Consider Jesus (Devotional Review)

What to Expect

Consider Jesus encourages readers to explore a different facet of Jesus on each day of this 31-part Advent devotional, with topics ranging from His humility to His supremacy.

Each dated devotional begins with a verse from Scripture, followed by a page or so of discussion, contextualizing or supporting the trait described. DeMoss Wolgemuth draws from Scripture, with excerpts dotting the paragraphs.

Following the commentary, there’s a written-out prayer, often emphasizing gratitude to Jesus for being the way He is. Then comes “Key Reading,” featuring more passages of relevance. Each longer reference is accompanied by a brief excerpt from the passage.

Finally, the “Consider” heading, which is the clear basis for the book’s title. offers readers a venue for consideration, tethered in the tangible qualities of everyday life.

Audience

Consider Jesus seems targeted to a “churched” audience, and makes ample use of terminology frequently heard from the pulpit, which someone outside of Christian church circles wouldn’t necessarily understand. The ideas and presentation may make it a “safer” read for some: Much of what I read felt very similar to things I have heard in sermons.

I have somewhat mixed feelings about this. Because the content was so familiar, there was not a lot that the Lord used to minister to me in a new way. With that said, the entire premise of consideration requires a return to / emphasis on truths that are already familiar.

By design, the book is intended to be a revisiting of known truths rather than an exploration of new things. This may also make the book feel like a safer, cozier read for some.

What I Liked

I appreciate books that have prayers written out for me, because I so often do not know how to pray. I like that the prayers in Consider Jesus are tethered to truths about Him — facts I can rest secure in, even when my feelings want to tell a different story. More than even the commentary itself, I think the prayers are something I can return to, even as I just flip through the book. (In fact, when drafting the below section, I did stop and pray one of the prayers that I had noted).

Favorites

While this isn’t my top recommendation for a Christmas-themed devotional, there were certainly parts that the Lord used for me.

My favorite devotional was the December 18th passage, titled “Naming Rights.” I really appreciate the observation made: We often talk about what Jesus’ Name means. Beyond that, “The fact that He was named at all has meaning” (p. 89).

“To be given a name,” Wolgemuth DeMoss adds, “reflects submission to authority” (p. 90). And “He who holds all dominion and authority allowed an earthly, nondescript carpenter to ‘call his name Jesus'” (p. 91).

The Consider passage for the day is about surrendering any sense of entitlement or power over people.

I’d also like to highlight this prayer from Day 27:

You are the Mighty God. You hold all power and have no limits. The whole world, thought it may seem to be falling apart under us, is under Your control. You can do anything. So I trust You today enough to follow Your Word and say yes to Your Spirit, knowing You will do what You have said (p. 132).

This passage is an encouragement to me this morning, as I find myself in one of life’s faith-stretching moments. It’s a solid reminder to me to cling to Him and remember that not only does He have my current situations in His hand — He has worked miraculously in my life and my family’s lives in the past! Praying it now.

Respectful Discussion

This critique is not specific to the book, but it is something that I consider worth noting: The “Consider” sections are intended as an application of the foregoing material. The concept of application is something that I’ve benefited from my mom’s wisdom on (teachings she has received from the Lord) and my landing place is looking to the Lord for what He has for me, rather than looking for a direct “application.”

Of course, applications are very common in devotionals, and I do sometimes find them to be beneficial.

Where I did struggle a bit more in this book is that the applications felt a bit too… self-powered. There were some solid-sounding ideas, but they frequently seemed more geared toward mental exercises (or things to figure out by oneself), rather than invitations to do things with Him or enjoy Him more deeply.

Recommendation Status

Although there were some elements that I didn’t necessarily agree with, I do appreciate the premise of this devotional: Taking the opportunity to consider the truths that we do already know about Jesus. Who is more worthy of our consideration?

A Christmas Note

Christmas comes early to Meadow Arc. While I enjoy the costume element of Halloween and sometimes the excuse to eat candy, my mom and I don’t observe the celebration of fear (and I was not relishing the scary / Halloween music they played through the speakers at work).

As for Thanksgiving, we don’t really follow the cultural precedent there, either. Gratitude to God? Yes, absolutely! But we feel that it’s wrong to applaud the circumstances surrounding the “first Thanksgiving” in what is now called the United States: genocide of the original inhabitants, our ancestors.

So, with the Lord’s sweet guidance, we have a tradition of beginning the Christmas celebration nice and early, right at the end of October.

It’s a fun alignment this year. While traditional publishing schedules typically release their Christmas books around September, I’ve gotten quite behind on my reviewing. It has been a crazy, unexpected past two months — full of opportunities to grow and stretch in faith. How grateful I am to walk through all this with my incredible mom!

The upshot of being more behind in my blogging is that I currently have three Christmas books to review right as we are heading into Christmas celebration.

But before I write / publish those posts, I had to say something.

There is a very great evil currently happening in my Fresno community, where I have lived my entire life. I can’t put words to the atrocity of these violent deportations: people being torn apart from their families, forcibly removed from their homes, abused (even in cases of citizenship) for the color of their skin. What a small thing it is to say how wrong, wrong, wrong it is!

In these past months of great personal turmoil, the Lord has given my mom and I (and especially my mom) just a small taste of what others in our community are experiencing, a small window into the corruption of man-made government — and increased insight into the reality that man’s laws are not God’s laws.

I recently heard this song for the first time, and I think it’s quite appropriate.

What a tiny, easy thing it is to post this. And yet, even still, a small challenge for me, because so much of what I write is intended for readers who would identify as “Conservatives.” In writing this, I know that I’m shedding off that label. But that label does not define my position in the body of Christ. He defines it. He defines me. And this evil, this abomination, goes so far beyond “politics.”

So I write this today, not in the spirit of guilt (we will indeed celebrate His light and His coming, as He calls and directs us — here at Meadow Arc), but in recognition that the ways of man are not the ways of God. That things on earth, things in FRESNO, things in the United States, are not as they should be.

Because I didn’t feel like I could simply continue posting my reviews as if nothing was wrong… without saying something.

For the alien, the foreigner. The oppressed.

This Shore of Light (Book Review)

  • Author: K.C. Ireton
  • Publisher: InterVarsity Press (Releases October 13th, Pre-Order Now!)
  • Synopsis [FROM THE PUBLISHER]: “In the small Pacific Northwest town of Port Lawrence, five people search for a way forward in the wake of broken trust and lost hope.”
  • Disclosure: I received a complimentary copy of the book from the publisher. Opinions expressed are my own.

Scripture Connection

God did this so that they would seek Him and perhaps reach out for Him and find Him, though He is not far from any one of us.

Acts 17:27

Spiritual Themes

The author is writing into a slightly different faith tradition than I’m accustomed to encountering in works of fiction, with characters practicing “high church” traditions like praying from the Book of Common Prayer (or praying repeatedly through a Scripture passage) and I loved it. It took me back to my favorite college chapel service, “Fives” at Biola University, which was a time for prayer and reflection. We would go through the same prayers each week, which was a new experience for me — and one that my soul thirsted for. What a beautiful element (Anglican liturgy) to encounter in This Shore of Light!

Alongside these details, there were some beautiful scenes about encountering the presence of God — again, through a slightly different lens than I’m used to reading — with a bit more of a reverential, sacramental quality. This is why I chose the Acts verse. Through the Anglican lens, the book portrays God breaking into our circumstances in beautiful, unexpected, and gentle ways.

As far as the plot-based spiritual themes… I’ll let the book do the speaking.

What I Liked

Amidst some very challenging times and spiritual warfare, This Shore of Light proved a sweet and delightful refreshment.

As I reflect, something that strikes me about this book is the fact that the pacing was fantastic — and it was not action-packed. I find that an impressive combination because I was having trouble finding stopping points to put the book down, and can also recall marvelling at how little seemed to have “happened” in the story. I say this by way of praise: How did the author manage to craft a story that was simultaneously “light” in the way of action and super hard to stop reading? I think books of this variety would probably be categorized as “character-driven,” where the emphasis is more on what is happening with the leads and on their character growth than it is on the plot. I think that these books will often read a bit “slower,” and I’ll acknowledge that the book had a slightly slower “hook” for me — but once I was hooked, I was hooked!

I also really like the treatment of the theme of sacrifice and choices, especially in terms of the intersection between sacrifice and the dreams we have for our own lives. So well done!

Characters

The narrative follows five different, 3rd person character perspectives. While there’s a sweet romance throughout the story, and I would say that was my favorite part, the other three characters bring a roundedness that basic romances don’t often achieve. This Shore of Light isn’t just a romance. It’s about family and faith, decisions and sacrifice, and the sweet, clear, wholesome presence of God.

As I introduce the characters, I also have to pause to applaud the multi-generational element of the story. I really appreciate the author’s intentionality in bringing together two families. We’re not just hearing from a young woman and the young man she’s seeing, or even young man, young woman, and grandma. No. We get to follow his mom and his dad, too. Plus, at the start of the book, both young leads are living at home (although he chooses to move out once he decides to settle in town).

That prefaced, the narrators are Molly and her grandmother Eleanor (or, one could say, Eleanor and her granddaughter Molly, since Eleanor is the opening narrator). Tristan, the romantic lead, is the son of Diana and Hal, who also have narration segments.

After Molly’s mother died when Molly was very young, Molly’s father took her to live with his mother. The story starts about five years after the death of Molly’s father. Molly is still living with Eleanor, and she is very careful of her grandmother’s health. Tristan, likewise, has been watching out for his family’s health, as his mother is recently in remission from cancer — which brought him home from chasing a career in the film industry. Tristan’s father is gruff and somber, crusty from the betrayals of Tristan’s twin brother, Percy.

And Percy gets a whole paragraph. Here’s why: I think it’s fascinating that a character who has had such a significant effect on his family is the one family member whose perspective we don’t get. Granted, he no longer lives in the same household / community with his family. But I think there’s more going on here. I think the reason we don’t hear from Percy is because the story is emphasizing how we respond to people and how we allow their actions to change our own trajectories. This is especially clear through Hal’s character arc.

Since I’m back on the topic of Hal, I also have to appreciate the fact that the character who seems the most straightforward and just kind of “there” turns out to be the one with the most clear development. Well done!

Content Notes

Happily, I don’t have much to say in the way of Content Notes. Maybe 1 or 2 uses of the Lord’s name / God that felt potentially colloquially. The romance element was very sweet, with a few kisses but not a lot of detail.

Recommendation Status

Well-paced and powerful, This Shore of Light is a beautiful story of decisions and sacrifice, family and forgiveness. I especially appreciated the treatment of relationships in general — with emphasis on choosing the people God has placed in our lives, rather than the “opportunities” that we dream about. Highly recommended!