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.
“God make you—you that do little for Him—to humble yourselves before Him, and to begin the next year with this determination, that knowing the terrors of the Lord, you will persuade men, and labour, and strive to bring sinners to the Cross of Christ.” —Charles Spurgeon
Something to think about as you read your Bible: Don’t Just Read The Bible For Yourself.
I agree with Seth Godin, in his post In Search Of Arrogance, that people should think of you as arrogant every once in awhile.
Wow…
“Be sure that the ins and outs of your individuality are no mystery to Him; and one day they will no longer be a mystery to you.” —C.S. Lewis
“God knows you better than you know you and has reached this verdict: He loves you still! No discovery will disillusion Him. No rebellion will dissuade Him. He loves you with an everlasting love. God’s love—never failing, never ending.” —Max Lucado
“God never hastens and He never tarries. He works His plans out in His own way, and we either lie like clogs on His hands or we assist Him by being as clay in the hands of the potter.” —Oswald Chambers
[VIDEO] Ken Davis always makes me laugh—
Some good reading & watching from today…
“The thing is, everything worth doing is done to excess, poorly, immorally, inefficiently, by someone. But that doesn’t change the fact that the very same thing done right is worth doing.” Read more from Seth Godin’s post Babies And Bathwater.
“The sign of faint-heartedness in individuals is in the language talk of ‘someone else’ when there is anything to be done. … Spiritual fatigue comes from the unconscious frittering away of God’s time. When you feel weary or are exhausted…get back to God.” —Oswald Chambers
Tim Elmore shares 7 Ways Great Leaders Climb “Out Of The Box”
John Maxwell talks about the importance of a leader caring for others…
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.
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!
Some good reading from today…
[PHOTOS] Today is the birthday of the United States Marine Corps. Here are some great pictures of our Marines in action.
“Your hope for the future is not in what you did yesterday, but improving today so that you can meet the future head-on.” —John Maxwell
Did you know that 90% of babies diagnosed with Down syndrome are aborted?! Here are 9 people with Down syndrome who live highly successful lives.
“‘Circumstances over which I have no control’ is a perfectly true phrase, but it must never be made to mean that we cannot control ourselves in those circumstances.” —Oswald Chambers
“The whole Bible and all past history unite to teach that battles are always won before the armies take the field. The critical moment for any army is not the day it engages the foe in actual combat; it is the day before or the month before or the year before. … Preparation is vital. Let this be noted by everyone. We can seek God today and get prepared to meet temptation tomorrow; but if we meet the enemy without first having met God, the outcome is not conjectural; the issue is already decided. We can only lose.” —A.W. Tozer
“We must open our Bibles every morning with this prayer—‘Give us this day our daily bread.’” —Charles Spurgeon
Good advice on how to respond to people who are antagonistic toward your Christian faith.
Hmm, Pope Francis demotes (again!) a U.S. cardinal who is doctrinally conservative.
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.”
Some good reading and watching from today…
[VIDEO] John Maxwell says the joy-ratio of giving-to-receiving is 10-to-1.
“Faith never knows where it is being led, it knows and loves the One Who is leading. … Faith is not resignation to a power we do not know; faith is committal to One Whose character we do know because it has been revealed to us in Jesus Christ.” —Oswald Chambers
“The devil’s master strategy for us Christians then is not to kill us physically (though there may be some special situations where physical death fits into his plan better), but to destroy our power to wage spiritual warfare. And how well he has succeeded. The average Christian these days is a harmless enough thing. God knows.” —A.W. Tozer
Some have argued that aborting a baby diagnosed with cystic fibrosis is humane and ethical. This kid proves them wrong.
Seth Godin with a really good reason why you should vote tomorrow.
…and The Gospel Coalition reminds Christians why they should vote.
As I noted in my review of The Moral Foundations Of Life (you can read that review by clicking here), Oswald Chambers wanted Christians to think more deeply about their relationship with Jesus Christ, and then live differently because of their new way of thinking. Here are some of his quotes related to a Christians’ thought life.
“When we become spiritual we have to exercise the power of thinking to a greater degree than ever before. We starve our mind as Christians by not thinking.”
“The Atonement of our Lord never contradicts human reason, it contradicts the logic of human intellect that has never partaken of regeneration.”
“Is Jesus Christ’s teaching God-breathed to me? There is an intention that seeks God’s blessings without obeying Jesus Christ’s teaching. We are apt to say with sanctimonious piety, ‘Yes, Jesus Christ’s teaching is of God’; but how do we measure up to it? Do we intend to think about it and act on it?”
“The old idea that we cannot help evil thoughts has become so ingrained in our minds that most of us accept it as fact. But if it is true, then Paul is talking nonsense when he tells us to choose our thinking, to think only on those things that are true, and honorable, and just, and pure.” [Philippians 4:8-9; 2 Corinthians 10:5]
“We are so extraordinarily fussy that we won’t give ourselves one minute before God to think, and unless we do we shall never form the habit of abiding. We must get alone in secret and think, screw our minds down and not allow them to wool-gather.”
“If a man lets his garden alone it very soon ceases to be a garden; and if a saint lets his mind alone it will soon become a rubbish keep for satan to make use of.”
“If we have been storing our minds with the Word of God, we are never taken unawares in new circumstances because the Holy Spirit brings back these things to our remembrance and we know what we should do; but the Holy Spirit cannot bring back to our minds what we have never troubled to put there.”
“Think of the sweat and labor that a scientific student will expend in order to attain his end; where do we find men and women concentrating with the same intensity on spiritual realities?”
“As soon as you get down to pray you remember a letter you ought to write, or something else that needs to be done, a thousand and one little impertinences come in and claim your attention. When we suspend our own activities and get down at the foot of the Cross and meditate there, God brings His thoughts to us by the Holy Spirit and interprets them to us. … God has not the remotest opportunity of coming to some of us, our minds are packed full with our own thoughts and conceptions.”
“The devil does not need to bother about us as long as we remain ignorant of the way God has made us and refused to discipline ourselves; inattention and our own slovenliness will soon run away with every power we have. … All we need is grit and gumption and reliance on the Holy Spirit. We must bring the same determined energy to the revelations in the God’s Book as we bring to earthly professions. Most of us leave the sweat of brain outside when we come to deal with the Bible.”
“God will not bring every thought and imagination into captivity; we have to do it, and that is the test of spiritual concentration. The inattentive, slovenly way we drift into the presence of God is an indication that we are not bothering to think about Him. … God gives us the Holy Spirit not only for holy living but for holy thinking, and we are held responsible if we do not think concentratedly along the right lines.”
“Glean your thinking; don’t allow your mind to be a harborage for every kind of vagabond sentiment; resolutely get into the way of disciplining your impulses and stray thinking.”
“We have to transform into real thinking possession for ourselves all that the Spirit of God puts into our spirits.”
“An undisciplined imagination will destroy reliable judgment more quickly even then sin.”
I have written extensively on how much Oswald Chambers’ writings have impacted my life and thinking. In his book The Moral Foundations Of Life, Chambers himself discusses how much a Christian’s thought life impacts the way that he lives. This book is a collection of lectures (or as Chambers called them “talks”) on the thought life of Christians.
Two quotes from David Lambert, a friend of Chambers and a man who helped get his books published, sets the stage for this outstanding book—
“One of Chambers’ primary goals as a teacher was to challenge Christians to think. An equally important objective was to encourage believers to act. In Chambers’ mind, the brain and the body were not enemies but allies in the effort to live a life that glorified God. …
“I see sometimes in London the preparations being made for the sure foundations of one of the great modern buildings to be erected there. Far below the surface-level men and machines toil patiently on work which soon will be hidden, but which alone will make the towering building secure. These Talks on Moral Foundations take us to that depth below the surface of our everyday life where the foundations are laid for enduring sainthood. They deal profoundly with such matters as Habit, Thinking, the Will, Behavior. The subject of Christian ethical obligation is of paramount importance in the thought life of today. The very basis of our religion, our moral and spiritual standing, is being challenged. Here will be found a valiant answer to the secular, skeptical and lawless questionings of our time.”
I could not have said it better myself! This is another outstanding book which all Christians should endeavor to read.
Craig T. Owens 