I've been reading Future Grace by John Piper (a well known conservative baptist theologian - see http://www.desiringgod.org/ ) in the last few weeks and have been really impressed. I think it is my Christian book of the year and will have a significant impact on my life. The central theme of the book is that the kind of faith that makes a real difference is one that is full of hope and trust for the future. He calls this the 'power of living by faith in future grace'.
 
I'm a real fan of the way John Piper goes about his subject. Passionate for God and deeply encouraging, he is quite simply inspiring, or to learn from his book, it is inspiring to put faith in the greatness, goodness and mutiple other 'nesses of God. He writes to make you think highly of God and not John Piper.  But even better he shows that everything he is saying is from the Bible and that what he writes about is a main thrust of the Bible and not some side issue that he is getting excited about.
 
Although the book is written very approachably  and enthusiastically it is not shallow.  Sometimes it is written too approachably for an English reader like me e.g. its Amercian style repetition of 'Future Grace' as a catch phrase throughout was a gimic I found hard to deal with. It is however well worth putting up with these little irritants.  It covers deep and life changing content and is very well researched. It also tackles a gap in many evangelical theologies. Most of the confessions of faith that under pin today's churches say something like 'faith that does not result in a change in life is not proper faith' but go no further. What this book does is to describe what it is about a faith in Jesus Christ that changes our day to day behaviour and how this works in practice, and like all truly great Christian books, it opens a door for you to walk though.