused, action-oriented, long-serving, cruciform love. The Simple Secret clears the way to a better way of loving like Jesus.”
—Sean Palmer, author of Unarmed Empire
- Title: The Simple Secret: Choosing Love in a Culture of Hostility
- Author: Joshua Graves
- Publisher: Cascade Books
- Print Publication Date: 2023
- Logos Release Date: 2023
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Ebook
- ISBNs: 9781666751901, 9781666751895, 1666751898, 9781666751888, 166675188X, 1666751901
- Resource ID: LLS:9781666751901
- Resource Type: Monograph
- Metadata Last Updated: 2023-04-02T10:16:19Z
Joshua Graves is the lead minister for Otter Creek Church in Nashville, Tennessee. He is also author of The Feast, Heaven on Earth, and How Not to Kill a Muslim. Follow him on Twitter @joshgraves.