Links & Quotes

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“Everything the world has to offer, God is better and more abiding. There is no comparison. God wins—every time. The question is: will we have Him? Will we wake up from the trance of this stupefying world and see and believe and rejoice and love?” —John Piper

A nice mini-biography on Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.

Max Lucado says, “You cannot be anything you want to be. But you can be everything God wants you to be!” Read more in his post All Things New.

“No prayer is at all likely to bring down an immediate answer if it be not a fervent prayer. ‘The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much’ [James 5:16]; but if it be not fervent we cannot expect to find it effectual or prevalent. We must get rid of the icicles that hang about our lips.” —Charles Spurgeon

“The Christian is in a different position from other people who are trying to be good. They hope, by being good, to please God if there is one; or—if they think there is not—at least they hope to deserve approval from good men. But the Christian thinks any good he does comes from the Christ-life inside him. He does not think God will love us because we are good, but that God will make us good because He loves us.” —C.S. Lewis

A great overview on what really happened in the Crusades.

[VIDEO] John Maxwell says what is on the inside is always more attractive than what is on the outside―

Book Reviews From 2014

BookshelfHere are the books I read and reviewed in 2014. Click a title to read the review…

12 Huge Mistakes Parents Can Avoid

A Call To Prayer

Beyond IQ

Bible Reading

C.S. Lewis In A Time Of War

Create

David Wilkerson

Did Jesus Rise From The Dead?

Discipleship In Crisis

Finding God In Hidden Places

Finding The Love Of Your Life

From This Day Forward

God’s Pursuit Of Man

High Adventure In Tibet

Holy Fire

How Do You Kill 11 Million People?

How High Will You Climb?

Humility

I Like Giving

Impertinent Poems

In His Steps

Inspire To Be Great

Jesus Daily

Keeping The Ten Commandments

Lincoln’s Battle With God

Mansfield’s Book Of Manly Men

Miracles

Pentecost

Pilgrim’s Progress

Pleasure & Profit In Bible Study

Sidelined

Smith Wigglesworth On Prayer, Power & Miracles

Stand Strong

Tactics

Taste And See

The Cell’s Design

The Christian’s Secret Of A Happy Life

The Facts On World Religions

The Furious Longing Of God

The Global War On Christians

The Greatest Words Ever Spoken

The Illustrated Guide To The Authors Of The Bible

The Love Of God

The Ministry Of God’s Word

The Moral Foundations Of Life

The Quick-Start Guide To The Whole Bible

The Solomon Seduction

There Is A God

This Day In Christian History

Transforming Grace

Winning With Principle

Yawning At Tigers

Here are my book reviews for 2011.

Here are my book reviews for 2012.

Here are my book reviews for 2013.

David Wilkerson (book review)

David WilkersonGary Wilkerson gives us a behind-the-scenes look at the life of his father in this very readable and heartwarming biography of David Wilkerson.

When I read the story of David Wilkerson taking the gospel of Jesus Christ to the gangs of New York in the book The Cross And The Switchblade, I was absolutely mesmerized! Here was this country preacher from Pennsylvania confronting some of the toughest gang members all alone on the streets of New York City … wow!

I had visions of a man with a commanding physical presence, a man who was so confident in what God had called him to do, and a man who had an unshakable faith in God. So when I picked up this biography, I was prepared to meet this giant of a man. Instead I found someone who was, in a word, real. He wasn’t physically imposing, he struggled with God’s calling on his life at times, he worked himself almost to exhaustion, he made mistakes, and he sometimes doubted if what he was doing was making a lasting difference.

But in one facet my youthful impression was correct: David Wilkerson was a man of unshakable faith in God. Even in moments where he battled depression and his own shortcomings, he never wavered in his clinging to God.

Gary Wilkerson tells this life story of his Dad lovingly and honestly. He shows us so clearly how God can use a real man, with all of his faults and shortcomings, if that man will simply remain surrendered to God’s will.

This is a highly encouraging biography! I would especially recommend this to anyone who was as thrilled with The Cross And The Switchblade as I was, because I believe it will give you a whole new level of appreciation for the amazing work God did through David Wilkerson’s life.

I am a BookLook book reviewer.

This Day In Christian History (book review)

This DayFor history buffs, This Day In Christian History by William D. Blake is a great book to keep handy all throughout the year. Each day you will find two historical items which have had a lasting impact on church history.

The two calendar items each day will take less than 60 seconds to read, but I found that on many days it opened the door of curiosity for me to do some additional research on that event or person. You will also find:

  • A brief biographical sketch of notable people in church history
  • Memorable quotes
  • Some mind-blowing “did you knows” (that you can use to impress your friends)
  • The rich history that all Christians share in common

A very fun book to read each day of the year.

Lincoln’s Battle With God (book review)

Lincoln's Battle With GodI’m a big fan of the historical and biographical work of Stephen Mansfield. His books are thoroughly researched but they don’t read like scholarly works, but have a more storytelling feel to them. This is especially true in his book Lincoln’s Battle With God.

I have read several biographies about our 16th president, Abraham Lincoln, but this is one of the most innovative angles of this great leader’s life. Mansfield tells the story of Lincoln as a boy growing up in an overly-strict, hyper-Calvinistic home where religious observance was demanded and oppressive. Lincoln’s father was distant and didn’t have satisfactory answers for his young son when life was painful.

This contributed to Lincoln as a young man who, while searching for answers, went the opposite direction of his father’s faith, and became immersed in rationalism and even agnosticism. Through it all as Lincoln searched for answers, he and his friends had to cope with Lincoln’s “hypo” (his word for deep, almost debilitating, depression).

When rationalism didn’t help him discover the answers he so desperately desired, Lincoln came full circle to begin to explore the tenants of Scripture once again. But this time he looked at the Bible through a different paradigm, being much more thoughtful and circumspect.

His journey to the White House where he had to deal with a nation torn apart by Civil War and the premature death of his young sons exposed him once again to events which would have caused the younger Lincoln to spiral into depression. But his faith in God now had grown rock solid and sustaining.

This book is a fascinating journey through Lincoln’s spiritual struggles, and it’s one that I think many will benefit from reading. Those who are admirers of Abraham Lincoln, those battling depression, and even those searching for life’s answers will find a lot to learn in these pages.

10 Quotes From “C.S. Lewis In A Time Of War”

In A Time Of WarI loved C.S. Lewis In A Time Of War by Justin Phillips! It appealed to my interests in World War II history, old-time radio, and one of my favorite authors: C.S. Lewis. You can read my book review by clicking here. Below are 10 quotes from this book which will give you a little of the flavor of this work.

“In a time of uncertainty and questioning it is the responsibility of the church—and of religious broadcasting as one of its most powerful voices—to declare the truth about God and His relation to man. It has to expound the Christian faith in terms that can be easily understood by ordinary men and women, and to examine the ways in which that faith can be applied to present-day society during these difficult times.” —James Welch, the BBC director of religious broadcasting responsible for getting C.S. Lewis on the air

“It seems to me that the New Testament, by preaching repentance and forgiveness, always assumes an audience who already believe in the law of nature and know they have disobeyed it. In modern England we cannot at present assume this, and therefore most apologetic begins a stage too far on. The first step is to create, or recover, the sense of guilt. Hence if I gave a series of talks, I should mention Christianity only at the end, and would prefer not to unmask my battery till then.” —C.S. Lewis

“Having seen more of his original manuscripts than probably anybody else, Walter Hooper observes that there is next to no evidence of rewriting or of copious changes. The manuscript of The Screwtape Letters is a case in point. There was only the one draft.” —Justin Phillips

“A charitable trust was set up called The Agape Fund, using the Greek word for love. Until his marriage in 1957, two-thirds of all Lewis’s royalties went into this fund to help those in need—normally under the cover of anonymity.” —Justin Phillips

“If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning.” —C.S. Lewis

“Walter Hooper had discovered a calculation made by Warnie [Lewis] in 1967, described in his diary some four years after Jack’s [C.S. Lewis] death, that by the time the typewriter was finally packed up Warnie must have written at least 12,000 letters on it on his brother’s behalf.” —Justin Phillips

“Any amount of theology can now be smuggled into people’s minds under the cover of romance without them knowing it.” —C.S. Lewis 

“But if you will go to God just as you are, fully admitting that you care about Him very little, and put yourself in His hands, if you’re even ready to be made to care and leave Him to work, He’ll do the rest.” —C.S. Lewis

“All I am in private life is a literary critic and historian, that’s my job. And I am prepared to say on that basis if anyone thinks the Gospels are either legends or novels, then that person is simply showing his incompetence as a literary critic. I’ve read a great many novels and I know a few amount about the legends that grew up among early people, and I know perfectly well the Gospels are not that kind of stuff. They are absolutely full of the sort of things that don’t come into legends. Take one simple example. The passage in which Our Lord is scribbling in the dust before He gives His answer about the woman taken in adultery. Nothing whatever comes of it, no doctrine has ever been based on it, it has no point at all; there’s no conceivable reason why anyone should ever have written it down, unless he’s seen it happening. From first to last the things strike me as records of fact. And, in my opinion, the people who think that any of the episodes in the Gospels are imaginary are the people who have no imagination themselves and have never understood what imaginative story-telling is.” —C.S. Lewis

“Numbers vary, but in the year 2000 some estimates put worldwide sales of Lewis’ books at over 200 million copies in more than thirty languages.” —Justin Phillips

Links & Quotes

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Some great reading I found today.

A good reminder for pastors … “Let your preaching and teaching be motivated by love—for God and for those you instruct; and let your preaching and teaching equip others to love. The goal of preaching and teaching is not merely information transfer—learning more, or gaining more head knowledge about this or that passage or doctrine. The goal is love.” —T.M. Moore

“According to the Bible, we have because we ask, or we have not because we ask not. It does not take much wisdom to discover our next move. Is it not to pray, and pray again and again till the answer comes? God waits to be invited to display His power on behalf of His people. The world situation is such that nothing less than God can straighten it out. Let us not fail the world and disappoint God by failing to pray.” —A.W. Tozer

A story about a young man with autism that made me mad, and then made me laugh with joy: Movies With Max.

Eternal life is worth a life’s battle. To escape the hurt of the second death is a thing worth struggling for throughout a lifetime.” —Charles Spurgeon

“The good things even of this world are far too good ever to be reached by imagination. Even the common orange, you know: no one could have imagined it before he tasted it. How much less Heaven.” —C.S. Lewis

A great mini-biographical sketch on J.C. Ryle: Fighting For Truth Decay.

Humility (book review)

HumilityDavid J. Bobb has a title/subtitle combination that almost sounds paradoxical—Humility: An Unlikely Biography Of America’s Greatest Virtue. After all, when many think of America they are more likely to use the terms “confidant” or even “brash,” but not usually “humble.” But in this seeming paradox is a great truth.

The Greek philosophers often described a virtue as the golden mean between two extremes. Indeed, David Bobb uses such philosophers as Socrates and Aristotle, alongside Augustine and even more modern thinkers like Benjamin Franklin, to explore how America could be virtuous because of its humility.

Or more precisely, how America could be virtuous because of humble Americans. Dr. Bobb explores the biographies of notable Americans like George Washington, James Madison, Abigail Adams, Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass to give us an intriguing description of what true humility looks like. Although in their time many thought of these people as proud or even glory-seekers, Dr. Bobb shows us how it was their profound, often hard-won humility that made them examples worth emulating.

And we do need these examples. In the epilogue, Dr. Bobb quotes Oliver Wendell Holmes, “Humility is the first of the virtues for other people.” How true! The question is: Will Americans re-learn the virtuous power and strength of humility, or will humility continue to erode, mistaken by many as a weakness?

For both history enthusiasts, leaders, leaders-in-training, and those who love a good biography, Humility is a very enjoyable and educational book.

I am a Thomas Nelson book reviewer.

Links & Quotes

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These are links to articles and quotes I found interesting today.

“Truth wears well. Time tests it, but it right well endures the trial. … What a poor thing is the temporary triumph of falsehood!” —Charles Spurgeon, commenting on Proverbs 12:19

The “stimulus” that wasn’t: CBO Again Repeats Faulty Methodology

“The word ‘mercy’ here is extracted from misericordia, the Greek word for ‘misery.’ The full meaning of this word is: ‘to take to heart the misery of another, with the intention of giving him comfort and relief.’ So being merciful means taking on another person’s hurt!” Read more from David Wilkerson.

[PHOTOS] Amazing story captured in Life magazine of a 1950s nurse Maude Callen.

[VIDEO] Largest Lunar Impact Caught By Astronomers

What the IRS is trying now even has the ACLU upset: Stop The Assault

Wow! Check out this tweet from Russian chess champion Garry Kasparov

Book Reviews From 2013

BookshelfHere are the books I read and reviewed in 2013. Click a title to read the review…

10 People Every Christian Should Know

A Harmony Of The Gospels

Alive To Wonder

All In

Alone

Altar Ego

Andrew Murray Daily Reader

Dear Abba

Decision Points

Did The Resurrection Happen … Really?

Draw The Circle

Fight

Firsthand

Francis

God’s Favorite Place On Earth

God’s Workmanship

Habitudes

He Shall Glorify Me

I Never Thought I’d See The Day

If Thou Wilt Be Perfect

If Ye Shall Ask

It Is Finished

Jesus Is _____.

Jesus: A Theography

Knocking At God’s Door

Love To The Uttermost

One Year Book Of Personal Prayer

Outliers

Plastic Donuts

Pouring Holy Water On Strange Fire

Promotion

Raising Your Child To Love God

Seven Men

Smith Wigglesworth On Healing

Sometimes You Win, Sometimes You Learn

Stopping Words That Hurt

The 13th Resolution

The Baptism With The Holy Spirit

The Bare Facts

The Five Levels Of Leadership

The Highest Good

The Hobbit

The Man Who Knew Too Much

The Purpose Of Christmas

The Ragamuffin Gospel

The Reagan Diaries

The Secrets Of Intercessory Prayer

Things We Couldn’t Say

Understanding Sexting

Unfinished

Unstoppable

Visioneering

Who Do You Think You Are?

You Don’t Need A Title To Be A Leader

For my book reviews of 2011 click here, and for 2012’s list click here.