Given the depth of Jamie Winship’s insights in Living Fearless, this review is presented in two parts. In this first writing, I will explore the book’s overarching direction and its primary themes of spiritual reclamation. The second installment provides more practical tips Jamie offers for communicating better with God.
Living Fearless is a foundational book on self-discovery. It provides strategies, prayers, and highlights to expand your understanding of your God-given authority in Christ Jesus. Essentially, the thesis of the book is to teach readers about discovering one’s true identity in the Lord. As it turns out, many lies and false identities are floating around about ourselves, and in fact, Jamie discusses this topic as something the devil wants us to believe. If Satan can get us to latch on to a false identity, such as “we are a loser,” we misplace our God-given future, filled with hope and purpose. In the book, we learn that Satan’s ultimate goal is to “blind you to the truth of your identity and destiny” (p. 127). By knowing this rudimentary fact about how the enemy operates, we can avoid this landmine and better learn our true identity in Christ – and that makes this book very powerful!
Here is a comprehensive section-by-section review of the book:
The book stresses constant communication with the Lord. In fact, very early in the text, on pages 39 and 40, Jamie outlines the three areas of knowledge we should glean directly from the Lord. These three areas include:
- Himself: learning more about God by asking Him directly.
- You: learning more about yourself by discovering your Identity by asking God about who you are.
- Your Neighbors: Learning more about your neighbors, including all other people, no matter how different they may be.
One of the many challenges Jamie gives readers in the book is acting on what God tells us to do – especially when it pertains to something challenging like loving our neighbors. In the book, the reader learns that actually loving others, instead of just giving this concept lip service, has a tremendous impact. Befriending others is not always easy, but by opening up a wider circle of people, we help spread the Gospel. Asking God about these three areas of Himself, Yourself, and your Neighbors encourages us to ask God to teach something new about several essential areas of life every day. Your neighbor, of course, could be anyone, including your spouse or a radical terrorist that lives in your community; it could be anyone. By being curious about your neighbor and asking God to teach you about them, we learn to befriend a wider group of people and help fulfill our calling to be social and spread the Gospel around the world. Jamie indicates “there are sixty-nine worldwide movements of Muslims coming to Christ. A movement is described as being more than two thousand in number with at least one thousand baptisms,” that sort of growth only happens when we are willing to love our neighbors as ourselves!
The pathway to transformation starts with an honest confession.
On page 47, we learn about redefining confession in a section titled, “Confession doesn’t mean saying you are sorry.” On this page, readers discover that confession is not merely being apologetic but about telling God the truth about what you believe regarding Him in all spheres of your life. On this topic, Jamie writes, “We grew up thinking confession was just telling everyone and God that we are sorry about stuff. But ‘I’m sorry’ doesn’t lead to transformation. Confession is telling God the truth about what you really believe about him, yourself, and others. Confession is the beginning of genuine transformation” (p. 47). The necessity of confessing to one another helps build community, and it should not be used to list embarrassing moral failures, but to identify trends in our lives in which we deviated from God’s Truth about ourselves (p. 57).
Mr. Winship also describes how true confession helps us break spiritual “contractual agreements” we have unknowingly made (p. 51). When we say negative things about ourselves because we falsely believe a false identity, such as “I am a loser,” we can activate a spiritual contract that magnetizes this wrongful thinking. This concept is similar to Dr. Rob Reimer’s Soul Care teachings. You can read about Reimer’s thoughts on this topic here. But, similarly to this understanding, a confessional approach also contributes to the silencing of demonic voices—a skill not taught in traditional institutions like the police academy.
Confession also helps us hear God’s voice. In the book, readers learn that an honest confession helps us hear God’s voice. When we hear God, it is different from what many of us understand about ourselves because we have been believing a lie about ourselves, and because of this, we are often not used to being this loved (p. 55). Since the Lord loves all of us, He will speak with affirmation and a challenge. You may hear words like beloved and wonderful used about yourself and not realize it is really Him because you have preconceived notions of Him and the importance He places on you, thinking He does not value you.
Knowing that God loves us all so much is foundational to our genuine identity because, when we know this, we understand that He chose to die for us on the cross, even when we were His enemies, toiling in our sin, which exemplifies the extreme depth of God’s love (p. 55). From that perspective, in which we see his immense, indescribably deep love for each of us, God speaks to us with affirmations and challenges. For instance, hearing that “He loves you” is the affirmation, and the challenge would include “Trust me.” Jamie notes in the book that we often discover we have a hard time being loved by God. When we first learn that we are “beloved” to Jesus, it helps us overcome the wrongfully held notion that God doesn’t value us. From this understanding, Jamie advocates using personal reflection and journaling to discover any half-truths we have been believing about ourselves, which are areas where we aren’t living in the truth.
The root of false identity is operating from our head rather than our heart.
As a very brave former police officer and missionary to many hostile nations, Jamie has a keen grasp of what constitutes a fearful experience. Through his own experience, Jamie deconstructs the roots of fear and false identity in the book. He provides an example from Genesis 3, explaining that Eve ate the forbidden fruit because she feared she was not enough. She heard a lie from Satan that God was withholding from her what she needed to be complete (p. 60). Contrary to what the enemy tells us, the Holy Spirit tells us that thoughts of fear or shame indicate areas where a “false identity” of unworthiness has been adopted. Unfortunately, many religious people often speak from the head, which is contrary to where true engagement with the Lord comes from, which is the heart (p. 64).
Knowing your real identity is particularly important when facing a dangerous situation with potentially deadly outcomes. Jamie shared a story of a close missionary friend of his who moved to a hostile nation where Christianity is not supported or legal. In that dangerous setting, the man had a legitimate “fight-flight-freeze” moment when terrorists at his home confronted him. At first, the man very reasonably pretended not to be home and “defaulted into the reflexive fight-flight-or-freeze mentality” (p 65). Then, in the days after a conversation with Jamie, he decided to act on his true identity in Christ and to love his new neighbors, no matter how different their beliefs are. The missionary left his home, locking the door, of course, and met the men in the street to ask how he could assist them. This was a radically different conclusion he reached after understanding that “the Holy Spirit led him into a plan of active engagement” (p. 65). Jamie went on to say, “Once the heart and mind are brought into balance, with the mind serving the heart, we can live with an unconflicted mind” (p. 66).
Winship espouses that many people suffer from a false identity of living out of an identity rooted in their addiction, and again, this addiction is not who God made them to be. For instance, Jamie retold a conversation with someone where the person claimed the addiction is who they are. He countered this by saying, “… That’s not who you are. You are describing an action. That’s not an identity. What is your identity?” (p. 67)—noting that the addiction is a habit and not a person’s true identity. False identities, such as feeling “unworthy,” lead to isolation and rejection. On this topic, Jamie writes, “Unworthy people hide in secret rooms in places where they can’t be rejected. Shameful people waste hours alone. They live in these dark, isolated places because they believe no one wants to be with them, and that feels true. It’s not real, and it’s definitely not true. But we interact with people as if their false identity is real and true.” (p. 68). Since Satan is not afraid of the Bible and he often quotes it, this is not how to do damage in his kingdom. What Satan is afraid of is the truth (p. 69). Therefore, when we operate out of our true identity, it scrambles the tools of the devil. Jamie advocates for authentically owning our actions and confessing our mistakes to move forward in truth and the light. Only by doing this can we fully usurp the wiles of the enemy.
Deepening our relationship with the Lord increases our abilities and our leadership potential. Throughout the book, Jamie focused quite a bit on King David. From Jamie’s perspective, David is an excellent subject to study because he firmly knew his identity in the Lord, which made him an excellent leader. God spoke to David only in his full commission of being a “shepherd-poet-warrior-king” (p. 73). Like David, Jamie defines a Leader in the book as anyone wanting to see something changed for the better (p. 73). Because David knew his future destiny, his reliance on the Lord, and that God’s commission for him was to one day be a king, he could be fearless. David’s Fearlessness was rooted in his identity as a future king, and because of this, he believed he wouldn’t die until his destiny was fulfilled (p. 75-76). Again, we can learn a lot from David’s “case study” and implement our true identity too, and also learn to be bold, like David!
The conclusion of part one of this comprehensive book review.
Living Fearless is a powerful call to break the “spiritual contracts” and false identities that bind us to fear, shame, and addiction. By redefining confession as a courageous act of truth-telling rather than a bland cycle of apology, Jamie provides a useful way to move from the head to the heart. The book illustrates that our true identity is found in our multifaceted commission God speaks over us, like the “shepherd-poet-warrior-king” identity that motivated David in his most despairing times and gave him legendary boldness. When we align ourselves with the identity God has given us, we can transition from a typical “fight-flight-freeze” way of living life to an active, unconflicted movement in the world – to bring the gospel to the most hostile parts of the world.
Click here to read Part Two of this book review.
Reference:
Winship, J. (2022). Living Fearless: Exchanging the Lies of the World for the Liberating Truth of God. Baker Books.