The Gift of Grace

I have read Max Lucado's books for decades, so I was very excited about reading The Gift for All People: Thoughts on God's Great Grace. When I began reading the first chapter, I thought the words sounded familiar --like I had read it before. Upon further inspection, I had read it before. Nearly thirty years ago. At least parts of it, anyway. The Gift for All People is not a completely new book, but rather a collection of snippets pulled from a number of other books Lucado wrote during the 1980s and 1990s, repackaged for a new audience. 

The snippets are classic Max Lucado pieces arranged beautifully into four major sections: The Gift of a Savior, Ransom for Sinners, Bounteous Grace, and The Choice. Each little snippet is only two to three short pages long, so each one is a very easy read. The problem for me was that it left me wanting more. It was a bit like being presented with a platter of tiny, but delicious hors d'oeuvres when you were anticipating a full entree. However, many people enjoy hors d'oeuvres. They enjoy reading just a brief devotional thought because that's all they have time for in their busy day. 

This little book might make an excellent gift for a believer who wants a collection of beautifully written devotional thoughts about grace. If you've read any of Max Lucado's books, then you are well aware that although the snippets pulled from his other books may be short, all of them are very full of imagery, powerful, and inspiring. 

However, judging from the final chapter of this book as well as the title, I believe this collection was designed to be a gift for someone who is seeking to learn more about Jesus, who He is, and what is this thing called grace. The final piece in the book is called "God's Destiny for Your Life," and it includes an open invitation for readers to begin to follow Jesus and to accept His gift of grace.

Lucado writes, "With all of my heart, I urge you to accept God's destiny for your life. I urge you to get on board with Christ. ... Would you let him save you? This is the most important decision you will ever make. Why don't you give your heart to him right now. Admit your need. Agree with his work. Accept his gift" (126). But he doesn't stop with just issuing an invitation. Lucado goes on to help a new believer know what his/her next steps are. "These three steps --baptism, Bible reading, and belonging to a church --are essential steps in your faith" (127). 

If you know someone who has not yet experienced the grace of Jesus, consider gifting them with this little book. Consider who in your life might benefit from a gift of a little grace. It is the gift for all people. Max Lucado's The Gift for All People is available here. 

I received this book from the Blogging for Books program in exchange for this review.

Have the Mind of Christ in Your Marriage

A quick Amazon search of "marriage books" reveals over 260,000 results. A search of "Christian marriage books" reveals almost 28,000 options. Within these thousands of book options, many of them tell us how to change our actions. They offer helpful to-do lists of tasks to do for your spouse. One of these nearly 28,000 Christian marriage books, 9 Thoughts That Can Change Your Marriage, by Sheila Wray Gregoire, comes at it from a little different angle. While Gregoire does offer a number of practical application tasks and ideas, what sets her book apart is her focus on our mind ---how we think about our spouse, more than merely what we do for our spouse --which will in turn affect our actions.

Some of her advice on our thoughts include remembering that our spouse is our neighbor, and Jesus told us to love our neighbors as ourselves, which should greatly affect how we treat them. She advises her readers to focus their thoughts and attention on their marriages so it doesn't drift out with the tide due to neglect or taking it for granted. She reminds us that we cannot expect our spouse to fulfill a role for us that only God can fill, and a reminder that we cannot change our spouse and mold them into what we want or expect. We must remember that the partners in a marriage are on the same team ---not in competition with each other. We also need to allow our spouse to be our spouse, and only allow God to be God.

I especially found her approach to submission very compelling (Chapter 5). She acknowledges that the usual definition of submission is that in the case of a disagreement, the husband wins --the wife is to blindly obey and defer to her husband's position, regardless of the outcome. I love that Gregoire quotes The Princess Bride, saying of the word submission, "I don't think it means what you think it means."

To illustrate her understanding, she walks through two Scriptural narratives: the story of Nabal and Abigail, in which she (correctly) did not blindly obey her husband (1 Samuel 25) and the story of Ananias and Sapphira, in which she (incorrectly) did blindly obey her husband, much to her own detriment (Acts 5:1-11). Gregoire advises to focus on unity of the marriage and asking the question 'What does God want me to do in this situation', not blind, dutiful "submission."

My capsule version of Gregoire's advice in this book is to "have the mind of Christ" (1 Cor 2:16 NIV), especially in regards to our spouse.

I received this book from Blogging for Books for this review.

Whose Voice are You Going to Listen to?

On her Unguarded CD from 1985, Amy Grant recorded a song that says, “You gotta know who to and not to listen to.” These lyrics pretty much sum of the theme of Steven Furtick’s book, Crashing the Chatterbox.

The book’s subtitle, “Hearing God’s Voice Above All Others,” is what intrigued me, but this book does not contain a list of the top ten ways to be able to better hear from God. It is more of a discussion on how to know which voice in your head to listen to, and how to recognize and listen to the voice of God rather than the voice of the enemy, or the “chatterbox.” Or as the Amy Grant song says, “who to and not to listen to.”

Are you familiar with the tricks of the chatterbox? Do you battle a constant barrage of destructive, self-condemning, accusing, hope-crushing, fear-inducing, faith-shattering chatter? I know that I do, and from this book, it seems that the author does as well.

Throughout the book, Furtick is very transparent about the struggles in his own life and the chatter that goes on inside his own head. He acknowledges that sometimes the condemning, discouraging voice of the enemy sounds so loud that it can be difficult to hear anything or anyone else, and he makes this observation about the differences in volume:

“If God wants us to hear and know and obey His voice, why does He whisper? I don’t know all the reasons, because God has never consulted me in His methods of communication. But here’s how I’ve come to understand it. He whispers because He’s close. The enemy has to shout his threats because, although he can distract and disarm you, he knows he ultimately can’t destroy you. He can’t get to you…He can only forecast fear into your future” (pp. 106-107).

He addresses a number of the enemy’s tactics, including his propensity for attacking us with unfounded fear and lies. Because of this, we must be able to distinguish between these lies and the truth of God. Similar to a bank teller’s training on recognizing counterfeit bills, “…maturity in Christ is largely about becoming familiar enough with what is true to see through what’s false” (pg. 128).

Near the end of the book, Furtick delivers the news that we must have a strategy to tune out the chatterbox because the chatterbox is not going to go away on its on. There is no secret way to completely crash the chatterbox so that it will cease talking to us. As long as we continue to follow Jesus, we will never reach a point in our lives when the enemy is going to give up and move on. Furtick says, “…the chatter will keep coming. Every day of our lives for the rest of our lives…The more you grow in Christ and the closer you get to fulfilling the things He put you on the earth to do, the more intense the battle with your chatter becomes” (pg. 157).

While this sounds like bad news, we don’t have to listen to the chatterbox if we focus on listening to God. I think the bottom line of this book is that “Every Christian has a calling. And the chatterbox is assigned to interrupt that calling. The ability to overcome discouragement is driven by our intentional decision to reassure ourselves: God says I can” (pg. 171). So who’s voice are you going to listen to?

I received this book from "Blogging for Books" for this review. 

The Hand of God at Work

Just over a year ago, a good friend asked us to pray for his former classmate from Abilene Christian University who may have become infected with the Ebola virus while serving as a medical missionary in Africa. This classmate that my friend was so concerned about was Dr. Kent Brantly. In the coming weeks, Kent Brantly became a household name and an international news story, and we joined thousands of other Christians in praying for his recovery. I remember watching the televised news stories for updates on his condition and hearing such fear and concern expressed by the masses. Ultimately, Dr. Brantly was healed by the gracious hand of God, and Called to Life is his story.

Through this book, Dr. Kent Brantly and his wife Amber give readers a window into the personal details of this captivating news story. They discuss their relationship, their faith, and how God called them to serve as medical missionaries in Liberia. They each take turns sharing what they experienced while serving the people of Liberia, caring for victims of the Ebola virus, and the details of Kent’s battle for his life when he fell victim to the deadly disease. 

I found their story riveting --very easy to read and difficult to put down. Aside from getting a personal, detailed view into an international news story that I had watched unfold on television, I found two sections of Dr. Brantly’s thoughts of particular worth: the motivation for his role as a medical missionary (pg 76) and the tension that exists between crediting God for healing him or crediting science (pg 206).

Some may wonder why Kent and Amber Brantly would risk their personal health and their family for such a dangerous mission. They felt called by God to serve Him in this capacity and to show the compassion of Jesus to the Liberians. Brantly says, “Jesus healed many people who did not follow him. I believe I am called to do the same. His healing was not predicated on their acceptance of his message. Jesus healed because he had compassion on people. And I seek to have that same kind of compassion on my patients” (pg 77).

This compassion and this calling nearly cost Dr. Brantly his life, but God chose to heal him. Was he miraculously healed by God because thousands of people were praying for him, or was he healed by science, through the experimental treatment he was given? Why did God choose to heal him when so many others died? Dr. Brantly works through all of these questions as he seems to share with the reader a glimpse into his personal prayer journal. He recounts a number of unlikely events and concludes, “Some may call it all a grand coincidence, and I couldn’t argue with them. But when I see the unlikely and highly improbable events that occurred –not only during my illness, but also for decades preceding the Ebola epidemic in West Africa –I see the hand of God at work, and I give him the credit” (207).  

Praise God for dedicated, compassionate people like Kent and Amber Brantly who choose to be the hands and feet of Jesus to a dying world.

I received this book from Blogging for Books for this review.

Messy Grace in a Dangerous Minefield

Today’s prolific culture of homosexuality and same-sex marriage can be a very difficult minefield to navigate for those who profess to follow Jesus. People take sides, proclaiming hate for each other and there are numerous misunderstandings and misinformation. We need a compassionate, experienced guide to help us walk through this minefield without any further losses. This guide is Caleb Kaltenbach.

In his new book, Messy Grace, Kaltenbach invites followers of Jesus to “live in the tension of grace and truth” (14), a tension he models for us very well in this book. As a pastor and a Bible scholar, Kaltenbach has studied and wrestled with the Scripture and what it teaches regarding homosexuality. However, he does not use the Bible “as a weapon to bludgeon those who disagree” (8) as some Christians are apt to do. As someone who grew up in an LGBT home, Kaltenbach tempers his adherence to the truth of Scripture with a deep sense of empathy and a heartfelt need to extend grace to all.

He reminds us not to have an “us vs. them” mentality. We are ALL sinners and we are ALL in need of grace –something that many of us tend to forget. As recipients of grace, we are called to extend this same grace to others. This can be messy, hence the title of the book. Kaltenbach reminds us that “if Jesus calls us to be fishers of people and to get involved in the lives of others, we’re going to get messy. Why? Because the grace of God is bigger than any of us is willing to admit. People are messy. Sacrifice is messy. Talking about important issues is messy. Helping others is messy. Love is messy. And that’s all right. We can pursue people for Christ anyway” (35).

Messy Grace is not an abstract book of the theology of grace or of homosexuality. It is a very practical book filled with heartbreaking stories of how we have failed to reach those in the LGBT community and advice on how we can best relate to those who identify themselves as LGBT or to those who “come out” to us.

Today’s culture can be a dangerous minefield, but in Messy Grace, Caleb Kaltenbach shines the light of grace on this messy field. I would encourage all who seek to follow Jesus and to reach our culture to read this book when it comes out in October. You can pre-order Messy Grace here. 

I received this book from Blogging for Books for this review.