“So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness.
For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.”
— Romans 6:11-14

I didn’t just choose the title of God Gets You because He pursues us and understands us.

With its positive bent, I also settled on God Gets You to appeal to the type of people who fall for deceptive pastors like Joel Osteen. He and others preach about what God can do for us and how we need to have the right mindsets. These “teachers” don’t put much focus on our disobedience, idols, assorted sins or how God disciplines us. They don’t talk clearly enough about how we must be broken and repent.

Osteen’s attitude is captured in this interview on 60 Minutes.
http://bit.ly/1wwzxvs

Here is one part of it:

“I think most people already know what they’re doing wrong. For me to get in here and just beat them down and talk down to them, I just don’t think that inspires anybody to rise higher.”

I agree with a Christian friend who finds it disturbing that Osteen skips sections of the gospel while focusing on messages that my friend labels “happy happy joy joy” (an expression popularized in the children’s TV show “Ren & Stimpy”).

God Gets You should encourage your heart because God wants you. Look at what He did for you. He arrived on earth in the person of Jesus who was crucified so our sins could be forgiven. He came back to life and defeated sin. As much as we stumble, sin isn’t powerful enough to keep Christians out of heaven. Yes, we will all face a physical death. But people who belong to Jesus will live forever with Him in heaven instead of being banished to hell — away from God for eternity.

As a Christian, it’s important to put sin in perspective:

“We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin.”
— Romans 6:6

“O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting? The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”
— 1 Corinthians 15:55

God Gets You celebrates God, not you. Throughout the book, you’ll be reminded about God’s love for you. But you’ll also be challenged to live out your life in Christ through prayer and worship and surrender.

God will discipline us out of love. He will work hard to transform us and make us more like Jesus. He cares deeply about every aspect of our lives — our health, finances and relationships.

We sense God when we’re seeking His will for our lives. Osteen, I’m sure, would agree that we need to turn to the Lord and trust Him for His power and His grace while that when we enduring difficulties. We can’t simply count on our own positive thinking or face life’s hardships without Him. We also can’t ignore the ugliness of sin or fail to grow in a lifestyle of repentance.