Enemies of the Heart: A Review

"Enemies of the Heart," by Andy Stanley, a book about the four emotions that control us.  Through this book Stanley seeks to examine what these four emotions are, how they affect us and ultimately propose habits that we can incorporate into our lives to help break free from these emotions.  He identifies the four emotions as being: Guilt, Anger, Greed and Jealousy.  These particular four emotions become controlling in our lives because they all are connected to a certain indebtedness in our heart.  Guilt leads to the thinking of "I owe you."  Anger leads to the thinking of "You owe me."  Greed leads to the thinking of "I owe me." And finally, jealously lead to the thinking of "God owes me."

After the author unpacks the four emotions and the control they have in our lives, he moves to a section that focuses on a habit that will lead to freedom from that particular bondage.  Freedom from guilt comes through confession, not just to God but also to others.  Freedom from anger comes through practicing forgiveness.  Freedom from greed comes through practicing generosity. Freedom from jealously comes through celebrating others.  Being habits that need to be formed, each one of these freedom-giving practices is to be exercised regularly.  They are not just one time events, instead they are to become who we are.

I found this book to be very well written and easy to understand.  I thought the content was very appropriate for the subject matter and that this would be a useful book for those who are looking for reasons why they are not maturing in their faith or able to move past certain attitudes or habits.  I found this to be a very good and practical Christian living book and would recommend it.  There are discussion questions in the back for use in groups and I feel that the material presented does lend itself to further discussion if one chooses.  All in all, this is another solid book by Stanley.

I received this book for free from WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group for this review.