I have found that you can always count on Christine Hoover to provide a hard-hitting message with her books – and her newest release from BakerBooks is no exception. “With All Your Heart: Living Joyfully Through Allegiance to King Jesus” is a powerful book that compels readers to answer this question: If our hearts are made for allegiance to a king and kingdom (which they are) who and what are we consciously and unconsciously pledging our loyalty to? Who and what are we truly living for, with the thoughts and words and actions of our daily lives? It’s a profound question, and one that challenged and convicted me simultaneously.

“With All Your Heart” is divided into three sections. The first section introduces the subject of allegiance to a king and kingdom, and the hope and peace we will find if we align with the One True King.

The second section discusses many of the false kings we find in the world, including Anxiety, Image, Control, Escape, Isolation, Approval, and more. I was especially convicted by the chapter on Escape, as this is a challenge in my life and I felt Christine’s discussion to be very insightful and thought-provoking. I plan to re-read this chapter soon, and with God’s help to become stronger in not letting my allegiance be with Escape.

The third section of the book is the shortest, but it brings together everything Christine discussed before. As she says, “We do not need to see or understand all that God is doing on our hardest days. We just need to know that God is behind this and in this, and that he will make it beautiful in time. We need to know we will one day live and move and have our being in God’s unshakable kingdom.”

If your heart is up for a challenge, and you are pondering if your deepest allegiances are founded on the Truth, I highly recommend reading “With All Your Heart”. It isn’t an easy book to read, and I suggest taking your time with it, but in the end it is so worth it. It changed my thinking, and now it is up to me to allow God to change my life.

I am grateful to have received a copy of this book from Baker Books Bloggers, free of charge, in exchange for an honest review. All opinions expressed are my own.