cover image The Great House of God

The Great House of God

Max Lucado, J. Carl Laney. Thomas Nelson Publishers, $19.99 (240pp) ISBN 978-0-8499-1295-5

Popular speaker and writer Lucado offers a meditation on the idea of God as a dwelling place for those who seek God. In this book, Lucado conceives of the Lord's Prayer as God's blueprint for the great house of God, and he uses prayer to describe the rooms of God's house. The book functions, then, as a kind of tour through the great house of God, from the living room (""when your heart needs a father"") through the study (""how God reveals His will"") to the family room (""learning to live together""). Each chapter opens with a portion of the prayer (e.g., for the living room, the portion is ""Our Father""), and Lucado then proceeds to deliver a sermonette about the nature of that particular room in God's house and the activities that take place in that room. For example, in the meditation on the study, Lucado reflects on the teaching that God delivers to believers who are seeking to do God's will. While these reflections might be powerful in their spoken form, the brevity and the shallowness of their written form abandons readers in the foyer. (Sept.)