Who Do You Think You Are? - Mark Driscoll

Identity. Who are you? What defines you? These are the questions Mark Driscoll tackles in his book Who Do You Think You Are? — except this is no self-help book. Driscoll asks the question "Who are you?" and then goes on to answer it Biblically. “The fundamental problem we have in this world,” he says, “is that we don’t understand who we truly are—children of God made in his image—and define ourselves by any number of things other than Jesus. Only by knowing our false identity apart from Christ in comparison to our true identity in him can we finally deal with and overcome the issues in our lives.” This book examines who we are in the context of a very important lens — Christ.

Each chapter tackles a truth about who we are as Christians, beginning with the most foundational: I am in Christ. "As humans, and even more so now as sinful humans, we need to hear from God so that we can know who we are and subsequently what we should do and not do." From this starting point, Driscoll moves methodically through various areas of our life. It's not all about us: it's all about Jesus.

From there, Driscoll devotes several chapters to forgiveness and grace — and our dual position as forgiven children of God, and humans with sinful desires and temptations. He shows us what it means to be a child of God by showing us what Christ saves us from. Our salvation by grace has an indelible effect on how we live our lives. Our lives are not our own, but they have been bought with a price.

This book is all about Christ. It's written for Christians, but as our name says, we are people of Christ — and Driscoll's vision is all about Christ. His strength — not ours — gets us through our lives. "In Christ," Driscoll writes, "we're strengthened by his strength and become strong. If we try to 'be strong' on our own strength, we fall victim to the enemy's tactic of pride. But since we can 'be strengthened. . .in the Lord,' we can have both humility and victory." This more than anything else sums up the message of the book. Driscoll writes to people who are tired of trying on their own steam, and failing. His book is an invitation to fall into and make Christ the center of our lives, and to live out the truths that we say we believe.

This book is challenging and piercing: biblically well-founded and teaching. I highly recommend it: it challenged me in leading my own life and I recommend it without reservation.

~ Andrew
Disclosure: I received a free review copy of this book from Booksneeze, but was not required to write a positive review.