When Donkeys Talk - Book Review

Title:  When Donkeys Talk

Author:  Tyler Blanski 

    Mr. Blanski gives us a different look at Christianity.  Whether you agree with him or not, you may enjoy his book.  I didn't care for his ideas, however I am sure some people will.  The book makes the oint that the medium of God's message is not important---only the message is.  An ass or an angel, it doesn't matter.  It is difficult to imagine a set of beliefs more suggestive of mental illness than those that lie at the heart of many of our religious traditions.  According to Mr. Blanski, theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance.  I felt this book talked down to the reader in a large amount of intellectual "babble".  Many times I found myself lost in words.

Just Like Jesus - Book Review

Author:  Max Lucado

Title:  Just Like Jesus

 

    Max Lucado is one of America's favorite writers with more than 100 million products in print.  He serves the Oak Hills Church in San Antonio, Texas with his wife, Denalyn.

    This book is beautifully written.  It helps us accept the simple truth that God loves us.  Not only does He love each of us exactly as we are, He wants us, little by little, to become like Him.  He loves us enough to live within us, making our hearts His home.  Max reminds us of just how far God will go to transform us into His likeness.  God loves us just the way we are, but He refuses to leave us that way.  More than anything, He wants us to be just like Jesus.  This book helps us to understand the heart of Jesus.

    The heart of Jesus is forgiving, compassionate, listening, God-intoxicated, worship hungry, focused, honest, pure, hope-filled, rejoicing and enduring.  This may sound like too much, but  this little book explains it all in an easy to absorb fast read.  At the end of the book there is a complete study guide.  The study guide covers each chapter seproup study separately and completely.  It would be a great book for a group study, as well as a personal study.  I can't think of a greater gift than to be like Jesus.  Christ felt to guilt; God wants to banish yours.  God wants to remove our bad habits.  Jesus had no fear of death; God wants us to be fearless.  Their are many more qualities that are covered in this book that we can learn from studying the heart of Jesus.

 

I give this book five stars.

Yours is the Day - Book Review

Title:  Yours Is The Day, Lord, Yours Is The Night

Authors:  Jeanie & David Gushee

 

    This book offers a collection of morning and evening prayers, a different one for every day and night of the year.  They refect sasons, holidays, and the liturgical calendar of the Western Christian church.  It is a good "springboard" for spontaneous Christian prayers.  It helps us to meet and greet the new day with God.  Some of the wording was a bit "stiff", but if used as a framework for prayerful devotions with a morning an evening prayer I found it somewhat useful.  The morning prayers can be used to greet the new day with God.  The evenig prayers close the day, asking for God's blessing as we lose ourselves in sleep.  The evening prayers can "pull" us in and help us focus after a long and sometimes stressful day.  They can help quiet our mind and bring us in tune with God.  The apodte Paul instructed us to "pray without ceasing" (1Thess. 5:17).  We can use this book to honor God and sek Him.

 

Jeanie Gushee is a published poet with a B. A. in English literature from the College o William and Mary

David Gushee, PHD is a well-known Christian ethicist who serves as a distinguished university professor of Christian ethics at Mercer University.  He and Jeanie have been married for 28 years.

Neighbors and Wise Men

Tile:  Neighbors and Wise Men

Author  Tony Kriz

    Tony Kriz has an earned doctorate in spiritual formation.  He is teacher of faith and culture through the mass media, via social media, and at universities, conferences,churches, seminars, and other speaking engagements.  He pastors an imbedded community of life-servants in one of Portland's most culturally diverse neighborhoods.

    Neighbors and Wise Men introduces captivating dialogues and unexpected moments with God that go beyond the confines of a conventional religious system and offer the chance for powerful life transfomation.

    The ancient church chose to yearly revere the Magi, the pagan scholars from the East, who visited Jesus as a babe. These "wise men" were not Jews, and they were certainly not Christians, as there were no such things as Christians at this point in history.  The day the ancient church chose to commemorate the wise men was called epiphany:  a word we use today to mean "a profound lesson from a surprising source or circumstance."  God wants to share His story.  And it is His pleasure where, how, and to whom He reveals His story.  We can learn from the themes of God's story from people who do not wear our same religious uniform, do not have our same spiritual name badge and certainly do not come from our same background or experiences. 

    Have we limited God's ability to speak in our world today?  Have we relegated God's creative voice to the select persons who share our particular religious system?  Kriz himself felt like he was falling out of faith until non-christians ecouraged him to "fall toward Christ." 

    May we stand together before the glorious sunset that is the gospel of Jesus Christ and explore it, admire it, and love it.  May we learn together to say, "Woe am I" before the wonder of God.  And in response to God's eternally creative voice, may we increasingly learn to submit our collective lives to Him.  Let the epiphanies come.  Amen

Title:  The Truth About Forgiveness

Author:  John teaching  MacArthur

 

            John ac Arthur is widely known for his thorough, candidnapproach to teaching God's Word.  He is a popular author and conference speaker and has served as pastor=teacher of Grace Community Church in Sun Valley California, since 1969ni.  John's pulpit ministry has been extended around the globe through his media ministry, Grace to You,  and its satellite offices in seven countries.  He is the president of Th Master's College and Seminary and has written hundreds of books and study guides, each one bilical and practical.

            The Truth About forgiveness first tells us why we ned to be forgiven.  We are being told daily by "learned" professionals to deny are problems are caused by our own sin.  We are told that we are victims of one "disorder" or another.  Even parents are told to excuse misbehavior and seek therapy.  Mr. MacArthur says the disease=model approach to human behavior has so overwhelmed us as a society that we have gone haywire.  The sin-as-disease model has proved to be a boon to the multibillion-dollar counseling industry, and the shift toard lpng-term or even permanent therapy promises a bright economic future for professional therapists.

            Mr. MacArthur gives us the good news that we don't have to live this way.  There is meaning to life and hope of life afte death.  We cannot atone for our own sin--we need a substitute.  God alone can forgve sin.  Healing is a perfect metaphor for forgiveness.  No amount of tears can atone for sin.  he only way to find real forgiveness and freedom from our sin is through humble, contrite repentance.  This is the only way to get rid of the guilt that haunts us.  Excusing the sins by calling them "diseases" is not effective.  No therapist can erase out problems. 

            Whether we are giving or receiving forgiveness is hard.  It seems unfair. It feels unnatural.  And as best-selling author and pastor John MacArthur demonstates in this book, forgiveness apart from Christ is unnatural.  It is only as we understand our need, Christ's power and example, and what it really means to love that we can embrace two of the most liberating acts of love:  forgving and being forgiven.

 

This book was very informable.  I give it 4 stars--Karen Buckner

Our Favorite SIns

Title:  Our Favorite Sins

Author:  Todd Hunter

    The author has had more tan 30 years of pastoral experience.  Pastor Hunter knows that everyone--himself included--deals with temptation every day.  All too often we fail and fall, and som o us are at or wit's end, utterly defeated.  Walking out of our favorite sns makes perfect sense after you have done it.  But we need a biblical, psychologically, sophisticated, pastoral guide toge us to that pont.  That is Todd Hunter.

    Beating temptaton requires struggle because it always involves sorting out rightly odered desires for good ad Godly things from our disordered desires for wrong things.  We ofter experience these disodered desires as our most powerful and deeply rooted desires.  There are innumerable ways to gratify our desires that are contrary to God's will for our lives. Sometimes it seems to make sense "in the moment".

Somewhere down te path we realize that somewhere we really did lose coherent and good judgemnt.  Sin robs us of our clarity.  "Our Favorite Sins" is lovingly wrtten to encourage those who have decided to resist favorite sins, those of us who are looking for ways to win against temptation. 

    Some sins are easily visible, like hitting an innocent peson. Some are less so, like a hidden attitude of hatred.  The principles drawn frm in this book from the specific research and personal stories are easly applied to anyone's specific set of desires, temptations, and sins.  Everyone can learn from this book.  Truth is truth.  The real sources of temptation do not come from hip, inviting marketing slogans from businesses.  The actual starting place for temptation lies deep within us.  Perhaps the chief power of temptations is their ability to lie to us.

    The first decisionone needsto make as we put this book dwn is this:  What do really love?  The second goes with it:  What will I kick to th curb?  Once we answer these 2 questions, reordering desires will become, over time, automatic.This book uses many biblical references and scripture to help us drop our favorite sins ad pick up love fo God and our neighbors.

 

I found this book very helpful.  I would give it 5 stars. 

Nearing Home - A Book Review

Title:  Nearing Home Author:  Billy Graham         Dr. Graham helps us to learn how to grow old and live the years before we die.  He tells us how, looking back he can see God's hand guiding his life.  This book is well written and had me asking myself what "home " I was preparing for.  While growing might be the greatest surprise of our lives, the greatest triumph is yet to come:  experiencing victory over death that will usher us into the eternal presence of our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.  As Dr. Graham tells us, we may retire from our jobs, but we should not retire from life.  The truth is that we gain new experiences until the day we die.  God has a purpose for each of us, and "old age" does not exempt us from fulfilling that purpose.  Dr. Graham gives us multiple examples throughout  scripture, from the patriarchs and prophets of the Old Testamaent to the apostles and followers of Christ in the New Testament, of men and women who made a profound impact on generations that followed.     We can learn that the last chapter in life can be the best.  We are not meant to live without hope.     I found this book very comforting and informative.  I give it four stars.