I was leaving church one night after a Bible study and I was confronted or challenged by someone in the parking lot. That confrontation led to an obsession.

I became consumed with researching every single interpersonal encounter Jesus had with anyone, and everyone. It took me seven years but beginning with Matthew 1:1, I examined every detail of Jesus’ life and words in the most intensive careful meticulous way I could.

What I found changed my life.

And what I found is shared in a book I’m publishing in January of 2020.

Some of you already know. I’ve been working on this for a long time and, because I’m terrible at marketing and publishing, the process has taken longer than expected. I’m years late. But I approved the final interior design four days ago. And just a few minutes ago I sent back the final edits for the hardcover dust jacket and paperback cover designs. (Thank you Kathy, Gabe, Nate, Kody, Kass, Josh, Adam, Paulette, Charise, and Anastasia for your help!)

So this is happening–finally.

The book is based on the blog posts you read here on God Running. It begins with the story of how, after a life of regular church attendance and Bible study, I was challenged by a pastor to study Jesus. That led to the obsessive seven year deep dive. After pouring over Jesus’ every interaction with another human being, I realized I was doing a much better job of studying Jesus’ words than I was following Jesus words and example. When you read about my own moral failures you’ll recognize I wrote this book for myself as much as for others.

The book is called Love Like Jesus: How Jesus Loved People (and how you can love like Jesus) and it examines a variety of stories, examples, and research including:

• Specific examples of how Jesus communicated God’s love to others.
• How Jesus demonstrated all five of Gary Chapman’s love languages (and how you can too).
• The story of how Billy Graham extended Christ’s extraordinary love and grace toward a man who misrepresented Jesus to millions.
• How to respond to critics the way Jesus did.
• How to love unlovable people the way Jesus did.
• How to survive a life of loving like Jesus (or how not to become a Christian doormat).
• How Jesus didn’t love everyone the same (and why you shouldn’t either).
• How Jesus guarded his heart by taking care of himself–he even napped–and why you should do the same.
• How Jesus loved his betrayer Judas, even to the very end.

In short, with what my wife Kathy calls “unfiltered transparency,” I share what can help you to live a life according to God’s definition of success: A life of loving God well, and loving the people around you well too.

A life of loving like Jesus.

Launching a new book is a massive undertaking. To do it I’m going to need your help. So if you have an interest in serving on my launch team, please email me at kurt@kurtbennettbooks.com. We’ll have some fun together leading up to the January, 2020 release date.

Hope to hear from you.

Kurt