Category: Books and Reading

Not a Dead Frog to Dissect

Joshua Harris on theology:

The idea of studying God often rubs people the wrong way. It sounds cold and theoretical, as if God were a frog carcass to dissect in a lab or a set of ideas that we memorize like math proofs.

But studying God doesn’t have to be like that… Knowledge doesn’t have to be dry and lifeless. And when you think about it, exactly what is our alternative? Ignorance? Falsehood?

We’re either building our lives on the reality of what God is truly like and what he’s about, or we’re basing our lives on our own imagination and misconceptions.

We’re all theologians. The question is whether what we know about God is true.

Sturm und Drang

The central point of our Christian lives is our deep, abiding relationship with Jesus, not our public usefulness to others. Our endeavor to become like Christ should precede our activities for Christ. If we spend lots of our time in over-activity instead of being immersed in the great fundamental truths of God’s word, we will snap when the storm and stress come.

–Adapted from Oswald Chambers’ My Utmost for His Highest

Why Does God Allow Suffering?

You might as well ask the […] Secretary of Transportation why he allows accidents on the highways. No doubt he would take exception to the accusation implied in your question, pointing to the well-defined rules of the road. “Every time a law is broken,” he might reply, “the offender places himself and others in danger. Accidents and suffering occur as a result.”

People suffer chiefly for one reason: They have chosen to ignore God’s rule book, the Bible, and everything has gone terribly wrong as a result. Our loving Creator knows exactly how we have been made and what will harm us. Consequently, with a caring, protective heart he says, “You shall not…”. His commands are not dictatorial edicts designed to spoil our fun; rather they are manufacturers operating instructions. God knows that our psyches cannot handle sin and that we are actually crushed and tormented by our own misdeeds. Few would argue against the wisdom of reading the instruction manual before using a new appliance. People take care not to break a tape recorder or a new washing machine, but strangely, many don’t seem to mind destroying their own spirits and souls with the poison of sin.

–Reinhard Bonnke, TIME IS RUNNING OUT

Gasping for the Gospel

Every unredeemed life cries out for the gospel, like a fish on the riverbank gasping for water. Many in the world have given up hope. They have seen the limits of science, technology, medicine, politics and education, and they turn to opiates to forget- drugs, drink and religious mysticism. Like the mythical hydra, evil grows two heads for every one that we cut off. This monster needs the dagger of the cross of Christ plunged into its heart.

Reinhard Bonnke, TIME IS RUNNING OUT

The Bible

Henry Van Dyke on the power and importance of the Bible:

Born in the East and clothed in Oriental form and imagery, the Bible walks the ways of all the world with familiar feet and enters land after land to find its own everywhere. It comes to the palace to tell the monarch that he is a servant of the Most High, and into the cottage to assure the peasant that he can be a son of God. Children listen to its stories with wonder and delight, and wise men ponder them as parables of life.

It has a word of peace for the time of peril, a word of comfort for the time of calamity, a word of light for the hope of darkness. Its oracles are repeated in the assembly of the people, and its counsels whispered in the ear of the lonely. The wicked and the proud tremble at its warnings, but to the wounded and penitent it has a mother’s voice.

No man is poor or desolate who has this treasure for his own. When the landscape darkens and the trembling pilgrim comes to the valley named of the shadow, he is not afraid to enter; he takes the rod and staff of Scripture in his hand, he says to his friend and comrade, “Goodbye, we shall meet again”; and comforted by that support, he goes toward the lonely pass as one who walks through darkness into light.

Why We Fill Our Lives with Trivialities

A.W. Tozer on Experiencing the Presence of God:

The great passion in the heart of every human being is to experience the awesome majesty of God’s presence. The highest accomplishment of humanity is entering the overwhelming presence of God. Nothing else can satiate this burning thirst.

The average person, unable to understand this passion for intimacy with God, fills his life with things, hoping somehow to satisfy his inward longing. He chases that which is exterior, hoping to satisfy that inner thirst, but to no avail.

St. Augustine captured the essence of this desire in his CONFESSIONS: “Thou hast created us for Thyself and we are restless until we rest fully in Thee.” This explains the spirit of restlessness pervading every generation and every culture- always striving but never coming to the knowledge of the truth of God’s presence.