How many times has someone described a book to you as a “must-read?” Lots, right? I hate to be unoriginal here, but The Privilege of Persecution by Dr. Carl Moeller and David W. Hegg is truly a must-read for every Christian. Truly. MUST. READ. I talk about this book in this post  about the American Dream and how the pursuit of that dream has perverted the gospel in America. Moeller and Hegg help us understand that the vast majority of the body of Christ lives in countries that are less than friendly to the gospel of Jesus Christ. And yet, the gospel is not only surviving in those difficult places, but it is thriving.

Those of us who are members of the Body and live in free, non-oppressive nations have so many lessons to learn from the persecuted church. The Privilege of Persecution is a study in what Paul really meant when he wrote to his son-in-the-faith Timothy: “Indeed, all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.” (2 Timothy 3:12) The daily reality of those suffering for their faith is pain, fear, loneliness, isolation, and anxiety. However, in the midst of their adversity, they have unwavering faith, steadfast trust, and abiding love for the Savior who  Himself “learned obedience from the things which He suffered.” (Hebrews 5:8) They can teach us so much.

The Privilege of Persecution also helps us know how to pray for our brothers and sisters in Christ. And that’s all they really ask of us. To remember them. To think about them. To not forget them. To just know about them.

I encourage you to acquire a copy of this book as quickly as you can and read it. But don’t stop there. Get in involved! There are many things you can do to advocate for persecuted Christians. You can pray. Go here to sign up for the 5 Minute Challenge and pray for a specific country once a week. You can become a Bridgebuilder. Go here to find out how. You can write letters to persecuted Christians, send Bibles, blog, and a host of other things. Go here to find more information on ways you can take action. The important thing is to just do something.

I just finished reading Under the Overpass by Mike Yankoski. I was going to begin my review by saying that it is an easy read, but easy is not the right word. What I mean to say is that it is a relatively quick read at 224 pages. But easy? No way.

Under the Overpass is the story of 2 men, Mike Yankoski and Sam Purvis, who spent 5 months living as homeless men on the streets of 6 major U.S. cities. The idea for this journey began in the heart of Yankoski as he sat in church one Sunday and had something of an epiphany concerning the disconnect in his life between what Christ calls His disciples to be and to do and what he realized was his “comfortable upper-middle-class life.” Yankoski says, “I sat there in church struggling to remember a time when I’d actually needed to lean fully on Christ rather than on my own abilities. Not much came to mind.” Thankfully, Yankoski wasn’t content to ignore this disconnect or bury it in the depths of religious busyness. Instead, he says he “walked out of church that morning seized by a big idea, assaulted by dozens of questions, and sure that I had heard deep in my heart a still, small voice saying, ‘Follow Me.’”

This book will challenge your perceptions of homelessness and the homeless. It will force you to confront the hypocrisy and prejudice that may be lurking not so inconspicuously within your own church and heart. It will force you to reflect on what it really means to take up your cross and follow Christ.

I don’t think you can read this book and stay the same.  I hope that you can’t. Living this story changed Yankoski and Purvis for the better, I’m certain. Reading it did the same for me. If I am a disciple of Jesus Christ, then I must love the unlovely, embrace the repugnant, and serve those that the world has deemed unworthy but that Christ calls “the least of these” (Matthew 25:40).

Jesus said the harvest is abundant but there is a shortage of workers (Luke 10:2). It’s time to stop the busyness and be about the Father’s business. It’s time to repair the disconnect.

Watch the news on any given day and chances are it won’t improve your mood. It’s a downer, man. The truth is – life can be a downer. Srsly. I’m talking big-time downer.

Now I know that as a believer in Jesus Christ, I can do all things through Him who strengthens me. I know that with God NOTHING is impossible. I know that greater is He who is in me than he who is in the world. I do. I really do. And I claim each one of those promises and cling to it like there’s no tomorrow.

But sometimes, just sometimes, even the most spiritual of us gets down. I’ll bet even Billy Graham needs a good laugh every now and then. I’m no Billy Graham but I definitely need a good laugh every now and then. And, boy, did I get one today. I stumbled across this blog while I was surfing the net at work. (Don’t get all bent out. It’s part of my job to surf the net and stay connected to my peeps.) I laughed. I laughed much. Then I came across this post on said blog. And I laughed even more.

Jon Acuff, by his own admission, has had many jobs. But he has finally found his dream job working with financial planning expert Dave Ramsey. In addition to writing the blog Stuff Christians Like, he authored a book by the same name. If the two posts mentioned above are any indication, this book has to be hilarious. I can’t wait to read it!

As a new year begins, I think this is a good time to encourage you to read a book that I love. What better goal to have for 2012 than to find the purpose for your life and begin living out that purpose? 

(Originally posted April 2011)

Today I was reminded how much I love this book - The Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren. About seven years ago, a friend lent me his copy and said, “I think you’ll like this book.” The copy he gave me came with a journal. Not being the journaling type, he said I could keep the journal but he wanted his book back when I was done. So I read the book, worked through the journal, and I did, indeed, like it. I liked it very much.

The reasons I like this book are myriad. However, most of what I love about this book can be expressed in just one word: simple. Its simple, easy-to-understand theology does not take a Doctorate of Divinity to understand. Just the word “theology” conjures up all sorts of connotations, some of which may be negative. A simple definition of theology is a study of God and God’s relation to the world. Sometimes theology is expressed by theologians in words and thoughts that are difficult for everyday people to understand. But in The Purpose Driven Life, Rick Warren presents the teachings of the Bible and ideas about God in ways that everyone can understand. He simplifies the message of the Bible without sacrificing the truth found there.

The Purpose Driven Life is a wonderful book for people new to the Christian faith as well as people who are seeking meaning and purpose in their lives. It is written in simple, down to earth language and explains basic doctrines of the Bible in a way that anyone can understand. I recommend this book to anyone who has ever asked the question, “What on earth am I here for?” However, I also recommend it to those who may not struggle with this question but who are interested in helping others find a meaningful answer to it.

I love The Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren. I really do. In this post I told you all the reasons that I think this book is special. But I recently discovered that there is a QR Code Enhanced Edition! If you don’t know what a QR Code is, then read no further. This post isn’t for you. Actually, I take that back. Keep reading. You may learn something! (In this post I discussed my love of QR Codes. I still haven’t stitched that pillow. I need to get on that.)

If you have a smartphone, then you know what QR Codes are. They are those nifty squares scattered throughout magazines that encourage you to scan it and view a video related to the article you are reading. Wikipedia has an easy-to-understand definition: “A QR Code is a matrix barcode (or two-dimensional code), readable by QR scanners, mobile phones with a camera, and smartphones. The code consists of black modules arranged in a square pattern on white background. The information encoded can be text, URL or other data.” Well, sort of easy to understand.

Now this book that I love to give as gifts to seekers (and recommend that every Christian read) has 40 unique QR Codes within its pages. When scanned by your smartphone, the codes link to videos of author Rick Warren. What a great way to incorporate technology in this treasure of a book and bring even more illumination to its reader. I have a feeling we will be seeing more of this technology included in books, magazines, and newspapers.

I’ve said it before. I’ll say it again. Technology – for such a time as this.

In this post I told you about Hannah Hurnard’s book Hind’s Feet on High Places. As I have said before, I highly recommend it. And when you finish it, you need to read its sequel, Mountains of Spices. This book continues the story of Much Afraid who journeyed to the High Places of the Shepherd and whose name was changed to Grace and Glory. Written in allegorical form, Mountains of Spices compares the spices found in the Song of Solomon with the fruits of the Spirit found in Galatians 5: 22-23. For example, it is on the Mountain of Saffron that Grace and Glory learns of longsuffering from the flowers bearing that name and growing on this mountain.

As different members of Grace and Glory’s family renew their acquaintance and relationship with her since her transformation at the High Places, one by one they, too, are transformed as they enter into friendship with the Shepherd. Just as He did with Grace and Glory, changing her name from Much Afraid, the Shepherd changes the name of each one as a sign of how He has changed their character and their hearts. Mrs. Dismal Forebodings becomes Mrs. Thanksgiving, Spiteful is given the name Compassion, and Grace and Glory’s cousin, Craven Fear – the one who in large part drove her to the Shepherd in Hind’s Feet – is given the name Fearless Witness.

You may see yourself in many of the characters of Mountains of Spices - perhaps even before their transformations. But hopefully, you will change even as they did – as they got to know the Shepherd better and made a decision to enter into a relationship with Him. Hurnard herself sums up her book best: “I have tried to show as clearly as possible that the very characteristics and weaknesses of temperament with which we were born. . . can be transformed into their exact opposites and can therefore produce in us the loveliest of all qualities.”

Yes, transformation is possible. But only by God through the power of the Holy Spirit and through a relationship with His Son Jesus Christ. “But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit.” 2 Corinthians 3:19

*This post originally appeared here last year. But I am currently reading the sequel to this book and will post a review soon. So I thought it would be a good time to re-post and encourage you to read this wonderful book in preparation for reading the sequel!

A much-loved passage of Scripture found in Habbakuk 3:17-19 says:

Though the fig tree should not blossom and there be no fruit on the vines, Though the yield of the olive should fail and the fields produce no food, Though the flock should be cut off from the fold and there be no cattle in the stalls, Yet I will exult in the LORD, I will rejoice in the God of my salvation.  The Lord GOD is my strength, And He has made my feet like hinds’ feet, And makes me walk on my high places.

What a glorious anthem of trust to our God! His ways are so far above our ways that oftentimes we must simply trust in Who He is even when our circumstances seem bleak and hopeless. The book Hinds’ Feet On High Places: The Original And Complete Allegory With A Devotional For Women by Hannah Hurnard obviously gets its title from these verses in Habbakuk. Originally published in 1955, it is an allegory that has become a Christian classic.

In the style of John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress, the main character Much-Afraid journeys to the High Places of the Shepherd. She is accompanied by two guides: Sorrow and Suffering. Much-Afraid learns many spiritual lessons along the way about herself, but, more importantly, about the Shepherd. There are many spiritual lessons that we can learn as well within the pages of this special novel.

Please read Hinds’ Feet On High Places. I know that you will be blessed and encouraged. And I believe you will also be able to sing along with Habbakuk and his hymn of praise to our great and glorious God who gives us hope when there seems to be no hope.

Today I was reminded how much I love this book - The Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren. About seven years ago, a friend lent me his copy and said, “I think you’ll like this book.” The copy he gave me came with a journal. Not being the journaling type, he said I could keep the journal but he wanted his book back when I was done. So I read the book, worked through the journal, and I did, indeed, like it. I liked it very much.

The reasons I like this book are myriad. However, most of what I love about this book can be expressed in just one word: simple. Its simple, easy-to-understand theology does not take a Doctorate of Divinity to understand. Just the word “theology” conjures up all sorts of connotations, some of which may be negative. A simple definition of theology is a study of God and God’s relation to the world. Sometimes theology is expressed by theologians in words and thoughts that are difficult for everyday people to understand. But in The Purpose Driven Life, Rick Warren presents the teachings of the Bible and ideas about God in ways that everyone can understand. He simplifies the message of the Bible without sacrificing the truth found there.

The Purpose Driven Life is a wonderful book for people new to the Christian faith as well as people who are seeking meaning and purpose in their lives. It is written in simple, down to earth language and explains basic doctrines of the Bible in a way that anyone can understand. I recommend this book to anyone who has ever asked the question, “What on earth am I here for?” However, I also recommend it to those who may not struggle with this question but who are interested in helping others find a meaningful answer to it.

At Precept Camden we are currently studying the Precept Upon Precept Bible study called Covenant: Knowing God’s Covenant. (For more information on joining our study online, click here.) As I’ve said before, it is my favorite Bible study.

The first mention of covenant in the Bible is found in Genesis 6. God makes a covenant with Noah to save him and his family from the destruction of the worldwide flood that He is going to send to destroy the whole earth because of the wickedness of the people. This covenant is confirmed and expanded in Genesis 9. The sign of the covenant was, of course, the rainbow. The covenant was with Noah and his descendants which obviously included his sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth. Thus the concept of covenant was carried to other cultures as Noah’s sons reproduced and migrated to other parts of the world (Genesis 10).

In his book Peace Child, Don Richardson tells of his discovery of an analogy of redemption within the culture of the Sawi, a Stone Age people of New Guinea. Using this analogy already present in their cultural understanding, he was able to translate the message of redemption through Jesus Christ found in the Bible.

Where did this redemption analogy come from within Sawi culture? Where do other redemption analogies – including covenant – come from in separated and isolated cultures all over the world? They were certainly passed down through the ages from their ancestors. But where did they originate? I believe there is a common thread that goes back to Noah. As his sons spread out over the earth, they took with them the covenant that God made with their father. They took with them the promise of redemption through the seed of the woman (Eve) promised in the Garden of Eden (Genesis 3:15). They carried with them the knowledge of God that they gained through their father’s relationship with Him as well as the knowledge that He Himself placed within them (Romans 1:19).

Read this fascinating book and see if you can see the common thread that we share with Noah since we are all his descendants. It is a compelling addition to a study of covenant in the Bible.

If you want to better understand the concept of covenant taught in the Bible, then you need to read both of these books: The Blood Covenant by H. Clay Trumbull and The Two Covenants by Andrew Murray. Both are great companions to the Precept inductive Bible study called Covenant: Knowing God’s Covenant which Precept Camden will be starting on August 31, 2010. For information on how you can join us in person or online, go here.

Studying the Bible inductively means that you use the Bible as your main text instead of books about the Bible. However, that doesn’t mean that other books cannot be helpful and enriching to your study of the Word of God. It just means that you should start with the Bible and dig every nugget of truth out of it before you turn to the opinions of man written in books by man.

The Blood Covenant and The Two Covenants are great additions to the Precept Study on Covenant. Both are available in Precept Camden’s store.