living for eternity today

Category: Book Reviews (Page 3 of 4)

ReClaimed Church

I’ve been driving a lot more lately with the addition of a facilitator job to my weekly schedule, so I try to make the most of my life time. I used to use that time to make phone calls and often would make those calls to my wife, but she has enough on her plate to not have me yap in her ear for a few hours of my drive! So I decided to take on the task of reading, or in this case listening to books on audio. It’s been a pretty great experience. I dove into all sorts of books, but admittedly most of them are very churchy, go figure! Here’s a quick review of my latest read.

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The Circle Maker

In a quest to make my way through 52 books this year, I made my to book 37 for the year and wow it was a good one. Someone suggested this book because I’ve been talking a lot about prayer lately, so I added it to my reading app and when it arrived I did my normal listening routine. I set my speed at around 1.75 – 2.25 times normal and started to listen. It didn’t take long before I realized that this book would require two runs through and one at a much more manageable speed!

So here’s the gist of the book. Simply put we pray to small and too seldom. It’s pretty much that easy. The idea behind The Circle Maker is the story of Jericho in the Bible. The Israelites were told by God to walk around the city everyday. Each day they essentially drew a circle around the city until one day God finally did something amazing. The walls crumbled to the ground. They didn’t crumble because of the weight of their trampling feet. The walls didn’t collapse because the Israelites were so mighty and so powerful that just walking had this massive effect.

The walls came down because the Israelite people did what God told them to do and circled the giant city and let the results be in God’s hands. You see so often we start to circle our Jericho and think it’s too big so we stop walking. We look at the size of our problem and forget the size of our God. The author, Mark Batterson, tells us that the things for which we ask of God are just flat too small. If we can do it then why do we ask God to do it?

I’ve started my own journey of circling my prayers. I’m not sure if you have one or not but I re-started my prayer journal. In it I write the things I’m praying for and the ways God has answered them. As I pray, I’m now circling some words in the prayers. I circle the words that are my Jericho. Some of the words are physical things like helping us pull off a big event at church while others are non-tangible things like self-confidence or focus. Whatever they are, in the moment they’re like a Jericho to me. But as I look at my prayers I’ve quickly realized that I don’t pray nearly big enough!

I guess it’s time to find a prayer that only God can answer and start praying that prayer. Will you join me is becoming a circle-maker?

Everybody Always

Bob Goff is a great writer and has made me realize something simply by the choice of covers on his books. This is Goff’s second published book and both have something in common – balloons! Balloons on the cover are so fun and vibrant and honestly simply nonthreatening. But there’s more to this book than just balloons on the cover. The theme of the book is about loving others how God loves us. This book answers the questions: who does God want us to love and when does he want us to love them? The answer…

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Grip of Grace

The Grip of Grace is written by Max Lucado. And if you’re looking for an author and a style of writing that really puts you in the middle of the page, it’s Lucado! His writing is personal and has a way of letting you experience what he’s seeing. This particular work by Lucado is equally powerful! Lucado takes time in his work to contrast the ideal of grace with the things we try to measure up to grace.

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An Interview With God

Recently someone suggested that I watch this movie, An Interview With God. And I just had the chance to watch it, so here’s a quick synopsis of the film.

The movie essentially is about a man struggling to understand who God is and how God operates and why God does what God does. Now let’s admit right away that trying to understand the mind of God is a terribly futile endeavor because even the Bible says, no man can know the mind of God! See 1 Corinthians 2:11. But it’s a movie so play along a little here. Seriously we’ve all asked the questions like why do bad things happen to good people and why me? These questions drive to the heart of trying to determine the mind of God.

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Inspired: Slaying Giants, Walking on Water, and Loving the Bible Again

Inspired: Slaying Giants, Walking on Water, and Loving the Bible Again

As I journey toward my goal of Fifty-Two books this year, I stumbled across a title in my library’s audio book section. I hadn’t heard anything of this book and was overall pretty impressed by the spin Rachel Evans places on the way we approach the text of the Bible. Her basic premise is that we all approach the Bible with a fixed set of life circumstances and presuppositions. While these presuppositions don’t change the text of God’s word to us, they definitely change how we see this message.

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God’s Story, Your Story

When God's Story Becomes Your Story
When God’s story becomes your story everything changes.

As we walk through life it’s easy to think that God is somewhere off in the distance and somewhat foreign, aloof or unreachable. But that’s not the picture that we receive from Scripture at all. As a matter of fact the storyline of the Bible is quite the opposite! God’s story is one of rescue, redemption and restoration for the entire human race. But it gets better than that! The story of the Bible isn’t just a general story of new life for the world. It’s not just God loving the people of Israel. It’s God’s story for you!

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Goliath Must Fall

Louie Giglio pretty much nailed it with this book! The book reads like a story but has the power of a devotion. It’s a little different perspective on the story of David and Goliath in the Bible. If you’re not familiar with the story of David and Goliath then I highly recommend reading it! But if you’re not into that whole bible reading thing, you don’t really need to know the story to get something out of this book. Here’s a quick recap of the Bible account.

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