Here are the books I read and reviewed in 2015. Click a title to read the review…
A Sketch of the Life of George Whitefield
The Surprising Imagination of C.S. Lewis
Here are my book reviews for 2011.
Here are my book reviews for 2012.
Here are my book reviews for 2013.
Here are my book reviews for 2014.
I remember when I was searching for my first job, and I kept getting turned down because I didn’t have any “experience.” And I kept thinking, “How am I supposed to get any experience if you won’t hire me?!” It’s frustrating being in a place where the only way you can get the job is to have experience, which you can’t get because you don’t have the job!
Sadly, I think this is how many people—even many Christians—feel about prayer.
Mature Christians say, “You need to pray.” But newer Christians keep thinking, “I don’t have the experience to allow me to come into God’s presence, because I haven’t been praying before. Does God even want to hear from me now?” It can be frustrating being in a place where you feel the only way you can get to God is to have advanced prayer experience, which you can’t get because you don’t know how to pray that way!
This Sunday I am beginning a new nuts-and-bolts series on how anyone can learn what prayer really is. We will be looking at some of the most basic things that anyone can do to get the prayer experience they need. The series will be called Practical Prayer, and I believe everyone is going to find it highly practical.
I hope you can join me at 10:30am this Sunday. If you cannot join us in person, be sure to check out our live broadcast on Periscope every week (search for @craigtowens).
Yesterday I posted a review on an innovative book The Surprising Imagination Of C.S. Lewis. Truly this man’s literary output during his lifetime, and his works’ staying power after his lifetime, is amazing. Here are a few quotes from this prolific author.
“We may ignore, but we can nowhere evade, the presence of God. The world is crowded with Him. He walks everywhere incognito. And the incognito is not always hard to penetrate. The real labor is to remember, to attend. In fact, to come awake. Still more, to remain awake.” —C.S. Lewis
“Humanity does not pass through phases as a train passes through stations: being alive, it has the privilege of always moving yet never leaving anything behind. Whatever we have been, In some sort we are still.” —C.S. Lewis
“God saw the Cross in the creation of the first nebulae.” —C.S. Lewis
“Nothing can deceive unless it bears a plausible resemblance to reality.” —C.S. Lewis
“The real way of mending a man’s taste is not to denigrate his present favorites, but to teach him how to enjoy something better.” —C.S. Lewis
“Coming to understand anything we must reject the facts as they are for us in favor of the facts as they are.” —C.S. Lewis
“The terrible thing, the almost impossible thing, is to hand over your whole self—all your wishes and precautions—to Christ. But it is far easier than what we are all trying to do instead. For what we are trying to do is to remain what we call ‘ourselves,’ to keep personal happiness as our great aim in life, and yet at the same time be ‘good.’ We are all trying to let our mind and heart go their own way—centered on money or pleasure or ambition—and hoping, in spite of this, to behave honestly and chastely and humbly. And that is exactly what Christ warned us you could not do.” —C.S. Lewis
“The real problem of the Christian life comes where people do not usually look for it. It comes the very moment you wake up each morning. All your wishes and hopes for the day rush at you like wild animals. And the first job each morning consists simply in shoving them all back; in listening to that other Voice, taking that other point of view, letting that other larger, stronger, quieter life come flowing in. And so on, all day.” —C.S. Lewis
“‘Be ye perfect.’ I think He meant ‘The only help I will give is help to become perfect. You may want something less: but I will give you nothing less.’” —C.S. Lewis
“That is why we must not be surprised if we are in for a rough time. When a man turns to Christ and seems to be getting on pretty well (in the sense that some of his bad habits are now corrected) he often feels that it would now be natural if things went fairly smoothly. When trouble comes along—illnesses, money troubles, new kinds of temptation—he is disappointed. These things, he feels, might have been necessary to rouse him and make him repent in his bad old days; but why now? Because God is forcing him on, or up, to a higher level: putting him into situations where he will have to be very much braver, or more patient, or more loving, than he ever dreamed of being before. It seems to us all unnecessary: but that is because we have not yet had the slightest notion of the tremendous thing He means to make of us.” —C.S. Lewis
I previously posted quotes from C.S. Lewis here, here, and here.
TOMORROW please be in prayer for our Christian brothers and sister all over the world who are being persecuted and even martyred for their faith in Jesus Christ.
Continue to remember those in prison as if you were together with them in prison, and those who are mistreated as if you yourselves were suffering. (Hebrews 13:3)
“The Cross is the supreme moment in Time and Eternity, and it is the concentrated essence of the very nature of the Divine love. … The Self-expenditure of God for His enemies in the life and death of our Lord Jesus Christ, becomes the great bridge over the gulf of sin whereby human love may cross over and be embraced by the Divine love, the love that never fails.” —Oswald Chambers
“Paul stresses that in our sufferings the glory of Christ’s all-sufficient grace is magnified [2 Corinthians 12:9-10]. If we rely on Him in our calamity and He sustains our ‘rejoicing in hope,’ then He is shown to be the all-satisfying God of grace and strength that He is.” —John Piper
“The true believer has also a loving spirit as the result of Jesus’ grace. He loves God, therefore he loves God’s people and God’s creatures, and having this loving spirit he has next a zealous spirit, and so he spends and is spent for God, and this begets in him a heavenly spirit and so he tries to live in heaven and to make earth a heaven to his fellow-men, believing that he shall soon have a heaven for himself and for them too on the other side of the stream.” —Charles Spurgeon
This Sunday is the International Day Of Prayer (IDOP) for persecuted Christians around the world. Please remember to pray for our brothers and sisters, or join me on Sunday morning.
Many people give in to the temptation of pornography while staying in hotels. Josh McDowell give us 10 tips for staying porn-free while traveling.
J. Warner Wallace discusses why the appearance of complex design in biology is a problem for atheists and naturalists.
“America is witnessing a ‘capitalistic Christianity.’ The goal is no longer spiritual growth, but expansion in numbers, property, finances.” Read more from David Wilkerson’s post Capitalistic Christianity.
“Many persons today insist on coming into the church head first rather than heart first.”
“I am afraid that we in the church are making a great mistake by trying to make Christianity popular and pleasant. We have taken the Cross away and substituted cushions.”
“I wonder if the church has not failed this generation of young people by failing to make the Christian faith the thrilling, joyful, triumphant experience that it really is.”
“The greatest need in the church today is a spiritual revival that will drive her back to her knees and will cause her earnestly to contend for the faith once delivered.”
“There is a viewpoint prevailing in some areas of the church that its function is to change social structures, through political power and political pressure. In my opinion, this is not supported from the Bible. I think the biblical approach is to change men and men themselves will change society for the better.”
“I am convinced that if the church went back to its main task of preaching the Gospel and getting people converted to Christ it would have far more impact on the social structure of the nation than it can have in any other thing it could possibly do.”
All quotes from The Quotable Billy Graham (1966)
“Darkness comes. In the middle of it, the future looks blank. The temptation to quit is huge. Don’t. You are in good company…. You will argue with yourself that there is no way forward. But with God, nothing is impossible. He has more ropes and ladders and tunnels out of pits than you can conceive. Wait. Pray without ceasing. Hope!” —John Piper
In another post, John Piper writes, “Christianity means change is possible. Deep, fundamental change. It is possible to become tender-hearted when once you were callous and insensitive. It is possible to stop being dominated by bitterness and anger. It is possible to become a loving person no matter what your background has been.” Read more in You Are Not Enslaved To Your Past.
“The depravity of man is on full display in the press as powerful and wicked people now openly suppress the truth in unrighteousness.” Check out this post on media distortion and disinformation.
Mental illness impacts so many people! Are we in the church handling it correctly? Check out 10 misconceptions about mental illness and faith.
“Remember, the more a person uses porn, the greater the amount and explicitness required to achieve the same level of satisfaction. This means more women and children are becoming commodities in this industry—and being forced to do these things we deem now as ‘disgusting.’ Studies prove that for some regular porn users, pornographic acts they found disgusting in the past now turn them on. And as you can imagine, it’s harder for the so-called ‘legit’ porn producers to hire people to do those extreme things. It’s much easier—and less expensive—for people to be kidnapped, devalued, dehumanized, and turned into nothing more than sex slaves.” —Anne Miller
[VIDEO] Rabbi Joseph Telushkin has some challenging words for us about how we speak about others—
[VIDEO]
The Dead Reckoning guys refute Bill Nye (the Science Guy) on his abortion claims—
“The message that needs to be shouted from the houses of high finance is this: Secular man, you are not nearly hedonistic enough! Quit being satisfied with the little 5 percent yields of pleasure that get eaten up by the moths of inflation and the rust of death. Invest in the blue-chip, high-yield, divinely insured security of heaven. Devoting a life to material comforts and thrills is like throwing money down a rat hole. But investing a life in the labor of love yields dividends of joy unsurpassed and unending: ‘Sell your possessions, and give to the needy. [And thus] provide yourselves with moneybags that do not grow old, with a treasure in the heavens that does not fail.’ (Luke 12:33)” —John Piper
This is sadly funny: there are churches (and other organizations) around the globe who think they can be completely transformed without making any changes!
When you are reading your Bible, you can be praying your Bible too. Here are 4 prayers for Bible reading.
A good reminder from George Whitefield on what will cause Christianity to flourish.
This is a periodic series with things I’m reading and pondering from Oswald Chambers. You can read the original seed thought here, or type “Thursdays With Oswald” in the search box to read more entries.
Quick Snippets
(Normally I share a longer passage from Oswald Chambers, but his book Disciples Indeed contains so many short, power-packed statements, that I wanted to share a few of those with you.)
Which of these is your favorite?
Whenever is it not a good day for some quotes from C.S. Lewis?!
“It is when I turn to Christ, when I give myself up to His Personality, that I first begin to have a real personality of my own.” —C.S. Lewis
“Obedience is the road to freedom, humility the road to pleasure, unity the road to personality.” —C.S. Lewis
“The work of a Beethoven and the work of a charwoman become spiritual on precisely the same condition, that of being offered to God, of being done humbly ‘as to the Lord.’ This does not, of course, mean that it is for anyone a mere toss-up whether he should sweep rooms or compose symphonies. A mole must dig to the glory of God and a cock must crow. We are members of one body, but differentiated members, each with his own vocation.” —C.S. Lewis
“The Resurrection is the central theme in every Christian sermon reported in the Acts. The Resurrection, and its consequences, were the ‘gospel’ or good news which the Christians brought.” —C.S. Lewis
“An ordinary simple Christian kneels down to say his prayers. He is trying to get into touch with God. But if he is a Christian he knows that what is prompting him to pray is also God: God, so to speak, inside him. But he also knows that all his real knowledge of God comes through Christ, the Man who was God—that Christ is standing beside him, helping him to pray, praying for him. You see what is happening. God is the thing to which he is praying—the goal he is trying to reach. God is also the thing inside him which is pushing him on—the motive power. God is also the road or bridge along which he is being pushed to that goal. So that the whole threefold life of the three-personal Being is actually going on in that ordinary little bedroom where an ordinary man is saying his prayers. The man is being caught up into the higher kinds of life—what I called Zoe or spiritual life: he is being pulled into God, by God, while still remaining himself.” —C.S. Lewis
“Christ says ‘Give me All. I don’t want so much of your time and so much of your money and so much of your work: I want you. I have not come to torment your natural self, but to kill it. No half-measures are any good. I don’t want to cut off a branch here and a branch there, I want to have the whole tree down. I don’t want to drill the truth, or crown it, or stop it, but to have it out. Hand over the whole natural self, all the desires which you think innocent as well as the ones you think wicked—the whole outfit. I will give you a new self instead. In fact, I will give you Myself: my own will shall become yours.’” —C.S. Lewis
