Not all that long ago the CBA Best Sellers list from The Association For Christian Retail told us the number one book is Jesus Calling: Enjoying Peace in His Presence by Sarah Young.

We find real cause for concern as we read under Product Description:

After many years of writing in her prayer journal, missionary Sarah Young decided to “listen” to God with pen in hand, writing down whatever she believed He was saying to her. It was awkward at first, but gradually her journaling changed from monologue to dialogue.

She knew her writings were not inspired as Scripture is, but they were helping her grow closer to God. Others were blessed as she shared her writings, until people all over the world were using her messages. They are written from Jesus’ point of view, thus the title Jesus Calling.

It is Sarah’s fervent prayer that our Savior may bless you with His presence and His peace in ever deeper measure. (source, emphasis mine)

Did you catch that; what she “felt” God was saying to her, but how can she know? Answer: She doesn’t. How does she know her journaling, which is nowhere mentioned in the Bible as a means of grace, was “a dialogue?” Answer: She doesn’t.

And we get this caveat in “her writings were not as inspired as Scripture.” The questions we need to ask are: Does God speak non-authoritatively? And then which parts of her book are inspired?

Sadly, the sales of this book, and the author herself, provide a striking picture of just how many so-called “Protestant” evangelicals have indeed jumped the track of the proper Christian Spirituality of encountering God in the infallible Scriptures i.e. Sola Scriptura.

Instead, in their lust for individual, personal, experience, they are actually now on the same dead end track as those apostate romanticized Roman Catholic mystics prior to the Reformation.

HT: Discern the Time