Max Lucado’s latest book, entitled Fearless (Thomas Nelson, 2009), is being released today and I was fortunate enough to get an advanced copy. Lucado wrote the book to encourage us to be: Fearless.

Our fears are many and Lucado works his way through each of them with Scripture, with true life stories, and by providing a spiritual antidote for each one. The chapters that spoke to me the most were: the fear of not mattering, the fear of overwhelming challenges, the fear of worst case scenarios, the fear of violence, and the fear of global calamity. There were many others. I found it particularly helpful the way Lucado was able to isolate each fear and expose the lies that created it. One of the other interesting fears he addressed was the fear of God getting out of my box. God has a habit of shattering our inadequate perceptions of him, which can also be scary.

Lucado is not so naïve as to think all our fears are going to disappear as a result of reading his book. So he provides a discussion guide at the back of the book for either individuals or groups to work through a process of examining our particular fears, exposing them, and battling them.

Like Max Lucado’s other books, Fearless is easy to read, keeps to the point, and is full of helpful teaching and Biblical insights.