Know Who You Are (book review)

Tim Tebow continues to astound me! Few people have used their celebrity status to promote other people like he has. In his latest book—Know Who You Are—he turns his sights on something near and dear to his heart: homeschool students and parents.

A key component of any student’s education is learning to articulate their thoughts in writing. At the beginning of his book Tim shares about some research on this topic:

“An esteemed professor of psychology at the University of Texas at Austin studied the impact of journaling. Through a handful of studies, this expert found that expressive writing in a personal and meaningful way positively impacts health, well-being, and self-development. It can put us in a better mood. It can help us process tough situations. It can challenge us to make good changes. It can pave the way for a more impactful future.”

Know Who You Are helps students journal their thoughts by giving them some positive things to ponder. Tim shares his personal stories, many of which involve mistakes he’s made or things which have caused him to second-guess himself, and then talks about the life lessons he learned from those experiences. He then gives students an opportunity to apply those same lessons to their own life. Each week’s lesson wraps up with a couple of writing prompts for the student’s journaling exercises.

This book is designed to take a student through their entire school year, but will help students to think better about themselves and their circumstances for a lifetime. Know who you are—Live like it matters is an excellent resource!

I am a Waterbrook book reviewer.

P.S. If you would like to check out other Tim Tebow books, my review for Through My Eyes is here, and my review for Shaken is here.

Last Full Measure Of Devotion

“But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate—we can not consecrate—we can not hallow—this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.” —Abraham Lincoln 

God’s Good Word

“…it happened after this…” (2 Kings 6:24).

After what? After God thwarted Syria’s attack against Israel. Later Syria tried again, and the king of Israel forgot what God had done in the past and instead blamed the prophet Elisha for Syria’s oppression (see v. 31).

How quickly we are to forget what God has done! How quick we are to abandon His Word? How quick we are to let our eyes see the problems and instead of the Provider!

Elisha again spoke “according to the word of the Lord” and everything transpired “just as the man of God had spoken” (7:16-18).

As William Gurnall said, “If you have God’s good Word, you do not have to fear the world’s bad words.” 

My prayer—O God, may I be quick to remember Your words and Your past victories; quick to look to You as my Provider and not to look to my problems.

What My Temper Tells Me

“Think for a moment of a clock and of what its hands mean. The hands tell me what is within the clock, and if I see that the hands stand still, or that the hands point wrong, or that the clock is slow or fast, I say that something inside the clock is not working properly. And temper is just like the revelation that the clock gives of what is within. Temper is a proof whether the love of Christ is filling the heart, or not.” —Andrew Murray, in Absolute Surrender

Smaller & Bigger

“Small” is not insignificant.

“Bigger” is not necessarily better.

If God has placed me in a place, He will bless me in that place.

It’s not my job to try to advance myself, for that would remove me from the place God is blessing.

Until and unless God says “Go,” there is absolutely no reason to even dream about what another place would look like.

God’s blessing alone makes a place significant, no matter its size by earthly standards.

Happy Birthday, Mr. Lincoln

(c) Craig T. Owens 2013

(c) Craig T. Owens 2013

On February 12, 1809, Abraham Lincoln was born, and our country was blessed with an amazing leader! This is a good day to remember the powerful words that closed Lincoln’s second inaugural address―

…The Almighty has His own purposes. “Woe unto the world because of offenses; for it must needs be that offenses come, but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh.” If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said “the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.”

With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.

You can read his amazingly-short inaugural address by clicking here.

Be The Sermon

Gregory The GreatIt’s not enough to just preach a sermon, my pastor friend, we must be the sermon, too.

Heed these challenging words from Gregory The Great (ca. 540-604)—

“There are some who investigate spiritual precepts with cunning care, but what they penetrate with their understanding they trample on in their lives: all at once they teaching the things which not by practice but by study they have learnt; and what in words they preach by their manners they impugn. …

“The ruler should always be chief in action, that by his living he may point out the way to those that are put under him, and that the flock, which follows the voice and manners of the shepherd, may learn how to walk better through example than through words. For he who is required by the necessity of his position to speak the highest things is required by the same necessity to exhibit the highest things. …

Every preacher should give forth a sound more by his deeds than by his words, and rather by good living imprint footsteps for men to follow than by speaking show them the way to walk in.” 

Leaking Influence

Leaking influenceJim Collins has great advice for leaders: When things are going well, look out the window (at your people); when things aren’t going well, look in the mirror (at yourself). This is as true for business CEOs as it is for pastors.

Pastor, you leak.

I leak.

We all leak.

It’s impossible to just maintain where we are. There needs to be a constant refreshing, a constant refilling. We need to keep learning, keep changing, keep renewing. If we don’t, well, this is how Oswald Chambers described it—

“If you are in a position of authority and people are not obeying you, the greatest heart-searching you can have is the realization that the blame does not lie with them, but with you; there is always leakage going on spiritually. Get right with God yourself, and every other one will get in touch with God through you.” (my emphasis)

Pastor, don’t wait: Look in the mirror today, get right with God, replenish what’s leaked out of you, and then watch to see how others in your congregation will begin to move toward God themselves.

Enter The Pulpit Without Embarrassment

A.W. Tozer

“I am afraid of the pastor that is another man when he enters the pulpit from what he was before. Reverend, you should never think a thought or do a deed or be caught in any situation that you couldn’t carry into the pulpit with you without embarrassment. You should never have to be a different man or get a new voice and a new sense of solemnity when you enter the pulpit. You should be able to enter the pulpit with the same spirit and the same sense of reverence that you had just before when you were talking to someone about the common affairs of life.” —A.W. Tozer

My dear fellow pastor, your congregation wants a pastor-shepherd who is authentic, not plastic. One who is real and approachable, not high-and-mighty. One who is a tour guide on the journey with them, not a travel agent that stays behind. One who is the same in the pulpit, in the restaurant, on the ball field, in the “unguarded” moments.

UPDATE: I elaborate much more on this in my book especially for pastors and church leaders called Shepherd Leadership.

Thursdays With Oswald—Our Father

This is a weekly 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.

Our Father

     Think for one minute, have you behaved today as though God were your Father or have you to hang your head in absolute shame before Him for the miserable, mean, unworthy thoughts you have had about your life? 

     It all springs from one thing, you have lost hold of the idea that God is your Father. Some of us are such fussy, busy people, refusing to look up and realize the tremendous revelation in Jesus Christ’s words—Your heavenly Father knows what you need…. 

From He Shall Glorify Me 

What an amazing thought that when Jesus taught us to pray, He said we could address Almighty God with the affectionate title of “Our Father.” In his book Who Do You Think You Are?, Mark Driscoll points out:

     “In the thirty-nine books of the Old Testament, God is referred to only as Father roughly fourteen times—and each time it’s impersonally, in reference to the nation of Israel, not to individuals. Everything radically changed with Jesus. He spoke of God as Father more than sixty times in the New Testament.

Your heavenly Father loves you more than you can possibly imagine! Let that truth sink in. Don’t give in to the thoughts that your life is not very valuable, or even that God doesn’t like you very much.

God loves you as if you were the only person on earth to love! And He sent Jesus to earth to make it possible for you to be adopted into His family, to call Him Father. Even more than that, to call Him “Daddy God” (see Romans 8:15-17).

Live in your heavenly Father’s love today.