2007 by Martin Zender
Paperback. 106 pages. 25 illustrations.

Are there certain things in your life that you know are wrong but you do them anyway? Over and over again? Then welcome to the book that will change your life. This book is not for smokers only but for anyone plagued by nagging weaknesses. You are about to become free from them, not through vigorous self-analysis and moral exercise, but by the most powerful tool in the universe: a revelation of god's truth concerning them.

This book is written only for those who know what they’re supposed to do but sometimes don’t do it. It’s written for those who think that their own particular weakness keeps God from completely liking them. It’s written for those who just can’t shake a bad habit. This book is written for the wretched souls who totter between their passion life and their desire for God, not realizing that in order to have a desire for God they must also be dogged by at least one detestable/wonderful passion that keeps them humble and needing Him.  

EXCERPTS

The Pharisees of Jesus’ day tried hard to stamp sin from their lives. The result? They sinned like crazy people. What a paradox. But you’ve proven it in your own life: the more you try not to do the thing you hate, the more you think about the thing you hate, and the more you do it. God is quite aware of this principle and—if you can believe it—He invented it.

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 George Bernard Shaw was a genius. It was he who said: "Virtue is insufficient temptation." Many times, those who appear virtuous have not been sufficiently tempted. Their virtue is Hollywood-wall virtue, propped up with half a dozen two-by-fours and a New Year’s resolution. It’s self-control untested. The world can spot phony Christian virtue ten miles away. Christians can’t see it because they are too busy admiring themselves in the mirror.

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Real human virtue is being broken by trial and lying like a pile of lumber in the wake of a hurricane. That’s when the good stuff starts; it’s when God goes to work. Real human virtue is helplessness before God. Helplessness before God is the beginning of a true spirituality that stands strong when the wind blows. Well, it has no place to go but up. 

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All humanity boils down to two individuals: Adam and Christ. If you want to comprehend the race, you need only comprehend these two, for they represent the whole. No need wasting time studying anthropology, mankindology, or whatever other "ology" they’re offering at universities these days. Read the next few paragraphs and you’ll have mankind in the bag. Everyone besides Adam and Christ can clear out of the ring, buy popcorn and sit down.

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Your church assumes that the kind of freedom we’re uncovering here—even if they did believe it—will inspire more sin. Christian leaders don’t trust grace, and they certainly don’t trust you with it. So they prop up grace with law, make themselves the administrators of it, and send you on a guilt trip every time you miss church or break one of their rules.  

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Are we warring with our flesh? Then we are miserable, for this is captivity. To be constantly worrying about, wrestling against, and warring with the flesh is the worst kind of bondage. So many people assume that a vast moral struggle must accompany a Christian walk. Christianity itself has taught this. But no. This is horrible bondage. Struggling against flesh is the essence of religion and it’s why religion frustrates people and makes them crazy. It’s why religious people become incensed that the rest of the world isn’t as concerned with sin as they are. The truth is that the rest of the world trusts God more with its sin than Christians do with theirs.

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You can be free from Sin while sinning, and you can be a slave of Sin while refraining from it. How can this be? I can’t wait to tell you.