Doubt or Devotion...or Both??

An observation I have been making in recent years is that one of the easiest things to happen to a Christian is to stagnate; we like to feel secure, and staying within the inherited theological boundaries that have provided a sense of certainty (see "Sense of Security") is natural to us. We unwittingly end up placing our trust in our certainty rather than in the Person of God in Christ who is infinitely larger than our systems of belief. Western Christianity of the past few hundred years contributes to this tendency to stagnate, because we've accepted the idea that being a Christian primarily means to adhere to a determined set of beliefs concerning God and that those beliefs should never change. (See recent post here.)  It's acceptable if we change within the boundaries of that prescribed belief system, but to venture outside of those boundaries in search for more truth is at best discouraged and at times punished.

I think there are two main ingredients needed for ongoing change and growth in God: 1) Sincere questions about Jesus and scripture, sorting through what really is needed and disposing of whatever is hindering the true knowledge/experience of God in Christ;
2) Sincere devotion to Jesus, always keeping focused on what the "sorting through" is all about and not getting lost in the sorting. Without the sincere questioning, we easily get stuck in what we have been taught and there is always more to learn (and unlearn) of Jesus; without sincere devotion to Jesus, we can easily make the "sorting through" the goal.

With this in mind, I recommend some books below, two for the "questioning" ingredient and two for the "devotion" ingredient; I recommend the wonderful (and at times frightening) adventure of finding a trusted follower(s) of Jesus with whom you can safely discuss anything and everything while keeping clearly in view the ultimate and ongoing goal of encountering Jesus in truth and consequently becoming like Him. Depending on the lens you are looking through, some of this material will stretch your thinking; the wonderful thing is that you don't have to agree with everything an author writes in order to receive truth from him/her.

Books to help with the questioning ingredient:
A New Kind of Christianity
The Sacredness of Questioning Everything

Books to help with the devotion ingredient:
God's Favorite Place on Earth
The Only Necessary Thing