Designed to Be Like Him: Understanding God's Plan for Fellowship, Conduct, Conflict, and Maturity

by J. Dwight Pentecost

A practical and powerful reminder that new life in Christ gives us a whole new purpose - and a new goal for every aspect of life...we have been designed to be like Him.

Genres: Christian

288 pages, Paperback

Published May 11, 2001

About the author

J. Dwight Pentecost is Distinguished Professor of Bible Exposition, Emeritus, at Dallas Theological Seminary where he has served since 1955. He holds a B.A. from Hampden-Sydney College and both the Th.M. and Th.D. from Dallas Theological Seminary. His nearly twenty books include Design for Discipleship: Discovering God's Blueprint for the Christian Life; Your Adversary, the Devil; and The Divine Comforter: The Person and Work of the Holy Spirit.

Reviews

[Brandon Vaughan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was an overall great book. It’s full of great doctrine, but it’s also very readable. I didn’t necessarily learn a lot of new things, but this is a book that I wish somebody had given me as a new Christian. Pentecost does a great job explaining Man’s lost condition Without God, the process of how God saves a person, sanctification, The battle between the dual natures of a saved person and going on to spiritual maturity.

[Keith · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very thought provoking book.

[Allen Haynie · Rating 4 out of 5]

In his book, Designed To Be Like Him, Dwight Pentecost takes you through a step by step discussion of the natural man without Christ, and the new man in Christ. He shows the contrast between the old/new mind, the old/new heart and the old/new will. In our conflict between the old man and the new man he states emphatically that when Christians become partakers of the divine nature, become new creations in Christ, having crucified the old nature with its passions and desires, we are not two personalities, we do not have two natures. We have one nature, the divine nature and what remains is the flesh with the capacity to be carnal (page 44ff).

In the second section of the book he explains the teaching from Romans 6 where Christians are said to have been crucified with Christ, died with Christ, been buried with Christ and resurrected with Christ. He states that all Christians are to be yielded to the Spirit of God and allowing our sanctification to increase. He spends some time also showing how we are not to use our liberty in Christ to offend the weaker brother and in fact all that we do in life if for Gods glory. Gods glory is our goal in everything we do.

The third section Pentecost discusses the Christians armor with Eph. 6:10ff as the main text. Then the last part talks about the process of maturity of the believer, that we all should be progressing from milk to meat. In it he says milk does not signify easy doctrine and meat as hard doctrines, rather it is the depth you understand that doctrine.

This book is theologically sound and was very edifying to read. I did notice he was somewhat repetitive on things, but it was ok by me.