Another book that I didn't end up reviewing because I was too occupied with other things in life. But overall, this is a life-changing book. And I wouldn't mind reading it all over again in the future because I feel like I will always need to be reminded of all the things explained in this book. It's always nice to know that you have a purpose in this world and not just mindlessly going around our days feeling useless and meaningless. Definitely a 5/5!

This book is a good road map to success in your spiritual life. The author teaches us of God's love and His purpoese for our lives and how to walk in faith twards that purpose. I recommend this book to all who are struggling with their beliefs or attitudes twards their Lord and tward their purpose.Enjoy and Be Blessed.Diamond

At its best, this book is filled with porous theology that is modestly helpful to someone who has no knowledge of Christianity whatsoever. At its worst, Warren mangles scripture to fit his own agenda (40 days to find purpose in your life) and promotes personal experience over the truth found in scripture.

This book is symptomatic of feel-good consumerized Christianity so prevalent in America today. Finding your purpose in life takes far longer than 40 days and it cannot be easily summarized (besides the obvious - to love and worship God). "The Purpose Driven Life" offers nothing new and while not quite heretical, it is very unsound and I cannot recommend this book to anyone. The fact that Warren makes references to the other "Purpose Driven"-branded items in his book that one can purchase pretty much sums it up.

I was given a free copy of this book by a friend at my church a few years ago. I finished reading the book simply to say that I had read it in its entirety. If you want good, thoughtful Christian writers, check out -

Links (for the lazy):
J.I. Packer ("Knowing God")
[https://www.amazon.com/Knowing-God-J-...]
Augustine of Hippo ("Confessions" translated by Garry Wills (2006), "City of God")
[https://www.amazon.com/Confessions-Pe...]
[https://www.amazon.com/City-Penguin-C...]
C.S. Lewis ("Mere Christianity", "The Screwtape Letters", "The Problem of Pain")
[https://www.amazon.com/Mere-Christian...]
[https://www.amazon.com/Screwtape-Lett...]
[https://www.amazon.com/Problem-Pain-C...]
G.K. Chesterson ("Orthodoxy", "The Everlasting Man")
[https://www.amazon.com/Orthodoxy-G-K-...]
[https://www.amazon.com/Everlasting-Ma...]
John Piper ("Desiring God", "Don't Waste Your Life")
[https://www.amazon.com/Desiring-God-R...]
[https://www.amazon.com/Dont-Waste-You...]
A.W. Pink ("The Attributes of God")
[https://www.amazon.com/Attributes-God...]
A.W. Tozer (no relations haha) ("The Pursuit of God")
[https://www.amazon.com/Pursuit-God-W-...]
Ravi Zacharias (Note: A investigation following Zacharias' death in 2020 found credible evidence of sexual misconduct spanning many years. This was not known at the time of my review in 2007. I cannot recommend his books based on this new information.)

I spent way too much time on this. Hope it helps.

Edited 07/16/2023: Updated/fixed URLs, added additional information about Ravi Zacharias.

Dear Mr. R.W,
Thank you for writing such a wonderful book.
For years, I’ve been battling loneliness within me, always reading some help books that didn’t really help at all. Actually, I’d read your book when I was in high school and maybe I’m too young at that time or not interested at all that’s why I didn’t took it seriously. And then, one day, I just woke up and decided that I don’t want to live my life like this anymore; a life with no purpose, a life full of regrets, worry, mediocrity and anxiety. I stopped. I felt this hunger within me, a hunger for peace and contentment and I start reading your book again, slowly.

It is painful for me to read that book. Every chapter is like a slap. Every paragraph had given me heartaches. But it’s okay because your book deserves to be read.

Your book taught me a lot. I learned that it’s okay to stumble, you just have to stand up again and never ever forget the faith you have in Christ. I learned that if we center our lives on Him, everything would fall into their right places.

“Earth is not heaven.” ~ This is one of the quotes that I really like in your book. We are experiencing pain because we are not home yet. God’s ultimate goal for our lives on earth is not comfort, but character development. Pain is vital because God uses it so we can mature and grow like Christ. God allows us to feel a significant amount of discontent and dissatisfaction in life- longings that will never be fulfilled on this side of eternity. We’re not completely happy here because we are not supposed to be. Earth is not our final home and we were created for something much better.

Thank you for reminding me that God has emotions too. He can feel our pain and sufferings. He feels angry too. And He smiles and laughs whenever we did something that is pleasing for Him. Thank you for also pointing out that we shouldn’t focus on ourselves, sulking in self-pity but rather, we should start helping other people by our God-given abilities and pleasing God.

Reading your book made me realize that I’ve been living my life so wrong, always starting on the wrong line, always running and always focusing on my own ambitions. I learned that I cannot fulfill God’s purposes in my life while focusing on my own plans.

For years, I’m the type of person that has her doubts in God. And now, I realized that we cannot measure the greatness of God because He is infinite and we are only finite human beings.
I hope a lot of people would read your book. Imagine the world if only all the people living in it know their purpose. It would make a great difference.

Thank you for reaching out to people like me. It means a lot.

Sincerely,

J.

This book allows you to discover, who you are and what your purpose is.

It is a books that speaks of why, how and what. A book that has transforming pieces of ' golden nuggets. Light bulb moments, which opens your eyes to what is possible.

It does not preach to you, but talks to you with reason. Allows you to discover ' whose you really are' Without condemnation, but touches you lovingly and wants you to listen, be still and know that God is real and is just waiting for you to open your eyes to truth.

I for one, have been transformed by this book and would suggest it to anyone, who is looking for answers. Ultimately, the Bible is the number one book on truth. However, The purpose Driven, is equally impactive, and really gets you to think about....Life, the Love of God and the relationship you could have with him, even, what your purpose could be as an individual.

There are little tasks given, which makes this book, not only readable, but encourages you to be mentally interactive. Tests your commitment, to wanting to change and learn.

I suggest this to anyone who is looking for.....' Why am I here' and ' What is my purpose'....

Petula Hippolyte

The purpose driven life book is an incredibly helpful for those looking to expand their understanding of what it means to be on this earth.

If you believe in God this book will give you great insight into looking at life with different eyes and focusing on the much bigger picture that we humans so often miss.

The book is structured into 42 days of reading, easy to follow and a very quick read. The questions posed after each days reading is insightfull in helping you reframe your perspective. There are also many helpful sermons and other readings mentioned in the book if you are looking to go deeper into each days reading.

This book places God at the centre of everything challenging our self centred ways.

While I do not agree with everything pastor Rick mentions in his book the overall message of living for God and working to become more like him is confronting in a gentle manner reminding us of the fleeting time we have here on earth.

O carte buna pentru oricine, mai ales pentru un crestin proaspat convertit sau pentru un crestin dezorientat, care cauta sa-si reaseze in ordine viata, identitatea si scopurile.
Cartea se doreste a fi abordata sub forma unei calatorii transformatoare, de 40 de zile, in 40 de capitole.
Daca m-a transformat, nu stiu...dar sigur mi-a prins tare bine in perioada asta.

heard about this from a manny pacquaio article (https://religionunplugged.com/news/20...)

I've been trying to explore my spirituality more and therefore read this book—some parts landed some didn't. a few parts were actually quite enlightening and helped me figure some stuff out. other parts didn't really fit with my understanding of the bible and felt like the author inserting his own ideas as opposed to explaining the bible. anyways i'm glad I read it

First I must say that I am a Christian. I think me being a Christian will affect how I rate this book. Not that I am gonna be bias and give it a five star. As you guys can see, there's only three and according to my profile where I included how I rate my reads, three stars really isn't that good.

The book is supposed to be read for forty days, one chapter each day. And I tried doing that so many times before. I tried reading it as my devotion but so many times, i never get to finish. So this time I read it in just two days, actually just five hours. The book isn't that long anyway, especially that its font is kinda bigger than usual. Not the novel-type fonts. I would've read it in two hours.

So anyway, maybe I know now why I couldn't finish it before. It's a little boring. I AM SORRY. Maybe Christians will raise their eyebrow to me for what I'm gonna say. It's all Scriptures. Okay, nothing is wrong with all scriptures. Hello??? I am a Christian and Scriptures are food to me and believe me ladies and gentlemen, my fellow readers, I am filled and satisfied every time I read a scripture.

So the all scripture thing is not really the problem, besides it is a Christian Inspirational/educational/instructional book, of course there will be scriptures. Lots of it. But The delivery of those scriptures aren't actually that overwhelming. I think it would've been better if the scriptures were delivered in more appreciative, pleasurable way. Like if a non-christian will read it, he will be glad that he picked this book because he will be overwhelmed by love.

But the book and the instructions there just seemed so commanding. Christianity isn't like that. God isn't manipulative. He is a loving God. In this book, I felt like God was so killjoy and he just want us to do the things that He wants and that will please Him. That if we follow our will, there will be doom and gloom.

But in fairness to Rick Warren, he is very convincing but I am a Christian too. I know my God. It would've been better if he accentuate God's loving nature and how fun it is to follow HIM.

Again I want to apologise to Christians. all my friends love this book. I don't unlike this, i'm not just hundred percent into it.
Sorry Pstr. Rick Warren.
I know... Who am I to tell Rick Warren the should and Should not when it comes to Christianity.

But aside from being a Christian, I am also a Writer and A reader. Not to mention a Book Reviewer. I should be honest to how i feel about every book.

SO there.....

When I first began reading this book I really enjoyed it. I must mention that at the time I read this, I did not consider myself Christian. After reading the book, and a couple of other by Rick Warren, in addition to reading the bible straight through, I firmly believe that although what Warren writes may be insightful, the full implications behind his text(s) are quite far from reality and these books are intended for the purpose of becoming wealthy rather than closer to God.

Like the Shack, not bad just not great. I think all the Purpose Driven Life merchandising bothered me some to...that could be, just me though.

I am a Christian and I find that "popular" Christian books tend to have a "hard row to hoe" with me.

I'd say, know what you believe and then read this. Works flow from a person's relationship with God, they do not bring it about.

I'm not saying that this book claims they do, I'm just saying fit the contemporary read (any contemporary work)into grounded Christian belief, not the other way around.

I read this book thinking it would offer something deep and real about the purpose of God and the purposes of peoples in the world. But it offered little more than a worn-out run-a-round of the phrase "God has a purpose for you." I know why this book is so popular - it, like many others, offers Christians the idea that "God's purpose" for you has something to do with getting ahead in life and having more money. It's that lame "name it and claim it" mentality.

I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone.