Jesus Today, with Full Scriptures: Experience Hope Through His Presence (a 150-Day Devotional)

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I absolutely adore this devotional,” wrote one woman from Tennessee. “I have read it nearly everyday for the past year, but I still find peace from it even now. Beautiful and comforting.” Spiritual struggles led to L’Abri While at CTS, Young met her husband, Stephen Young. The couple married in 1977 and then moved to Yokkaichi, Japan, to plant a church with Mission to the World ministry. Her books have met people in their darkest hours, taught children about Jesus, and changed lives for eternity. Knowing Sarah professionally and personally had been a privilege of a lifetime,” she added. She need not have worried. In its first three years, Jesus Calling sold an average of 20,000 copies per year, with many people buying them as gifts. Christian bookstores reported customers asking if they could buy the devotional by the case. She met her husband, Steve, while in seminary, and after the couple graduated in 1977, they became missionaries with Mission to the World, a missionary agency of the Presbyterian Church in America. They served first in Japan and later in Australia, where Young worked as a Christian counselor.

My books tend to speak to different people in different ways, meeting them right where they are,” she said. “I think that’s because the books help people connect with Jesus, and He meets us right where we are. The books are designed to help people connect not only with Jesus, the living Word, but also with the Bible, the written Word.” As she experienced various illnesses, including two surgeries for melanoma, a misdiagnosis of chronic fatigue syndrome, Lyme disease, and persistent vertigo, the prayer practices became increasingly important to her. Young wondered if she might be called to share them with others.A memorial service will be held on September 9 at Christ Presbyterian Church in Nashville, Tennessee, at 1:50 p.m. A year later, she felt the same Presence while reading Christian author Catherine Marshall’s book about prayer, Beyond Our Selves. More controversially, Young was also influenced by God Calling, a British record of purportedly divine revelation given to two anonymous women known only as “The Listeners.” It was edited and published by a newspaper editor interested in spiritualism, mystic experiences, and alternative religious authorities. Author Dawn Paoletta, for example, wrote that she was skeptical because Young’s account of receiving divine messages reminded her of New Age writings. But when she read Jesus Calling, she was convinced it was from God.

They also pointed out the long history of devotional writing, including classic works by Andrew Murray, Oswald Chambers, and A. W. Tozer, was broadly accepted in evangelicalism. Young’s writing style might be different, but readers were very familiar with the devotional genre that critics seemed to wildly misunderstand. Helping readers connect with Jesus

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A children’s version of Jesus Calling has also sold more than a million copies, as have two of Young’s follow-up devotionals, Jesus Always and Jesus Today. Two others, Jesus Lives and Jesus Listens, have sold half a million copies each. Young didn’t think her writing was inspired by God—and was certainly not inerrant—yet she didn’t think it was just a creative writing project, either. Writing from God’s perspective wasn’t conceived as a rhetorical device. She thought of her journals as a testament to God’s Presence.

Young treasured the book. It “dovetailed remarkably well with my longing to live in Jesus’ Presence,” she said. It prompted her to start writing in God’s voice in her prayer journal.Written as if Jesus were speaking to the reader, Young’s books have been controversial at times. She told The New York Times in 2013 that she did not consider herself a prophet, nor did she consider “Jesus Calling” a new book of Scripture. “I agree that revelation has ceased in the sense that the Bible is complete,” Young told the Times in a written response to questions. “However, what I am doing is devotional writing, and I do so by asking Jesus to guide my mind as I spend time with Him — to help me think His thoughts.”

Sarah believed that praying daily for the readers of Jesus Callingwas an amazing privilege and a God-given responsibility. She committed time every morning to these prayers, often in the sunroom of her Tennessee home,” the statement read.

Jesus Calling” was published in 2004 when Young was in her late 50s. After a modest beginning, the book became a huge hit — spawning a series of related products, including children’s books, journals and podcasts. All told, the Jesus Calling brand had sold 45 million copies by July of 2023, according to Thomas Nelson, Young’s publisher. Jesus Calling: February 28 Stop judging and evaluating yourself, for this is not your role. Above all, stop comparing yourself with other people. This produces feelings of pride or inferiority; sometimes, a mixture of both. I lead each of My children along a path that is uniquely tailor-made for him or her. Comparing is not only wrong; it is also meaningless. After walking alone in the snowy Swiss woods, Young felt a Presence—she would always write about it with a capital P—and felt it was the overwhelming personal answer to a question she had only thought was intellectual. She said aloud, “Sweet Jesus.”