Here are the books I read and reviewed in 2014. Click a title to read the review…
12 Huge Mistakes Parents Can Avoid
How Do You Kill 11 Million People?
Pleasure & Profit In Bible Study
Smith Wigglesworth On Prayer, Power & Miracles
The Christian’s Secret Of A Happy Life
The Greatest Words Ever Spoken
The Illustrated Guide To The Authors Of The Bible
The Quick-Start Guide To The Whole Bible
Here are my book reviews for 2011.
Here are my book reviews for 2012.
Here are my book reviews for 2013.
Some great quotes from John Bunyan on prayer—
“Prayer is a sincere, sensible, affectionate pouring out of the soul to God, through Christ, in the strength and assistance of the Spirit, for such things as God has promised.”
“The best prayers have often more groans than words.”
“Prayer is a shield to the soul, a sacrifice to God, and a scourge for satan.”
“When you pray, rather let your heart be without words than your words without heart.”
We began our series on The Carols Of Christmas by looking at the poem written by Charles Wesley in 1744: Come, Thou Long-Expected Jesus. As far as I can find, Wesley never shared where he got his inspiration for this prose, but I have a hunch that it might be from a song in the Bible called The Benedictus.
Zechariah had been unable to speak for nearly a year because of his doubt over the message God sent him through the angel (see Luke 1:5-20). When his son was born and Zechariah named him John, his tongue was loosed and he “was filled with the Holy Spirit” and burst into song (Luke 1:67-79). The first word of his song in Latin is benedictus, from which the name is derived.
Here’s what I love about both Zechariah’s and Wesley’s songs—they both look forward to Christ’s First Advent and His Second Advent. Mary was still pregnant with Jesus when Zechariah sang his song, but his lyrics reflect the Redemption story that Jesus would fulfill as Emmanuel, God with us. Charles Wesley picks up this same theme, rejoicing over Christ’s birth and His imminent return.
In fact, that’s exactly the point! We aren’t celebrating Christmas as much as we are celebrating Advent. Jesus was born “when the time had fully come” for His First Advent (Galatians 4:4-5), and “this same Jesus, Who has been taken from you into Heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen Him go into Heaven” (Acts 1:11). That’s the message that should encourage us (see 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18).
Check out the remarkable parallels between the Benedictus and Wesley’s hymn—
If you’d like to download a PDF of this side-by-side comparison, here it is → Come Thou Long-Expected Jesus & Benedictus ←
If you’ve missed any of the messages in this series, you may check them out by clicking here.
It was during the great World’s Fair evangelistic campaign. Dwight Moody and his workers were gathered at the close of the day, as their custom was, in the evangelist’s room, for a word of prayer together. The hymn I Need Thee Every Hour had been selected. When they finished singing, Henry Varley, the English evangelist, said: “I’m not sure that I can subscribe heartily to that sentiment. I feel that I need Christ moment by moment.” That thought impressed Major D.W. Whittle, and after the prayer meeting he went to his room, and, prompted by the Holy Spirit, he wrote and rewrote and wrote again until 2 o’clock in the morning when he completed his song Moment By Moment.
Dying with Jesus, by death reckoned mine,
Some good reading from today…
“Remember that sin must be punished. Any theology which offers the pardon of sin without a punishment, ignores part of the character of God. God is love, but God is also just, as severely just as if He had no love, and yet as intensely loving as if He had no justice. To gain a just view of the character of God you must perceive all His attributes as infinitely developed; justice must have its infinity acknowledged as much as mercy. … Sin must be punished, or God must cease to be. The testimony of the gospel is not that the punishment has been mitigated or foregone, or that justice has had a sop given it to close its mouth. The consolation is far more sure and effectual. Christ has for His people borne all the punishment which they deserved; and now every soul for whom Christ died may read with exultation, ‘The punishment of her iniquity is accomplished’ [Lamentations 4:22].” —Charles Spurgeon
Very interesting reading: Has the war on poverty hurt American marriage rates? Check out this data.
“I think it wise, if possible, to move one’s main prayers from the last-thing-at-night position to some earlier time: give them a better chance to infiltrate one’s other thoughts.” —C.S. Lewis
“This Spirit-filled, last-days Church will not hide, but will be on the front lines, fighting a good fight and bringing in a harvest of souls.” Read more from David Wilkerson in his post On The Front Lines.
Some good reading from today…
“Go to bed seasonably, and rise early. Redeem your precious time… that not one moment of it may be lost. Be much in secret prayer. Converse less with man, and more with God.” —George Whitefield
“Lord, let me not live to be useless.” —John Wesley
Jon Bloom looks at narcissism in a different way: Beware The Mirror.
“To be specific, the self-sins are self-righteousness, self-pity, self-confidence, self-sufficiency, self-admiration, self-love and a host of others like them. They dwell too deep within us and are too much a part of our natures to come to our attention till the light of God is focused upon them.” —A.W. Tozer
“Confession isn’t a punishment for sin; it’s an isolation of sin so it can be exposed and extracted.” —Max Lucado
“We must learn to tell ourselves the truth on the basis of God’s Word.” —Oswald Chambers
During the cold & flu season, here is a great reason to kiss your sweetie: Kissing helps boost your immune system.
Some good reading from today…
15 good quotes from Soren Kierkegaard.
For the singles, here is 10 guys you should never date and 8 types of women you should never date.
“I can neither teach nor live by the faith of others. I must live by my own faith as the Spirit of the Lord has taught me through His Word.” —Menno Simons
Pretty cool! We just landed a robot on a comet!
Coaches & Parents, Tim Elmore tells us how athletes hide behind their talent and what we can do about it.
Human touch is just as nutritious as the food we eat. So go hug someone!
“The notion that the careless sinner is the smart fellow and the serious-minded Christian, though well-intentioned, is a stupid dolt altogether out of touch with life will not stand up under scrutiny. Sin is basically an act of moral folly, and the greater the folly the greater the fool.” —A.W. Tozer
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.
The Discipline In Faith
The element of discipline in the life of faith must never be lost sight of, because only by means of the discipline are we taught the difference between the natural interpretation of what we call good and what God means by “good.” …
At times it appears as if God has not only forsaken His word, but has deliberately deceived us. We asked Him for a particular thing, or related ourselves to Him along a certain line, and expected that it would mean the fullness of blessing, and actually it has meant the opposite—upset, trouble and difficulty all around, and we are staggered, until we learn that by this very discipline God is bringing us to the place of entire abandonment to Himself.
From Not Knowing Where
Probably every follower of God has experienced what Oswald Chambers describes: We follow God wholeheartedly, fully believing He called us to something, only to get knocked around by trouble.
I’ve been there and done that. It was a whole lot of no-fun while I was in it. And now, looking back on it, I still can’t say that I enjoyed those times. But here’s what I do enjoy now:
If God calls you, He will not leave you. No matter how painful or difficult your circumstances, if He called you to walk through it, He will do something in it. Discipline yourself to remain totally abandoned to God!
Oswald Chambers was a brilliant, God-inspired man! In his book The Moral Foundations Of Life (you can read my book review by clicking here), he combines two of his favorite topics: Christianity and psychology. I shared some of his quotes in this book on the topic of thinking (you can read those by clicking here). Below are some additional quotes on the Christian life.
“You can never argue anyone into the Kingdom of Heaven, you cannot argue anyone anywhere. The only result of arguing is to prove to your own mind that you are right and the other fellow wrong. You cannot argue for truth; but immediately Incarnate Truth is presented, a want awakens in the soul which only God can meet.”
“When I see Jesus Christ I simply want to be what He wants me to be.”
“To tell a man who is down and out to get up and do the right thing can never help him; but when once Jesus Christ is presented to him there is a reflected wish to be what Jesus wants him to be.”
“Only a spiritually ignorant person tries to be a Christian. Study the life of Jesus Christ and see what Christianity means, and you will find you cannot be a Christian by trying; you must be born into the life before you can live it. There are a great many people trying to be Christians; they pray and long and fast and consecrate, but it is nothing but imitation, it has no life in it.”
“We are only free when the Son sets us free; but we are free to choose whether or not we will be made free.”
“The life of a saint reveals a quietness at the heart of things, there is something firm and dependable, because the Lord is the strength of the life.”
“The characteristic of a Christian is that he has the right not to insist on his rights.”
“The Holy Spirit does not become our spirit; He invades our spirit and lifts our personality into a right relationship with God, and that means we can begin now to work out what God has worked in. … Absolute almighty ability is packed into our spirit, and to say ‘can’t,’ if we have received the Holy Spirit, is unconscious blasphemy.”
“Salvation is sudden, but the working out of salvation in our life is never sudden. It is moment by moment, here are a little and there a little. The Holy Spirit educates us down to the scruple.”
“Our conduct with men is measured by the way God has dealt with us, not by what men think of us.”
“The majority of us waste time and want to encroach on eternity. … An hour, or half an hour, of daily attention to and meditation on our own spiritual life is the secret of progress.”
“‘But my difficulties are so enormous.’ Thank God they are! The bigger the difficulty, the more amazing is your profit to Jesus Christ as you draw on His supernatural grace.”
“Watch human nature; we are so built that if we do not get thrilled in the right way, we will get thrilled in the wrong. If we are without the thrill of communion with God, we will try to get thrilled by the devil, or by some concoction of human ingenuity.”
“Take any of the teaching of the Sermon on the Mount and you will find it is never put on the ground that because a man is right with me, therefore I will be the same to him, but always on the ground of a right relationship to Jesus Christ first, and then the showing of that same relationship to others.”
“When our eyes are fixed on Jesus Christ we begin to see qualities blossoming in the lives of others that we never saw there before.”
“We are not here to be specimens of what God can do, but to have our life so he hid with Christ in God that our Lord’s words will be true of us, that men beholding our good works will glorify our Father in Heaven. There was no ‘show business’ in the life of the Son of God, and there is to be no ‘show business’ in the life of the saint.”
“With such prayer it is an absolute certainty that I must succeed with God in prayer. If my prayer were my own prayer, I might not be so sure of it, but if the prayer which I utter be God’s own prayer written on my soul, God is always one with Himself, and what He writes on the heart is only written there because it is written in His purposes.” —Charles Spurgeon, commenting on Jude 20
“I do not believe one can settle how much we ought to give. I am afraid the only safe rule is to give more than we can spare. In other words, if our expenditure on comforts, luxuries, amusements, etc., is up to the standard common among those with the same income as our own, we are probably giving away too little. If our charities do not at all pinch or hamper us, I should say they are too small. There ought to be things we should like to do and cannot do because our charities expenditure excludes them.” —C.S. Lewis
Dr. James Dobson has 8 reminders for stressed parents.
“We must stand on every promise and pray in faith, effectually, fervently, without doubt, and then wait and rest, trusting the Lord to do what is right, in His time and His way. Few Christians today wait with patience for God to work in His time. The more it is delayed, the angrier some get. Some finally give up, thinking God doesn’t answer.” —David Wilkerson
A university scientist is fired for publishing a peer-reviewed paper in a respected scientific journal that dares (gasp!) to mention that the biblical Flood might account for a specific finding he had made. The scientific community is becoming more and more touchy about anything that disproves their tenuous beliefs in an Earth that is anything less than billions of years old.
Continue to pray for Asia Bibi, who is appealing her death sentence in Pakistan. Her crime? She is a Christian. Also please consider supporting the American Center for Law & Justice who is helping Asia, and many others like her.
[INFOGRAPHIC] Have I mentioned that I am a huge fan of The Overview Bible Project? I love this infographic and insight into the biblical authors.
Craig T. Owens 