Love Like That: 5 Relationship Secrets from Jesus

What's apparent when you read this book is that Dr. Parrott has the mind and training of a psychologist, but the heart of a pastor. As he weaves together the findings of social psychology with Bible truth, he develops a practical and deeply personal picture of what God's love looks like.What I love about this book is that Dr. Parrott takes these huge, abstract ideas like love or acceptance and really makes them concrete and accessible. The take-away's are major, and the book is saturated with them. This book will change the way you live, and the way you love.

I really enjoyed this book and all of the thought-provoking ideas that it had to share. It leaves you with an outline to follow to be able to focus on living your life the way Jesus would. It was encouraging in the ways that the authors shared struggles that we all go through and how we can overcome these in order to live a more Christ-filled, Christ-led life.The self-inventory at the end of each chapter makes you really think about how successful you are in your personal life in being more like Jesus. It gives you a good starting point to get your life on track again.Kudos to Les and Leslie for another great book - this would be a wonderful Bible Study that they have available.

The book has great suggestions and reads well.

In Love Like That: Five Relationship Secrets from Jesus, Dr. Les Parrott shares some of his thoughts and experiences trying to learn to love God and neighbor as himself. Les is an honest man, at least in terms of his willingness to confess to the challenge of becoming less selfish and more genuinely interested and focused on others. His book is part autobiography, part religious instruction, and part basic lessons taken from psychology. Les is both an ordained minister and a college professor. He has a lifetime of experience in religion and psychology and is a well-known speaker who can be seen on YouTube with his wife Dr. Leslie Parrott.In fact, the video I watched on YouTube was mentioned prominently in Love Like That. Readers can find it by typing Les Parrott Real Relationship Bible Study on YouTube. Les and Leslie demonstrate the power of our need to belong to a group. We will give answers we know are wrong just to go along with a group decision. Readers are now asking, what in the world does this study have to do with Love Like That? As it turns out, plenty, for Les tells us we need to be Bold, that is be willing to march to the beat of our own drummer if we are going to imitate Jesus, who was bold and willing to upset the status quo – think overturning the tables of the money changers in the temple, mentioned by Les in his book. Bold is the fourth secret in Les’s book. The others are: 1. Mindful, 2. Approachable, 3. Grace-Full, 4. Bold, as mentioned, and 5. Self-Giving. Les devotes a chapter to each of these secrets.Les tells us in his introduction that everything that follows in his book depends on our heart. He says, “Without the heart, we lack true understanding. Without the heart, we lack the capacity to love like Jesus.” In his famous book, The Little Prince, Antoine de Saint-Exupery says something similar: “It is only with the heart that one can see rightly. What is essential is invisible to the eyes.” Les would agree with this famous statement. Just a bit later Les says, “Let me say it straight: Until you wrap your life in love – the kind Jesus modeled – you will never be genuinely happy.”In each chapter Les gives us a self-assessment for the relationship secret under discussion. In How Mindful Are You Les asks us questions like: “I’m aware of thoughts I am having when my mood changes.” or “I’m very aware when someone else is feeling embarrassed or emotionally wounded.” This interactive approach to his subject allows us, his readers, first to take a close and careful look at ourselves and then determine what we need to do to love like Jesus. Les is an expert at constructing assessments and the ones he has included in his book are effective.At the end of each chapter is a section Les calls To Ponder. He asks us questions like: “How would you rate your current capacity to set your own agenda aside to more clearly see other people and ways to better love them?” That’s a great question that calls for us to do some real soul searching, which is exactly what Les wants. Les points out that it’s not enough to know the right thing to do, like the Pharisees in many of the Bible stories Les shares with us throughout the book, but we must actually practice imitating the behaviors of Jesus, who Les reminds us is “The Way, the Truth, and the Life.”Speaking of Bible stories, I was not always comfortable with the liberties Les has taken with his interpretation of the Bible. For example, he mentions the story of the tax collector, Zacchaeus, and says that Jesus said one word to him: “Zacchaeus.” I am familiar with this story and know that Jesus said more than one word; in fact the King James version of the Bible indicates that Jesus said: “Zacchaeus,  make haste and come down, for today I must stay at your house.” As it happened, Zacchaeus was perched in a tree so that he could get a good view of Jesus. I could list many more examples where Les has retold the Bible story to suit his needs in his book. That said, Les’s intentions are good and most readers won’t know that he is giving his own spin on the Bible narrative.As we come to the end of Les’s book he tells us: “The closer you grow to God, the more you sense his Spirit – and the easier it is to love like Jesus.” To help us on our way, in his Appendix Les gives us “21 Days to Loving Like That.” Les tells us that he wrote his Appendix “...to make the five qualities I’ve outlined in this book – being mindful, approachable, grace-full, bold, and self-giving – a lifestyle pattern of behavior.” Always Les wants to help us understand and apply the Bible story. For the most part, I think he succeeds with his short and readable book. Recommended.

This book is about how Jesus loved others and what stands in the way of our loving like he did. Being focused on achieving our own agenda gets in the way of seeing the needs of others. Pride and the desire to be part of the "in" crowd stands in the way of people feeling like they can approach us. The desire to feel like we're better than others stands in the way of our showing love to those who don't deserve it. Fear and the desire to be accepted stands in the way of our telling the truth and living transparent lives. Selfishness stands in the way of our thinking about others before thinking about ourselves. He ended by explaining that loving like Jesus is impossible in our own effort and how to allow Jesus to love others through us (through the power of the Holy Spirit).The author described studies that illustrate how people act. He also quoted Scripture (in a paraphrase version) and summarized events in Jesus life to illustrate his points. I didn't like that he sometimes slipped his own speculation about motives and such into his summaries without pointing out that these were his ideas and weren't actually stated in the Bible. However, I would recommend this easy, quick read because his main points were good and useful.

There's a 23 and Me Commercial entitled 'Getting to Know You.' As I walk through this awesome book, Love Like That, and soaked in the powerful lessons of being mindful, approachable, grace-full, bold, and self-giving, Dr Les Parrott ties it all together with the only way to accomplish this task is by getting to know you: the Holy Spirit.The way Dr Parrott reveals the transparency of this, loving like Jesus, is not an easy task is refreshing. The truthfulness show the maturity of a seasoned Christian willingness to surrender his will for God’s greater purpose. Awesome book. Well written. Wonderful, Meaningful, Powerful insight of how to begin the process to Love Like That!NOTE: I receive an advanced copy from the author before the actually release date.