A Look at a Book
by Editor(s)

BOOK REVIEW: Summit Living by Norman Grubb

Many people these days are reading daily devotions. One that I find especially helpful is Summit Living by Norman Grubb. It clearly and powerfully shows us the way of faith. I particularly enjoy Norman’s picture-like descriptions which make the truth come alive.

Each daily reading tells a part of what is involved in living from who you are. The first part of the book firmly lays the foundation of the born-again believers’ union with Christ. Here is Norman decisively stating this union: “You don’t try to find yourself, do you? Wherever you go, you are there, aren’t you? However you feel about it, you can’t escape your self. And your other self is Christ, you can’t escape Him either!” I love the wonderful simplicity that makes this union plain and clear.

Norman shares his personal testimony of coming to know his union with Christ. He talks of his battle of faith in the African jungle with Galatians 2:20, but he finally settled the issue: “…we went to our camp beds around 4AM having accepted the matter as settled by faith. We awoke no different: but I took a postcard and drew a tombstone on it, and wrote ‘Here lieth Norman Grubb, buried with Jesus’.” There are many other stories in Summit Living equally as scary, challenging, and exciting.

Norman states that we come to a major turning point after salvation which he calls the “second crisis”, whereby we come to know our true identity. “As we come to know that we were children of God by an inner certainty, a witness of the Spirit in our spirits, so now we know that the old “I” has Christ as its permanent life; Spirit with spirit have been fused into one, the branch grafted into the vine, the member joined to the body–and the problem of abiding becomes as natural as breathing.”

Norman goes on to discuss fellowship, God’s ways with man, revival, temptation, adventure in adversity, and knowing God’s will.

Finally Norman discusses intercession, our highest calling. The basic principle of intercession is that life comes out of death. “Except a grain of wheat fall into the ground and die it abideth alone; but if it dies, it bringeth forth much fruit” (John 12:24). Using examples from his own life, the lives of C.T. Studd and Rees Howells, Norman examines the three aspects of intercession; commission, cost and completion. “We may get what we pray for; we must get what we intercede for. We are responsible to do so, and we lay down our lives to obtain it.” This is truly Summit Living.