Honest to God: The Means to True Transformation
Freedom begins when you stop hiding.
Many of us understand the value of authenticity. Of baring our souls in community. Of admitting our pain and struggles to each other. If we desire to relate authentically with our brothers and sisters in Christ, we must also desire relate honestly with God.
Josh Weidmann, a millennial and world traveler who is dedicated to writing and speaking the truth of the Bible, leads us to examine honesty and its importance in our relationship with God. Using Scripture and stories from his own life, Josh shows us how to be honest with God and truly honest with others. He also helps us identify lies, misunderstandings, and masks that are preventing us from being honest with God.
Honesty with God will free us, heal us, and transform us.
From the Back Cover
Freedom Begins When You Stop Hiding
Radical, unflinching honesty with God is essential if you want to experience the abundant life He offers. It must start with an accurate understanding of yourself and God. Such authenticity does not come naturally – but it is possible.
Sharing his own life experiences and practical tools from scripture, Josh Weidmann will help you identify the lies, misunderstandings, and masks that keep you from walking more deeply with God. Real joy will remain elusive until you open up and trust God to crush those barriers.
When you are truly honest with God, you allow Him to bring healing and wholeness. Bitterness will become forgiveness, apathy will become action, cynicism will become enthusiasm. Honesty with God will transform your life.
JOSH WEIDMANN is a pastor near Denver, Colorado, where he lives with his wife, Molly, and their two children. He has traveled the world as a writer and speaker proclaiming the gospel of Christ and the truth of the Bible. Josh’s writing and preaching ministry can be found at www.HonestToGod.net
Overture: Honesty Is Not an End in Itself
Part One: Reaching for Real
Chapter 1: Raw Knees and a Raw Soul
Chapter 2: Let the Fig Leaves Fall
Chapter 3: Fear Itself and Fear of God
Chapter 4: Mad at God
Chapter 5: Shame on . . . Who?
Part Two: Roadblocks to Honesty with God
Chapter 6: Deceiving Ourselves
Chapter 7: Polished Pretenders
Chapter 8: Image Management
Part Three: An Honest Encounter with God Himself
Chapter 9: Big God, Little Me
Chapter 10: Too Close for Comfort?
Chapter 11: The Scandal of Grace
Part Four: Baring Your Soul for the Sake of Change
Chapter 12: God’s Honesty Plan
Chapter 13: The Process of Purging
Chapter 14: Radical Integrity
Chapter 15: The Prize of Purpose
Epilogue: Honesty Is a Means to Transformation
Acknowledgments
If you are tired of the game and are searching for something more authentic, then you have to read Josh’s call to a more honest and transparent walk with God. With a compellingly articulated combination of present day stories and Biblical reflections from the lives of those whose hearts chased after God, Josh has charted a course for those of us who want to be honest with God.
Dr. Joe Stowell
President, Cornerstone University
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We love our masks—those elaborate covers of self-protection constructed daily in hopes of concealing our wounds, our doubts, and our brokenness. Thankfully, God calls us out, inviting us into His light, where all things—even wounds, doubts and brokenness—will be made new. In a culture hungry for authenticity, Weidmann's book is a profound exploration of Biblical authenticity. It’s an amplification of God's glorious invitation to acknowledge who we really are, and so uncover more of who we're being made to be.
Mike Yankoski
Author of Under the Overpass
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With a deeply pastoral heart, Weidmann dares you to be honest. Showing how honesty is at the heart of true growth, and digging into all the ways we seek to hide and cover, he casts a vision for true authenticity in the midst of grace.
Kyle Strobel, PhD
Author and Co-Founder of Metamorpha
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Drawing on Josh’s own faith-journey, Honest to God calls a new generation to crave transparency with God, face our own people-games, and address the fallout that can result. Identifying struggles such as image-management, Josh helps the reader with practical “how to” steps. What I found most refreshing was his exploration of our times of anger with God. Young people who want a serious discussion have found it.
Andrew J. Schmutzer, PhD
Professor of Biblical Studies, Moody Bible Institute and author of The Long Journey Home: Understanding and Ministering to the Sexually Abused
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In his book Honest to God, Josh urges us to drop whatever masks we might be wearing and dare to be real with God. He models that kind of honesty by sharing of his own faults and shortcomings. As the Apostle Paul said, ‘If I must boast, I will boast of the things that show my weakness’ (2 Corinthians 11:30). Honest to God is a Gospel-centered book that will speak not only to youth, but to anyone who is struggling with people-pleasing tendencies or hypocrisy. In other words, it speaks to all of us.
David Jones
Senior Pastor, Village Church of Barrington
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Josh Weidmann offers the gift of freedom in Christ with a fresh perspective, written powerfully and woven with self-disclosing humor, from the precious heart of a pastor. In Honest to God, we are provided with the opportunity to exhale and breathe-in the truth before us: Living honestly before God fulfills our own desire to choose life and live fully every day.
Maureen Yockey
Executive Director, Alternatives Pregnancy Center
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Josh Weidmann wants to live and Jesus came to make us alive! Honest to God offers the first steps of authenticity on the way to the Glorious Kingdom where grace, truth, and love are the invitation to become sons and daughters of Our Father.
Wes Yoder
Author of Bond of Brothers: Connecting with Other Men Beyond Work, Weather and Sports
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Josh Weidmann’s book Honest to God reveals a life-transforming truth, that when you are truly honest to God, it is IMPOSSIBLE to stay the same! God already knows it all, so why not lay it bare before Him? This book has caused me to re-evaluate my approach before God.
Mike Romberger
Senior Pastor, Mission Hills Church
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Not only is Josh Weidmann a world-class evangelist, but also a passionate writer and a born storyteller who spurshis readers to greater depths of devotion and commitment to God. In Honest to God, he combines biblical, personal, and pastoral insight with a desperately needed message of transformation through honesty.
Beniamin Pascut, PhD Candidate, Faculty of Divinity, University of Cambridge
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Honest to God is a provocative pathway of practical equipping. It reveals the way to shed lifeless, non-intimate, inauthentic relationship with God and, instead, to embrace unshackled honesty, transformational freedom, and incredible joy!
Dr. Dwight Robertson
Founding president of Kingdom Building Ministries and author of You are God''s Plan A...and There Is No Plan B
Product Details
- Title : Honest to God: The Means to True Transformation
- Author: Weidmann, Joshua Michael
- Publisher: Moody Publishers
- Publication Date: 2012
- ISBN: 9780802481450