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Radical by David Platt

2011-01-03T20:39:31-06:00

Not all that bad, however far from being a rallying call is the book Radical by David Platt. I put this review of it on Amazon, i really don't have much more to say about this book.

This book presents a big gallon or two of milk(Hebrews 5:12-14). David Platt has presented a way for Christians to live and asks for only a year. This is good to see a church with a minister preaching to their people to forgo living for themselves and live for a eternal purpose. However to request people to do it only for a year is a joke to me. Now i know some would be thinking, "Ed really come on once these new recruits live this way for a year, they will be hooked and they will keep going" but that's the milk. Instruct them to live the life for the rest of theirs. (John 12:25-26) We don't need a bunch of short term thinking recruits. Either live the life or just live and enjoy this season (Hebrews 11:25). Because if you really live the life of a follower of Christ, it will be very different. I would like to say it will be hard, but that is not really true. See when we are weak Christ gives us strength (Acts 3:16, 2 Corinthians 12:9, Phillippians 4:13, Colossians 1:11, Hebrews 11:34), yet there are times that we find it hard to stay on the straight and narrow (Matthew 7:14). The message needs to be clear and honest. Stop watering it down and just tell it like it really is, and should be.

And you don't need to sell everything to follow Christ. If you did that then you would be as homeless as the people you should be helping. Just jettison the things that you don't need for day to day survival and put the money to better use. Some people need to burn the stuff they don't need or as a follower of Christ, have in the first place (Acts 19:19). P.S. Don't hock it on Amazon, or throw it away, if you don't need it you should not be passing it to others even for a penny.

The usage of scripture without the reference inline to where you can find the passage was annoying. But then again many of the people that claim to be "Christians" probably don't read or own a Bible. How sad is that. However they could own something they call a Bible, but is nothing more than a perversion of the Word of God. And they don't even know it, which is even more troubling.

I do feel that the people that are mentioned in the book are very sincere, i just have trouble with the milky message that this book contains.

All Scripture taken from the KJV.

The Boy Who Changed the World By Andy Andrews

2010-12-12T12:49:38-06:00

This book i got to review was a little different than the others. Well only in that it was a kids book, and full of pictures... which i do like. So when i requested it i felt that i would read it to my daughter, Simon won't sit still long enough. We are working on his focusing skills... i think he gets what he has from his dad... that is the theory at least. This book is not long and not many words on each page, something that makes it easier for me to read to a younger child... just not as young as Simon... well if i had a girl maybe she would sit and listen, but then again, the grass always looks greener on the other side.

Well anyway this book in my opinion is well done and relays the story and message that each one of us is important. Each thing we do will ripple through time and touch many other peoples lives. If you have young kids this would be a good book to read. Help encourage them and let them know that they do make a difference in this world. And we want them to use this time to be a difference for good, not evil.

The Next Christians: The Good News about the End of Christian America By Gabe Lyons

2010-12-12T09:16:24-06:00

I got this book free from WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group to review and was excited because it was the first with this company. I have posted this on the Amazon review that i wrote for this book as well. In this post i will cover more thoughts on this book.

I Thessalonians 5:21

Prove all things, hold fast that which is good.

The Next Christians that are described in this book as "restorers" are nothing new to society. The description gave is a "Christian" with no backbone, and let's the world dictate how they are to interact with this world. They also sound like a buffet believer, picking just what they want out of scripture. Before i get to far into this, and probably forget i would like to get this one out. On page 95 he mentions "the most good for all people" I had another man mention that in a talk he was giving and i asked him, who decides what "good" is? I think his "good" and Gods' "good" would be quite different.

Anyway another area that i thought was comical was on page 41 he talks about churches that accommodate their congregations need to fit in, he calls these people "blenders". From the book

"Over the last decade, several churches - even evangelical ones - have responded to this "blender" mentality by accommodating their congregation's need to fit in." "...On the surface, this seems to be admirable. They place emphasis on providing a comfortable environment where all are welcome. When they do, spiritual seekers and blenders feel right at home. Complete with a Starbucks-style coffee shop, Disney-like children's programming, and a worship experience that rivals a Coldplay concert, weekend services attempt to emulate the cultural competition."

I can agree with this, there is a church i have heard about in one of the towns by where i live that passes out ear plugs before the service because the music is so loud. I thought that was a big joke. So with this i can agree with Lyons, churches have gotten out of hand with the way they present the gospel. Now the funny part for me comes some pages later (136) where Mr. Lyons says that "The Message, is one of the Bibles that is popular with this new group of "restorers". Also the Biblica institutes "Books of the Bible" removes chapter and verse, saying "...before King James came along and made it a perceived requirement."

Sir i ask you do you study before you write on a topic, who is teaching you these things? Let's see what some other sources say, shall we? Dear reader remember the King James Version was started in 1605 and completed in 1611. In Josh McDowell's book The New Evidence that demands a verdict 1999 on page 20. We can read about the chapter and verse divisions "...after the Protestant Reformation, the Hebrew Bible for the most part followed the same chapter divisions as the Protestant Old Testament. These divisions were first placed in the margins in 1330." And the New Testament he writes "Stephen Langton, a professor at the University of Paris and afterward Archbishop of Canterbury, divided the Bible into the modern chapter divisions (about 1227).

So there we have chapters and now how about verses?

Still quoting from Josh McDowell's book, "In the Old Testament, the first verse indicators "were merely spaces between words, as the words were run together continuously through a given book ...It was not until about A.D 900 that the markings were standardized." As for the New Testament he writes "Verse markings similar to what we have in our modern Bibles did not appear in the New Testament until the middle of the sixteenth century. They actually followed the development of chapters, "apparently in an effort to further facilitate cross-references and make public reading easier."" "...In 1555, Stephanus introduced his verse divisions into the Latin Vulgate edition, from which they have continued to the present day."

Also you can read more about his on bible-researcher.com website. I know some people would not want to go purchase a book, however i do recommend Josh McDowell's book.

So why do i say all this. The reason is because this book is more evidence of the undisciplined "Christians" that are walking about. Not building on the Christian history, but ignoring it. Not growing from what was learned centuries ago, but going on blindly thinking they know what's best. Many don't take II Timothy 2:15 seriously "Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth." Many of them cannot because the book they read labelled "Bible" doesn't read that any more. Maybe one of the reasons for taking the chapter/verse out of the Bible is to better hide the fact that some remove scriptures.

One last thing, why talk about Churches trying to be relevant, and then recommend a corrupt Bible that does the same thing? Like i asked before who decides "good"?

Beyond Opinion By Ravi Zacharias and others

2010-11-28T14:20:24-06:00

I got this book to do a review on. It took me some time to read it through, i always question if anyone ever proof reads these books. I find little things that are wrong, that part is interesting, however it does not detract from the material presented that much. Now for the content of the book, it is well presented in my opinion. I see the presentation as an introduction to many of the areas the Christian should have some knowledge in, these areas were presented by many different authors.

I will start on page 51 where Alison Thomas writes that "We cannot give to young people what we adults do not possess. "In order to equip them, we ourselves have to be prepared in word and deed." I feel that allot of parents don't know how or want to train up their children. Which scripture instructs us to do (Proverbs 22:6). I'Ching Thomas conveys a part of the multi-discipline of the Christian faith on page 218 where she says "the onus is on us to learn and study about competing worldviews and religions, and their cultural expressions." However in my opinion we have to many people professing to be a "Christian" yet mind "earthly things" (Philippians 3:19). This is a great shame. as Ravi quotes Irish evangelist Gypsy Smith on page 304 "There are five Gospels. "Matthew,Mark, Luke, John, and the Christian, and some people will never read the first four." People who claim to be Christians need to start living like Christ wants... however not many know how, churches today don't preach the Word of God, but minister to men's itching ears. (2 Timothy 4:3) As Matthew Henry put it "They will turn away their ears from the truth; they will grow weary of the old plain gospel of Christ, and then they will be greedy of fables, and take pleasure in them, and God will give them up to those strong delusions, because they received not the truth in the love of it.

This book is not for the unbeliever, but for the believer that wants to be "instant in season, out of season" (2 Timothy 4:2) wants to give a defence for the faith, yet does not know where to start. First start with the Word of God, get grounded in it, (Colossians 1:23) this book is just a tool that you can use to learn from the others that have come before you.

As Ravi relays a story on pages 334 & 335 that happens during World War II I have posted another version of it on this site. Many people are not taught how to take strongholds. I pray that the Lord will be with me and guide me with the groups that i minister to, that they will be trained how to take strongholds. As Ravi says "In many ways this is what we now face in the church today. "We have basically an "untrained" memberhip with the danger quite large. "To add to the challenge, we cannot simply "take strongholds" we must do so while preserving the life of the one using that stronghold."

All scripture i use and reference is from the KJV Bible. I don't recommend or use the others. It's another area where we must study. The preservation of God's Word.

The Butterfly Effect by Andy Andrews

2010-09-09T17:17:16-05:00

I got this book from Thomas Nelson Publishers to do a review on. I was quite surprised when i got it and it was only a few pages long. This is a good book to put out in public so people can read it because it won't take long to finish. I knew more about George Washington Carver than i did about Norman Borlaug, and not much about Col. Joshua Chamberlin. The book talks about how the decisions that you make may have bigger effects than you think. I don't know how many of my decisions effect other peoples lives, but i can see how each one would effect the next. The book is a really easy read and has some interesting info on people of history. I have passed it around and other people that have read it have enjoyed it as well. I recommend this to other people to read as well. It reminds us that we do matter and that what we do can have larger ramifications that we might think.

Mind Your Own Mortgage by By Robert Bernabe

2010-06-02T09:32:13-05:00

So i do reviews for books and i got one from booksneeze called Mind your own Mortgage. I am looking at purchasing a new home and this book could have not come at a better time. Mind your own Mortgage starts off with how the housing market got into the mess it is in today (2010). Then it goes into detail on what is going wrong with people and how they handle their mortgage. I feel one of the most important points that was made in the book was that when you purchase something today that you really don't need you are borrowing against your mortgage. Even if you have as little as 75$ a month to put on your mortgage do it. The worksheets that are presented show you how to shop and get good pricing on your mortgage. The one annoyance i have is that when you go to the website to get the forms you need to subscribe to the site. Now the cost at this writing is only 29.95 for a year. Not allot of money, but was not expected, how naive of me. :-D So anyway i read Gods plan for your finances before reading this book, and that got the ball rolling. Mind your own Mortgage reinforced the information i got from Gods plan for your finances. I am currently reading Money management for those who don't have any. It has some good info, and some things that i would not ever want to do, but this is not the place to review it.

So since i spend time writing software and not much is available for Linux in regards to good financial software i thought i would write something for myself to help me keep track of what is going on with my money. I plan on releasing it as OSS GPL but it may be a year or so. I have so many other things. Granted i will be using it before the year is up, but we will see.

If you have a mortgage or are looking at purchasing your first home i strongly recommend reading this book. The information in it's pages will save you thousands of dollars on your mortgage.

God Saw Them Through, by Glenn Thomas

2010-05-01T12:55:29-05:00

So in my reading today i just finished God Saw them through by Glenn Thomas. Now when i started the book i got to the second chapter and thought man if it keeps up like this it will be a long time before i am finished with this book. But once deployment happened things started moving allot faster. So much faster that i finished the book and was wanting more. I am almost sure that i read about the 2/8 in another book i have, but i have not found it.

This book is a testament to prayer and faith that God is in control. How situations happened that were advantageous for the solders of 2/8. I will give this books to friends and tell them, let the author introduce the soldiers in the first two chapters, because after that you won't want to put the book down. Also it's a reminder that we need to pray more, and set a specific time to pray. That is something that was mentioned in the book. People would pray at 9:00 pm eastern time each night. And how the Holy Spirit would wake people up and impress upon them to pray for specific people. It is an awesome recording of specific details of American military history.

This book is something that i will keep in my collection and share with many other people.

Living with Confidence in a Chaotic World By David Jeremiah

2010-04-27T09:04:49-05:00

This is the first work i had read by Dr. David Jeremiah, probably will be the last. In this book, page 52 Dr. Jeremiah is recalling the story of Peter being asked by Jesus if he loves Him, this is after the resurrection. I felt that Dr. Jeremiah missed one of the beautiful parts of this meeting. Jesus used the same type of coal for the fire that was used when Peter denied Him. The odour that would have come from that fire would have reminded Peter of the time when he denied Christ. Dr. Jeremiah in my mind destroyed the entire story to focus on the words that were used. I cannot tell Jesus that i "Agape" Him. I am not capable of "Agape" love. And to my knowledge the only person that has lived who is capable of that love is Jesus Christ Himself.

On page 180 the section on "Will We Be Ashamed?" Dr. Jeremiah says "Believe it or not, this will occur for many people." I do believe people will enter heaven and be ashamed. But my view is very different. I will be ashamed and filled with joy at the same time, because i will see what my Saviour Jesus Christ gave up to come rescue me and that it is now my inheritance. But what i don't think is people will enter the gates that have had opportunities to share Christ and did not. People that could freely grow in a personal relationship with Christ but choose that something else in this shadow of a life, was more important. The statement "My precious child, I bled for you on the cross. I gave all that I had, and what did you do with My gift?" Will be more like "I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity." Matthew 7:23 I don't see the point in giving people the false hope that all they need to do is accept the free gift, and never develop the close personal relationship with Jesus Christ. But for many i know they hope i am very wrong.

On page 213 Dr. Jeremiah calls for the church to wake up. Granted this is quoted from another book that he included, but it is very well needed to be said. "we need to take down our 'Do not disturb' signs, snap out of our stupor, come out of our coma, and awake from out apathy." On this point i whole heartily agree. The "Church" has become so pathetic that it's not even funny. They have let in "wolves in sheeps' clothing" Matthew 7:15. Not all churches are this way, but to many are trying to pass themselves as Christian Churches, but are nothing more than abominations.

This book did have some good points, but i would not recommend it to friends. However my close brothers i would let read, so if needed they could correct me in my views of it if needed.

Take your best shot by Austin Gutwein and Todd Hillard

2009-10-04T14:43:29-05:00

So i got my new book Saturday "Take your best shot". This is the story behind Hoops of Hope and how it got started. Not only about how it got started but the impact that it has had on people since it's inception. This story shows that no matter what your age God can use you to do His will. I picked up this book because i saw that not many people had done reviews on it. I also am a person that likes to read about peoples "real life" experiences. Take your best shot was a very refreshing read. Austin keeps it real and talks about the challenges he has faced in his journey. The pain of body in completing the first goal, to how pride has tried to creep into his thoughts. Now at the end of each chapter is a question section where you can write in the book. Now i don't write in my books but i did answer the questions. The questions also reflect to scripture and challenge the reader to read the verses and to write their thoughts about that verse. Personally i am at the point in my life where i have come to realize that it's not all about me. I want to do something that will change the lives of those around me.

I heard the other day that there are two things you are remembered for 1. The problems you create, 2. The problems you solve. I want to be a part of the team that solves problems. As i was reading this book i knew Austin is one of the people that solves problems. He saw a problem and used what he could to help address that problem. In the book Take your best shot, Austin does not sugar coat it at all, the highlights, struggles and challenges are written about as well. I am happy that i got this book, and am reading it again to my daughter. I want her to know that with God nothing is impossible. Also i want her to know that others out in the world her age are doing mightily things for the kingdom. This book has challenged me to do more as well.

So Maiya keep up the good work. I will add you to my prayers that God will continue to guide you and bless you in your ministry. It's good knowing that the next generation has leaders in such as yourself. I know more will be joining your ranks.

What Difference Do It Make? By Ron Hall, Denver Moore and Lynn Vincent

2009-09-21T20:13:38-05:00

So the new book i have just finished reading is What Difference Do It Make? . Anyway as you may have noticed i read and review books. Not something i am formally trained in, can you even be trained for such a thing? I am sure someone somewhere would take money for it, you know how people are. Anyway back to the book. This is an update on what has happened to Denver Moore and Ron Hall after their first book Same Kind of Different as Me. If you did not read the first book don't worry. Areas where you would be lost are included in this book. Now it's not a rehash of the first book, but just gap fillers.

Before i finished this review i pulled quotes that i liked out. One mistake i made is not writing them down so i could use them. But i remember the gist and i will correct these when i get the book back.

God don't pay overtime -- Denver Moore

How many times do you (i am included in that you) do something and expect praise or recognition from others? I wouldn't say i set out to do something to gain the praises of others, however i do have a desire to be recognized, but at the same time not. I guess it's kinda like i want people to notice what i do, but not make a big deal about it. Just a thank you every now and then would be nice. I just need to remember that nothing i do goes without notice, Jesus is always watching.

Who's gon'a stick around and show us Jesus -- Denver Moore

A part of the book that got me thinking was the time when Ron judged Jose by his outward appearance. Denver then filled Ron in on the error of his judgement and gave him some history on Jose. I know i am guilty of judging people by their appearance. Where i go to church there have been many occasions that people have asked me for money. I remember this one time a guy gave me a story about how he ran out of gas and his wife was in the car. He was limping around with a cane, and he just wanted some money to get some gas. I asked him how he was going to go get the gas, his reply was he was going to walk. At least that's what i remember, well see that he was limping around on a cane i told him to hop in and i would give him a ride to the gas station to get some gas. Well it turns out that this guys story was true, he had run out of gas and his wife was in the car. He asked for a way to get me the money back, i told him don't worry about it. However another time a guy asked me for money he talked about how his family was without food and he wanted some money to buy food for them. I told him to hop in and i would take him to the store. We rolled a few feet and he asked where we were going. I told him to the store to get him some food, and he said no thanks. I stopped the Jeep and let him out.

I have seen homeless people sleeping on the benches outside of a building i work in sometimes and i just pass them by. One thing that was taught to me was to ask "what is your need now". I guess most will ask for money, but some may ask for food. I guess it's a way to share with others, something i need to start doing more of.

I really enjoyed this book and hope others get a chance to read it as well.