Soul's Gate by James L. Rubart

I almost feel like I need to write two separate reviews for this book - one for the actual book and another for what the reading of this book has done to me.

Soul's Gate by James L. Rubart grabbed me from the first page.  It is fast paced and just detailed enough, with interesting characters and the right amount of defeat, victory, scary moments and peaceful scenery.  The story is smart and intriguing and imaginative. Except that almost everything that happens in this story are things that happened in the Bible.  That's where it starts messing with your head a bit.

Reece Roth was chosen 30 years before to lead the prophesied four warriors into their destiny, one of entering people's souls and setting them free from the inside out.  These four will have to overcome their own demons and come to believe how powerful they truly are in the midst of their battles for others' freedom.

My favorite quote from the book: "It's time to live from your strength, to fight from your glory, to battle from the core of your gifting."

The thing about this book is that it made me think, "What if?"  What if we really could do the things they did in this book?  What if it was true?  The crazy thing is that most of what these four do happened in the Bible.  This is a fictional novel, but it is a historical novel!  I see nowhere in scripture where anyone actually traveled into someones soul (and at the end of the book the author says neither does he), but the other elements of the book are based on scripture.  It made the battle of the unseen, the battle that we are right in the middle of every single day, seem so real and so tangible.  And, unlike other books of that nature that I have read, it reminded me that though "we battle not against flesh and blood" (Ephesians 6:12) and we have an enemy "who comes to steal, kill and destroy" (John 10:10), that "Greater is He in you than he that is in the world." (1 John 4:4)  Rather than finishing the book scared and wanting to hide under my covers, I finished empowered and encouraged, ready to fight with an awareness of my authority in Christ.

And it made me wonder.  If I could learn what it really looks like to "...live from your strength, to fight from your glory, to battle from the core of your gifting." who could I set free?