Victim of Grace Book Review

Title:  Victim of Grace

    Robin Jones Gunn is the much-loved author of several award winning series, including Christy Miller, Sierra Jensen, Katie Weldon, Glenbrooke, and Sisterchicks, with more than4.5 million books sold worldwide.  Robin serves on the board of Media Associates International and often speaks locally and internationally.  She and her husband have two grown children and live in Hawaii. 

    This book helps us to understand how God comforts us when we feel as if we are at the mercy of other people's decisions or victims of circumstances.  Sometimes our faith seems to be tested and the "Teacher" seems silent during this test.  Robin helps us to consider women in the Bible such as Hannah keeping her promise to God to give her son back to Him  She kept her promise even though it hurt.  We learn to understand that our circumstances do not limit God.

    We also learn to wonder how our family legacy might be changed if we put all our hope in God the way Ruth did.  Ruth managed to navigate her way through her relationship with Naomi even though Naomi had become bitter and declared he emptiness to others.

    This book was extremely helpful for dealing with life's happenings.  I especially enjoyed the discussion questions at the end of the book.

I give this book 5 stars.

Karen M. Buckner

The Lambs Agenda - A book review

Ttle:  The Lamb's Agenda

Author:  Samuel Rodriguez

 

    Rev. Samuel Rodriguez is president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, America's largest Hispanic organization.  Named by CNN as "The leader of the Hispanic Evangelical Movement" and by the San Francisco Chronicle as one of America's new evangelical leaders.

    The Roman historian Tacitus, writing nearly two thousand years ago, told us how the Emperor Nero thought he had put an end to that "class hated for their abominations, who are commonly called Christians.  Tacitus wrote::

                                                                    

     Mockery of every sort was added to their deaths. Covered with the skins of beasts, they were torn by dogs and perished, or were nailed to crosses, or were doomed to the flames and burnt, to serve as a nightly illumination, when daylight had expired.

 

    If Christians could survive Nero, if they could survive Lenin and Hitler, them they can survive the materialist present.  They have already outlasted the Beatles, whose John Lennon told us nearly fifty years ago:  "Christianity will go.  It will vanish and shrink.  I needn't argue with that; I'm right and I will be proved right.  We're more popular than Jesus now; I don't know which will go first--rock and roll or Christianity."

    Life is a cross.  No other symbol incorporates passion and promise like the cross--a simple symbol depicting two pieces of wood, one vertical and the other horizontal, successfully branded the eternal hope of glory to all mankind.

     In this book Samuel Rodriguez offers a blue print for Christian rejuvenation, a prophetic call to orient our lives at the nexus of the cross.

    Joining the Christianity of Martin Luther King jr. and Billy Graham, The Lamb's Agenda reveals the crucial connection between biblical social justice and spiritual righteousness.  Getting back to the basics of Christianity means extending our efforts simultaneously in the vertical direction of GOD and the horizontal direction of our neighbors.

        This is one of the most inspiration books  I have ever read.  I give this book 5 stars.

    

Karen M. Buckner

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