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A Love Worth Giving:
Living in the Overflow of God's Love
Max Lucado
Publishing, 230 pages, $22.99

How do we treat others with the love described in 1 Corinthians 13? By "living loved" ourselves, Max Lucado writes. In his warm, conversational style, Lucado turns the verses inside out to show that everything believers are asked to do for others Jesus has first done for them.

Trying harder to love other people "even if it kills us" isn't enough, he insists, adding that the first step in learning to love is not toward other people, but rather toward God. By doing this, "we will love better than we have."

The mix of modern-day retellings of biblical parables and personal anecdotes with numerous analogies might occasionally seem sentimental or clichéd (God is called "your captain" in a sequence about ships). But in Lucado's hands, they help form a moving treatise that prods the reader toward greater self-examination and reflection. An extensive discussion guide offers opportunities for study groups to dig more deeply.

"Many people tell us to love," Lucado writes. "Only God gives us the power to do so."

Cindy Crosby is a frequent contributor to Publishers Weekly.

Copyright © 2003 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

A Love Worth Giving is available at Christianbook.com.

The official Max Lucado website has more information on his books and ministry. The site includes an excerpt from A Love Worth Giving.

In 1999, Christianity Today published an interview with Lucado in which he shared his struggles with prayer, goals for golf, and vision for being just like Jesus.

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January 2003, Vol. 47, No. 1