Book Notes

Hebrews 12:14: Make every effort to live in peace with all men and to be holy, without holiness no one will see God. God has called every Christian to a holy life.  There are no exceptions to this call. Many Christians have what we might call a “cultural holiness”.  They adapt to the character and behavior pattern of Christians around them.  As the Christian culture around them is more or less holy, so these Christians are more or less holy.  But God has not called us to be like those around us.  He has called us to be like himself.  [...]

Executive summary:  Philip Yancey deals with controversial topics of living a Christian life with brutal honesty.  Yancey’s niche is writing about subjects that are challenging and difficult to understand.  He puts in words, what many Christians are feeling but are afraid to articulate.  In this book Yancey communicates his thoughts on tough questions like; what is prayer? Does it change God’s mind or ours—or both?  If God knows everything, what’s the point of prayer?  Why do answers to prayer seem so inconsistent, even capricious?     Yancey stated that to him, prayer is the area where two themes of struggle [...]

I know of no other person in the Bible, aside from Christ himself, who had a more profound influence on his world and ours than Paul. Grit—firmness of mind or spirit, unyielding courage in the face of hardship or danger. A proud man is always looking down on things and people: and of course, as long as you are looking down, you cannot see something that is above you.  CS Lewis We confuse conversion with maturity.  We’d rather these new converts clean up their act straight away before we grant them our genuine seal of Christian approval.  How sad.  Somewhere [...]

The truth is, if what we choose to do with our lives won’t make a story meaningful, it won’t make a life meaningful either. A story is a character who wants something and overcomes conflict to get it. What I’m saying is I think life is staggering and we’re just used to it. We all are like spoiled children no longer impressed with the gifts we’re given—it’s just another sunset, just another rainstorm moving in over the mountain, just another child being born, just another funeral. If the point of life is the same as the point of a story, [...]

Disciple: says we are people who spend our lives apprenticed to our master, Jesus Christ.  We are in growing-learning relationship, always.  A disciple is a learner, but not in the academic setting of a schoolroom, rather at the work site of a craftsman.  We do not acquire information about God but skills in faith. Pilgrim: tells us we are people who spend our lives going someplace, going to God, and whose path for getting there is the way, Jesus Christ.  We realize that “this world is not my home” and set out for “the Father’s house”. No literature is more [...]

The impact of a church’s evangelistic effort is directly proportional to the health of its corporate life. Christians are to be good news before they share good news. The greatest force in evangelism is a healthy marriage. Reply to critics:  I like the way I do it better than the way you don’t. God is not in the business of putting healthy babies in malfunctioning incubators.  Churches must become candidates for God’s blessing. I am a leaky vessel and I need to keep under the tap.  DL Moody Poor people need to take rich people out to dinner and listen [...]

Being a Christian is about choosing Jesus and deciding to do something incredibly daring with your life. The scriptures say that we should not fear those things which can destroy the body, but we are to fear that which can destroy the soul (Matt.10:28).  While the ghettos may have their share of violence and crime, the suburbs are the home of the more subtle demonic forces—numbness, complacency, comfort—and it is these that can eat away at our souls. From my desk at college, it looked like some time back we had stopped living Christianity and just started studying it. If [...]

1.  The way of the Christian leader is not the way of upward mobility in which our world has invested so much, but the way of downward mobility ending on the cross.  This is paradoxically the way to joy and the peace of God, a joy and peace that is not of this world. 2.  What makes the temptation of power so seemingly irresistible?  Maybe it is that power offers an easy substitute for the hard task of love.  It seems easier to be God than to love God, easier to control people than to love people, easier to own [...]

It is not sin that humbles us most, but grace. Humility, the place of entire dependence on God, is, from the very nature of things, the first duty and the highest virtue of man.  It is the root of every virtue. Pride, or the loss of this humility is the root of every sin and evil. Humility is the sense of entire nothingness, which comes when we see how truly God is all, and in which we make way for God to be all. We must make humility the chief thing we admire in Christ. The lesson of humility is [...]

First Half Listen to the Gentle Whisper. How can we be so successful but feel so unfulfilled? Most of us know what we believe but not what to do about what we believe. The first half of our life is about belief : accepting Christ for who He is and developing spiritual maturity. The second half is about good works : finding our ministry in the church and doing our mission in the world. The first half is about getting an education, gaining experience, learning, and earning money. The second half is more risky and involves investing our gifts in [...]