An objective review

I had to cut and post this review off amazon.com 11/24/09 from Jeffery Ellis in Naperville,IL; not even sure how Jeff knows me?  Nothing like a fresh set of eyes.

Thanks Jeff for taking the time!

REPO is a timely, insightful look at the church by an insightful guy with a heart for the Lord. John Bost walks the walk. He has served the body as pastor, teacher, coach and servant. Committed to Christ, he took a year off to intercede with God for his city and country. Today Bost is calling out the church to step up to its responsibilities as spiritual leader in the communities it is supposed to serve.

The American church is dying. Their primary responsibility is to those outside their walls. Yet, they shrug it off and gather round to protect their meager crumbs. Most churches either look like the world or are so moribund in their man-made traditions that autopsies of both reveal corpses, “twice dead” – they have no life in themselves nor fruit for others.

Fifty years ago, A. W. Tozer was asked when he would stop criticizing the church and its leaders. He replied, “When they straighten up, get right with God, repent, and clean up. Then I will stop.” I hear echoes of Tozer in Bost’s writings. They are the strains of a heart for the Lord distressed at the sight of His bride.

The American church is lost on a road called “Relevance”. She is so compromised with the world, so taken with its charms, she has lost her way. Her proper role is to seek “Christ-likeness”: the way of love, holiness, majesty, service. Instead, she is bedecked in costume jewelry having traded in the precious gems of her rightful inheritance for the tawdry phoniness of this world.

The Lord gave Bost three words for himself and the church: Repent, Reposition, Replenish. Jesus is preparing for Himself a beautiful bride; pure, energetic, without blemish, fit for a King. The Holy Spirit is doing a fresh work. Calling to Himself those with a heart to serve. God will have no phoniness and dead works: He is truth itself and alive with power to accomplish His purposes. He will replenish His church.

There was another John, two thousand years ago, who called on believers to repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand. We would be wise indeed to heed those words today.