Want more joy in your life? Read this life changing book

From Crimson To White: Finding Gospel Joy At Calvary  (10 Publishing) is a potentially life-changing book. 

Natalie Brand, who has held teaching positions at Union School of Theology and London Seminary, has set herself a tough task with this volume – to write a book which genuinely helps Christians discover or rediscover the joy which should be part and parcel of their daily lives.

I think she achieves this wonderfully.

Brand beautifully mixes personal anecdotes with deep meditations on biblical truth. From Crimson To White resembles neither the dusty over-technical opaqueness of some theologians nor the gushing naivety of some charismatics. Instead, it is a tribute both to her hermeneutical discipline and her desire to genuinely help many believers find their inheritance of joy. She writes with gentleness and understanding but also boldly states the truth, that only a fraction of professing Christians rest on the completed work of Christ in their lives.

At its heart, the Christian faith is meant to be experiential. Brand points out that we may have once had an exhilarating conversion experience, we may pay lip service to good doctrine and may regularly attend church, but the exhausting demands and frantic busyness of our lives ensure that spiritually we feel disengaged and uninvolved. Above all else, Brand suggests we need to find the joy of knowing and loving God. She doesn’t pull any punches on how we can begin to move towards the all-satisfying experience of love, acceptance and joy we hunger and thirst for.

She writes: “Opening our minds and softening our hearts takes guts. It will mean a radical humility. Our pride doesn’t want to face up to the power of divine love.” With winsome testimony and careful exegesis Brand shows that this letting go of self-reliance and self-centredness is the central act in filling our lives with biblical joy.

The author describes how after our conversion we gradually slip into a state where in our minds we start thinking of God in the wrong way. She writes: “Wired by a world that defines love with prenuptial agreements and mutual back scratching, we form in our minds an unbiblical God who would never delight in us. This fabrication of a divine scowl has certainly kept me from gospel bliss.”

There are a number of pit stops along the spiritual journey that Brand takes us on. Her insights on how King Jesus took on human flesh in order to be our blood payment; the need for cleansing (‘whether we have benefitted from a Christian upbringing or have a background callous to the things of God – we are all in need of a good washing’); societal justice; and secret sins like pornography. But the book continually leads us back to the sheer transformative power that is available to every believer through the death and resurrection of the Lamb of God.

One of the crucial elements in the book is the way the stories of the Jewish people in the Old Testament resonate with the salvation narrative of the New Testament. Her reflections on God’s promises to humanity – the covenants – skilfully draw out this connection. Brand explains that covenants are fundamentally promises marked by blood, tracing this theme through key biblical moments: Abraham and Isaac on Mount Moriah, where a ram is provided in place of a son; Zipporah’s swift act that averts Moses from judgment; and the Passover, where the repeated sacrifice of spotless lambs points forward to the ultimate Lamb of God. Across these accounts, she suggests a unifying thread: the idea that one must die for the many – a reality fulfilled in the one who restores God’s people from the enemy.

In the book’s back cover commendations author Carolyn Lacey describes From Crimson To White as: “a warming, nourishing feast for the weary soul longing for rest.” I would add that it would truly feed those longing for the inner ‘happiness plus’ of biblical joy promised in scripture and guide them into how they can either receive it or retrieve it.

From Crimson to White  (10 Publishing) by Natalie Brand is out now