You Have a Unique Soulprint

You are a unique creation of God with the purpose of serving Him in the unique way that only you can.  This one sentence sums up the entire book Soulprint, the newest book from Mark Batterson.  Doing what he does best, Batterson takes familiar portions of the Bible and gives them a fresh spin.  Using five different aspects of the life of King David, Batterson shows the reader how through the high and low points he or she can live and fulfill his or her unique life calling; in short, how they can fully assume the identity of their soul print.

Soulprint feels very similar to his earlier book In a Pit With a Lion on a Snowy Day.  Where Soulprint falls short for me is that while In a Pit was the kind of book to pump you up and get you motivated to do some outrageous things for God, Soulprint felt too much like a self-help book for me.  Based on what I had read earlier from Batterson, I did not enjoy this book as much as I could have.  A reader who comes into this book with a similar mindset will have a very difficult time getting into this book much like I did.  The reader who will get the most out of this book is the one who is working on trying to find his or her identity; the young Christian who is trying to grow in the faith.

I received my copy of this book free from the publisher, Multnomah Waterbrook Press, through their Blogging for Books program for review purposes. The opinions expressed in this review are my own, and I was not required to issue a positive review.

"A Year With Jesus"

     To the reader of the Bible, upon reading the New Testament it can seem perplexing why there are four books back-to-back (the Gospels) that all tell the same story.  Different stories are repeated with only slight variation in quotation and it can all seem like just a story.  This is where A Year With Jesus can be useful as much more than a simple yearly devotional guide.  R.P. Nettelhorst takes the reader through a one-year journey that takes excerpts from both the words of Jesus and stories about Jesus from the Bible, and then turns them into a relational expository lesson that makes the teachings of Jesus easily accessible to any reader.  But more than this, Nettelhorst through the pages of this devotional introduces the reader to The One who desires relationship with all who read His words.


     At times deceivingly simplistic and at other times intimate, A Year With Jesus is an engaging read.  Once you get into the habit of reading the daily entries, readers will be challenged to actually want to stop reading this book as each day furthers a "conversation" of insights of the most important Teacher of all time, Jesus.  I recommend this book to anyone looking for a one-year study guide that will challenge them to grow, no matter what their station in life.




I received my copy of this book free from the publisher, Thomas Nelson, through their BookSneeze program for review purposes. The opinions expressed in this review are my own, and I was not required to issue a positive review.