I recently finished reading ‘Unleashed’ by Erwin McManus. If you are familiar with his work then you may know this book as ‘The Barbarian Way.’ He released it under the new title because the old title suggested that the book was very masculine. In reality, the book is very much about his daughter and her raw faith in God.

To say this book was inspiring would be an understatement. I finished it in just a couple of days. It is a quick read (only 141 pages)  especially if you find it as compelling as I did. This book says a lot of things that I have been afraid to say because of what kind of disturbances it can cause. And he says it in a much better way than I would have.

If you are a follower of Christ and you have allowed yourself to be domesticated, you have lost the power of who you are and who God intends for you to be. You were not created to be normal. God’s desire for you is not compliance and conformity. You have been baptized by Spirit and fire. Asleep within you is a barbarian, a savage to all who love the prim and proper. You must go to the primal place and enter the presence of the Most High God, for there you will be changed by His presence. Let Him unleash the untamed faith within you.

When I first started following Jesus I remember the the raw and savage like faith that I had. I felt and acted different from the world and I got a huge kick out of being different. Over the years, I have found that it is easier to avoid conflict and go with the flow of things, but I felt like something was missing. My once boiling over dangerous faith has become a pool of stagnant goo. This reminded me about what I have been missing. I can’t pinpoint the exact moment that I began letting fear run my life, but it is about time for that to end.

Following Jesus was never meant to be an easy, mapped out path full of sunshine and double rainbows. We make it out to be that because we want to be comfortable. But we never learn from comfort. We learn out of struggle. It is easier to be religious and legalistic than it is to love God and our neighbors. Jesus didn’t call us to play it safe. He called us to follow at all costs.

Are you really free? Or are you trapped in a system that tells you how to be a good Christian? I want you to be free.

You can buy this book on Amazon.

Disclaimer: I received this book through BookSneeze for free in exchange for this book review.

Max Lucado has a new book coming out called ‘Max on Life.’ I received a free copy of the book to review on this blog.

This book is subtitled ‘Answers and Insights to Your Most Important Questions.’ It is written a little different from the regular book format. It is actually a book full of questions that Max does his best to answer in 1-2 pages each. My first thought as I began reading this book  was that if Max Lucado had a blog, this would be it. The book is divided up into different categories of questions. There is also a great index at the back so you can find questions about specific topics. I think that this book would even be great to read as a daily devotional.

As I read through the questions and answers I felt kind of privileged. Its not like I would ever have the opportunity to sit down and ask Max Lucado deep questions about life. To be able to open this book and find such valuable information regarding the hard things in this life is amazing. I don’t have to make an appointment or buy the guy coffee or anything. Ok, so maybe you have to buy the book, but there is a whole life of help and encouragement in this book.

The range of questions is very broad. I found that some of them, I had already sought answers to, while others I hadn’t thought to ask yet. And with each question, Max answers boldly with scripture to back it up. And the answers are full of encouragement and sound reason. I have learned quite a few things in reading this book and found comfort that others are asking the same questions that I am.

If you want to pick it up from Amazon, you can use this link below.

Max On Life: Answers and Insights to Your Most Important Questions

Disclaimer – I received this book for free in exchange for a book review on this blog. I promise that the free gift in no way has influenced my review of this book.

I wanted to read this book because I like Baseball. I respect Pujols for what he has done on and off of the field, but I am a Cincinnati Reds fan, so I didn’t celebrate some of his accomplishments while reading this book.

In reading this book, I was hoping to get a deeper understanding of the faith of Albert Pujols. I did learn some things, but I didn’t learn a whole lot that I didn’t already know. The book really could have been divided in half. One half was a play by play of his Baseball career. The other half of the book covered his mission off of the field. It read in an every other chapter format. So I would read a chapter full of stats and professional achievements followed by a chapter about how he wants to use Baseball as his platform to share Jesus with people.

I liked reading the statistics and all, but was looking for more out of this book. I wanted to learn more about how Pujols really came to follow Jesus. I got the gist of his story, but it was almost like he just kind of started to follow Jesus after a while. I think it was a little more difficult because the story is told by 2 other writers. I feel that I could learn more if I were able to sit down and have a conversation with Pujols about his life.

If you don’t really care about Pujols’ batting average from month to month, I wouldn’t recommend you read this book unless you skip those chapters. I felt like this was more of a PR move in favor of Pujols. I believe that he really wants people to know that he is trying to do greater things than play baseball. But it is awfully hard to ignore what he has accomplished as a baseball player.

You can purchase this book on Amazon if you are interested in picking it up.

When I was in school, I didn’t like to read.  But I have found a great joy in reading now that I get to pick the books I read. I am not big on reading fiction, but do occasionally enjoy a good story or two.  I review books for Book Sneeze and Blogging for Books in exchange for free books.  They are both under Christian publishers, so many of the books I read are by Pastors.  I read a lot about leadership too. So I thought that I would share some books that I have been reading lately that I really liked.

‘Sun Stand Still‘ by Steven Furtick – Could revolutionize your prayer life.

‘Getting Things Done‘ by David Allen – Personal productivity.

‘Chazown‘ by Craig Groeschel – Method for discovering one’s purpose.

‘Soulprint‘ by Mark Batterson – Discovering who God created you to be.

Currently reading ‘The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People‘ by Steven Covey.

What are you reading?

Disclaimer: The links to these books above are Amazon affiliate links.  If you purchase these books through these links, I will earn a few pennies.  Thank you in advance if you decide to purchase these books, but please don’t feel obligated.  I just want to share some good reads with you.

Disclaimer – I received a free copy of this book through Blogging For Books in exchange for a review on my blog.

I recently finished reading the latest book by Mark Batterson called ‘Soulprint.’  In this book, Batterson wants to help you discover who God made you to be.  He lays out how to look at 5 possible defining moments in your life that will help you understand your “divine destiny.”  He has shown that by doing a little bit of self research into these 5 areas, you may be able to determine what you were designed to do.

The first area that Batterson brings up is about your holy confidence.  He asks you to examine your past and look for the little victories in your life that could help you to accomplish great victories.  He says, “its the small wins that give us the confidence to go after bigger goals.”  David knew how to take down Goliath because he had already beaten the lion and the bear.

The second area we are to look at is how God has been at work in our past experiences.  Hindsight is 20-20 and often we can see why we had to go through certain experiences both good and bad.  Batterson writes, “The past is not circumstantial. The past is providential.”  He also brings up an old tradition of making alters to God as we read about in the Old Testament.  Batterson calls them Life Symbols.  We can look at a photograph or any object that reminds you of an event or a moment that you want to hold onto forever.  An alter in the same way reminds you of something God did in your life.

The third area is about integrity.  God is more interested in who you become than he is about what you do or accomplish with your life.  This is a great reminder for me because my mind works scientifically.  You work hard and you see results.  You go, you do, and you accomplish.  But it’s easy for me to forget that at the end of the day, it isn’t about how great my accomplishments are.  It’s about who I have become in the process.

The fourth area is about who we are trying to be.  Batterson calls it our alter ego.  We should be able to be ourselves.  That is exactly how God made us.  If we have to act like something that we aren’t then we are just posers. Have you ever had a relationship with someone and after months or even years, you find out that they were not being real with you at all in certain parts of their life?  That bugs that crap out of me.  Are we afraid that people won’t like the real us? Please just learn to be real with yourself and with others.

The fifth area is about how we allow our past to define us.  We all have sin in our lives.  We all have mistakes in our past.  And we have two options when looking at our past mistakes.  We can allow them to define us in a way that we feel like we are damaged.  Or we can define ourselves by how God has made those things right.  It can be painful to work through things that we would rather forget.  But once we have worked through it, those things will no longer have any power over us.

I have read several books on this same subject lately and I have come to the conclusion that there is not a formula to figuring this out.  Much of what I have read overlaps in many places, but there is no magic pill that works for everyone. I think that Mark Batterson shared a lot of great strategies in this book.  It has helped me to look a little deeper into different areas of my life.  I still have not discovered my soulprint as far as I know, but this is a journey, not a sprint.

(Disclaimer: I received this book for free from Thomas Nelson in exchange for this book review.)

I was expecting something different when I selected this book.  I have never read Mike Flynt before and was expecting to learn more from his fitness expertise.  The more that I read, the more it felt like a motivational seminar.  Phrases like “have a winning attitude” make me want to start skimming.  It felt that way for several chapters to me, but I followed through on finishing the book.  And I am glad that I did.

When I was nearing the end of the book, I found that the last two chapters really grabbed my attention.  They focused on how we use our time and how we take care of ourselves.  Because I struggle with these things, I found a lot of encouragement from these two chapters.  I also found some good biblically supported ways to help me to keep my priorities straight.

I realized that the only difference in the last two chapters was that those were the areas where I needed encouragement.  I felt that the rest of the book also would be encouraging to others who maybe need a little pep talk in areas such as dealing with skepticism and teamwork.  The book is full of good stories from his life that will encourage anyone who is looking to ground their whole life on the Gospel.

Disclaimer: I received this book free from Water Brook Multnomah in exchange for this review.

This is one of the best books on prayer that I have ever read.  Not only was it practical, but it was inspiring and challenging too.  I can honestly say that this book has revolutionized the way that I approach prayer.  I really wasn’t sure what to expect from this book when I selected it, but I do not regret picking it up.  I plan on reading again very soon in an attempt to soak up more than I what I picked up in my first reading.

Steven Furtick does a wonderful job of walking the reader through praying from a place of vision and then walking it out in “audacious faith.”  I learned that I am praying much too safe for my life.  We ask God to do things on a daily basis that He has already promised that He would do.  Do we really need to keep asking Him for those things when He has already made His promise?  I am learning to pray more for the impossible and to pray with urgency and sincerity.  Furtick calls this “praying like a juggernaut.”  I want to pray more like a juggernaut and less like a scared child.  But it is more than a heartfelt prayer that will make the sun stand still.  It is a faith to let God do what only He can do.  To really believe that He can do what we perceive as impossible.  Do you really believe that God can stop the sun in the sky and time as we know it?  I mean do you really?

I really enjoyed reading this book.  It read like a conversation with a friend and I did not want to put the book down once I started.  The concepts were very easy to grasp and the stories were inspiring.  I would recommend this to anyone who finds prayer a little boring and wants to spice it up.

You can purchase the book on Amazon at this link.

Disclaimer:  I received this book for free in exchange for a review on my blog through a program called Book Sneeze.

I just finished reading ‘The Gospel According To Jesus’ by Chris Seay.  It was not quite what I initially expected and it had a lot of theological talk that was a little over my head, but there are some great truths in this book.

I dug right into the first chapter about righteousness.  Seay addressed the issue of righteousness of rule following verses righteousness of relationship with Jesus.  I don’t know what church you go to, but all of our churches have rules.  Rules are not necessarily bad, but when they become our path to righteousness then there can be a problem.

Paul is very clear in the book of Romans that our focus must not be on the tireless struggle to do the right thing; that will only exhaust us.  The law and the rules are a constant reminder of our failure to deal with our sinful nature through our own wills.  But a miraculous thing happens when we fix our attention on King Jesus and his kingdom: God begins to work out his righteousness through us.

I grew up in a church where from my perspective it was all about the rules.  I never grasped the idea that I could have a real connection to Jesus.  He really felt untouchable to me.  I could pray and make requests, but I never felt like I was worthy of him answering my prayers.  It was more like a lottery to me.  I would pray and hope I got lucky.

Seay touches on how our connection with Jesus is absolutely necessary.  Without that, we are just rule followers with the single purpose of saving our own skin.  Jesus does not want us to live self serving lives that are safe and comfortable.  He wants us to love others even if we have to get dirty to do so.

He ends the book with a chapter called, The Ten Commandments of Shalom Life.  He describes these as practices that, “leads us out of brokenness and into a Christ-centered completeness.”  I liked that it gave me something to act on now that I have completed the book.

There was a lot in this book and I feel like I will need to read it again to try to digest everything.  I felt it was a heavy book for me because of the number of ideas that were presented.  If you are looking for something to think about and are prepared to do some self examination, then I recommend this book to you.  Be prepared to work through it.

You can pick up the book on Amazon through this link.

The Gospel According to Jesus: A Faith that Restores All Things

Discipline is a word that I love and hate at the same time. I love it because it helps me to guide and correct my children. I don’t love when I have to discipline them, but it is a necessary tool that works. BTW, I am a spanking parent. If you have a problem with that, leave a comment. I like debating.

I don’t like discipline when I am the one who screwed up. I respect it, but I just really hate it when I screw up.

But discipline has another meaning. When I think of discipline, I also think of the time it took for someone to learn a skill or behavior. To say that someone has mastered a discipline gets a lot of respect from me. I find that I have a harder time learning things as I get older and disciplines are much harder to keep in good practice.

This thought led me to an idea that I am going to throw out to all of you. I know that I want more discipline in my life in a lot of areas. So I have an idea to help me and anyone who is interested to practice certain disciplines for an entire year. Ok, so I even think it sounds a little crazy, but here are the details.

There is a book called, Celebration of Discipline: The Path to Spiritual Growth by Richard Foster. I have read it a couple of times. It is a book that breaks down 12 spiritual disciplines into 3 Categories. This book dives into these disciplines in detail, teaching about their meaning, purpose, and how to practice them. I want to examine 1 discipline a month and commit to practicing it. Each month of the year, we will add a new one and work our way through all 12.

I want to work through this with a group of people and use the tools of technology out there to connect with each other and share our experiences. I expect the group to be committed to completing this together. I also expect accountability from the group. This should not be a large time consuming thing as you will mostly practice things on your own. But I will be planning ways for the group to connect online in simple ways.

Let me know if this sounds like something that you would be interested in. This is not for everyone, but I hope that you decide to join me on this adventure.

Disclaimer – I received a free copy of this book in exchange for this book review.

The best way that I can describe ‘The Grace of God’ is refreshing.  I find it is very easy for me to fall back into living a performance based faith even though that I know that it is really about grace.  This book was a great reminder to me that God just flat out loves me because I am His.

The book begins with a question that I have often thought about, but never really taken the time to get all of my answers.  God we read about in the Old Testament seems very different from God in the New Testament.  It seems that we went from books of rules and wars to books on peace, love, and grace.  Stanley walks us through the Bible beginning with the Old Testament and reveals where grace seems to have been hidden from me for so long.  I consider myself very familiar with the scriptures, but this has been eye opening for me.

I plan on hanging onto this book and re-reading it often because I know that I will need that reminder that it is about grace and not about my own actions.

You can purchase a copy of ‘The Grace of God’ on Amazon.