Book Description About the Author Jonathan Parnell is the lead pastor of Cities Church in Minneapolis-St.Paul, a church he and his team planted in 2015. He is the Send Network’s City Missionary in the Twin Cities, where he also serves as a church-planting trainer. He is the author of Never Settle for Normal: The Proven Path to Significance and Happiness (2017) and coauthor of How to Stay Christian in Seminary (2014). He and his wife, Melissa, live in the Twin Cities with their eight children. Read more Customers Review: Jonathan Parnell provides a scholarly and insightful view into God’s mercy and greatness by walking us step by step through Psalms 51. Jonathan’s life story is amazing, as a teenager he miraculously survived a terrible car accident. His writing style is heartfelt yet extremely intelligent. The book is small but Jonathan’s message is huge. It is very hard to stop reading once you start. Highly recommended!
Jonathan Parnell is my pastor at CitiesChurch in Minneapolis/St.Paul and reading his book on Psalm 51 is like having a personal conversation with this outstanding young man. The book is straight from the heart, solidly from the Bible, and significantly relevant. When you wonder if God is real or you feel far from Him, Jonathan stirs the reader to a new found joy through his commentary on Psalm 51. Well-written and an easy read, personal and deep. This is a book to pick up over and over again to restore the joy of your salvation.
My favorite book is the Psalms, and Psalm 51 is a standout text of Scripture. David’s dark and shameful moment is often reserved for meditation during our worst moments. In this book, Jonathan Parnell preaches that Psalm 51 is for our every moment. Repentance requires much mercy.Jonathan Parnell is the lead pastor of Cities Church in Minneapolis-St. Paul, a church-planting trainer, and author. Interestingly, he and his wife, Melissa, have eight children. With so many lives in one household, I can only imagine how much joy, sorrow, laughter, and crying he can handle. And so he writes this book with an urgency that can only come from a father seeking to impart God’s Word and wisdom to his family.A Daily Prayer for the Praise of GodEach chapter of this book focuses on a specific verse in Psalm 51. In Chapter 1, People Like Us, the spotlight is on Psalm 51:1. Parnell shares a personal story of how a car accident, while he was in high school, changed his life trajectory. He shows us how praying Psalm 51 is not just for when we experience moments of intense desperation. Rather, it should be prayed for the mercy we need every day.Chapter 2, Praise, focuses on Psalm 51:15. Parnell says that instead of creating the praise of God, Christians are called to participate in it. He explains and helps us come to terms with this fundamental truth: God’s reality is not diminished by our inability to comprehend him. It humbles our pride. It affects our moral framework and psychological framework. And the implications are clear: We worship in waiting and in whatever comes our way.Our Hearts and God’s PresencePsalm 51: 10 is the text for Chapter 3. Here we are brought to the center of the Gospel – God is all about changing our hearts. Parnell brings us to what I consider to be the most famous statements in Psalm 51 – a clean heart and a broken and contrite heart. In another memorable illustration, Parnell shows how we often let our hearts guide us – but our hearts are not trustworthy and they cause us to be out of control. Rightfully, he concludes that we need the grace of God to change our hearts every day.God’s presence is the point of Chapter 4, and Parnell tells of how we all ask God at some point not to leave us. Using Psalm 51: 11 as a starting point, he then shows us how the Bible develops this theme in four acts: presence lost, presence promised, presence realized, and presence secured. He ends with the assurance that God’s nearness is our good.Mercy and JoyChapter 5 ends the book with a look at Joy. Psalm 51:12 is the text, and it is here where David is asking God for an emotion. You will see John Piper’s influence on Jonathan Parnell in this chapter. We are left with the impression that our joy is for the glory of God and the good of others.The book concludes with Lamentations 3:22-23 – and how God’s mercies are new every morning. It is a fitting conclusion to a book that dives deep into one of the darkest chapters of the Bible. This book is saturated with the light of Jesus Christ. And it has given me hope that a new day is dawning.I was provided a free copy of Mercy for Today – A Daily Prayer from Psalm 51 but was not required to write a positive review.
“Mercy For Today – A Daily Prayer from Psalm 51 appealed to me because I am focusing on the concepts of mercy and grace. Author, Jonathan Parnell breaks apart some of the most familiar verses in the Christian community. When David sins so heinously against God with Bathsheba and is called out by Samuel for his sin, he pens Psalm 51. The entire Psalm is his cry to the Lord for forgiveness. Mr. Parnell takes four specific verses from this Psalm and does a masterful job at digging into how each of those verses can apply to our lives and how we can use them when we pray. The verses become intensely personal while reading his book, they become verses that the reader wants to be a part of their daily prayer life. Mr. Parnell shows, in great detail, how valuable repentance and mercy are and why we should consider them frequently. This book made me hunger more for the Word of God and led me to embrace Psalm 51.
If you’re anything like me you can probably recite (or better yet sing) parts of Psalm 51 by heart.”Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from me.Restore unto me, the joy of your salvation and uphold me with they free Spirit.”This Psalm was written by David after he is confronted by the prophet Nathan with his sin of adultery with Bathsheba. It touches all of us because we’ve all been there — riddled with guilt because we’ve suddenly realized how deeply we have sinned.Jonathan Parnell, pastor of Cities Church in Minneapolis-St. Paul, calls the 51st Psalm, “the Psalm par excellence when it comes to repentance” and also “an uncomfortable Psalm.” In this short book, he discusses other deep topics touched on in this well-known Psalm: mercy, praise, transformation, God’s presence and joy. It’s truly food for the soul, a Biblical sound and satisfying read.Here are a few quotes that I found particularly challenging:”…when things don’t go the way we want, we don’t usually stop and ask God to work in us. We would rather God change the circumstances …””We must take the unchanging truths of God and wrestle them into potential relevance.””We’re better at seeking his intervention then at giving him (God) adoration.”If you read this book carefully, you won’t be the same when you’re finished. I highly recommend it. |
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