Our First Giveaway!!!

     Check it out!!!  On the right side of the page, you can enter for chances to win our first giveaway!!!  This month (I'm hoping to make this a regular thing) we're giving away a copy of Eric Metaxas' book Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Prophet, Martyr, Spy!  It was the first book review done on this blog!!!  If you've not heard of it, check the previous posts for the review.

     As for the format, I aim to please!  If you are a Kindle or Nook owner and you're willing to give me your e-mail address, I will send it to your device!  Or, if you prefer, I will mail you a hard copy!  Just keep an eye out for the winner announcement - the giveaway ends in one week!

Book Review: Radical

     Radical by David Platt has been on the market for a while now.   I had heard good things about it from others, so I decided to check it out myself.  I have to say that i was not disappointed!  Platt, a pastor in Alabama, takes a serious, objective look at how the American Dream has influenced our faith.  Then he issues a no-holds-barred challenge to all American believers to return to the biblical gospel, leaving comfort, cultural norms, and self-focus behind. 
     It is refreshing to hear any Christian leader urging the faith community to go beyond themselves in pursuit of God and His will, and Pastor Platt does so in a way that is as conversational and inspiring as it is challenging.  The book reads more like a brother calling out to family than a superior railing or criticizing subordinates.  It is obvious that his heart is in his message, and that he himself is pursuing the heart of God. 
    I highly recommend this book to all believers.  We need this challenge in our church culture today, and we need to be asking ourselves the questions this book raises!  

Selected Quotes from Radical:  (I read on a Nook, so page number may not match printed book.)

"This brings us to the crucial question for every professing or potential follower of Jesus:  Do we really believe he is worth abandoning everything for?  Do you and I really believe that Jesus is so good, so satisfying, and so rewarding that we will leave all we have and all we own and all we are in order to find our fullness in him?  Do you and I believe him enough to obey him and follow him wherever he leads, even when the crowds in our culture - and maybe in our churches - turn the other way?

In this book I want to show you that, with the best of intentions, we have actually turned away from Jesus.  We have in many areas blindly and unknowingly embraced values and ideas that are common in our culture but are antithetical to the gospel he taught.  Here we stand amid an American dream dominated by self-advancement, self-esteem, and self-sufficiency, by individualism, materialism, and universalism.  Yet I want to show you our desperate need to revisit the words of Jesus, to listen to them, to believe them, and to obey them.  We need to return with urgency to a biblical gospel, because the cost of not doing so is great for our lives, our families, our churches, and the world around us."  (page 21)

*******

"Fundamentally, the gospel is the revelation of who God is, who we are, and how we can be reconciled to Him.  Yet in the American dream, where self reigns as king (or queen), we have a dangerous tendency to misunderstand, minimize, and even manipulate the gospel in order to accommodate our assumptions and our desires"  (page 25)

*******

"Meanwhile, the biblical gospel says, 'You are an enemy of God, dead in your sin, and in your present state of rebellion, you are not even able to see that you need life, much less to cause yourself to come to life.  Therefore, you are radically dependent on God to do something in your life that you could never do.... In the gospel God reveals the depth of our need for him.  He shows us that there is absolutely nothing we can do to come to him.  We can't manufacture salvation.  We can't program it.  We can't produce it.  We can't even initiate it.  God has to open our eyes, set us free, overcome our evil, and appease his wrath.  He has come to us.  Now we are getting to the beauty of the gospel." (p.28)

Radical Official Webpage:  Here

Radical at Barnes and Noble: Here

Radical at Amazon: Here

Follow and Stay Connected!

This year, I have committed to working more on this blog.  My hope is to build it up both in readership and content!  To begin, I have created both a Facebook and a Twitter account.  You can find the links for both on the right-hand side of the main page!

I'm also looking into other means of building our community, so keep an eye out!  There are even plans underway for a giveaway!!!  If you have any other suggestions, don't hesitate to let me know!

Be blessed!

Article Share - Lost in Translation

Good morning, friends!

Today, I would like to do something a little different.  Instead of writing for you myself to share what I have found, I would like to share the original article with you.

This article, "Lost In Translation:  Rediscovering the Hebrew Roots of Our Faith", by John Klein and Adam Spears, shares details pertaining to the traditional Hebrew wedding and provides many insights concerning our relationship with Christ.  I found it to be very faith-building, as it gave me many details I had not known before.

Take a few moments today to read this passage.  I can guarantee it will speak to you and give you much to think about!

www.watchmanbiblestudy.com/Articles/LostinTranslation.htm 

True Faith?

     If you've read my page "Faith by Default," then you know that this is one of those subjects that weighs heavy on my heart.  It's been several years ago now, but God changed my faith greatly when He began to deal with me concerning the nature of true faith vs. false faith.  The scriptures are clear that we are saved by FAITH ALONE through Jesus Christ. (Galatians 2:16)  If we somehow get it wrong in the area of faith, we've missed it all together.  What a terrifying thought!  I could spend my whole life sincerely believing in and (at least in my understanding) serving Jesus, and then, on judgement day, I could be rejected???  Ouch!
     It becomes obvious, then, that we MUST have a true biblical understanding of what constitutes faith.  Otherwise, we could not possibly judge our own standing with God, much less be able to encourage or lead others into faith!  This understanding should be "Bible 101" for all believers!  Sadly, however, there are many varying teachings about faith, and they can't all be right!  What we've been told may not be entirely true - we would be foolish not to take a healthy, soul-searching look at biblical faith.

     In his essay, "Hebrew Thought Compared With Greek (Western) Thought", (available here: www.hoshanarabbah.org/pdfs/heb_grk.pdf), N'tan Lawrence briefly explores this very topic. He writes:

Similar to this concept is the Hebrew word for faith (emunah), which not only means belief as in mental ascent, but also means faithfulness, or the actions following the mouth's confession to belief in something. For example, there are far too many nominal Christians who have at some time in their life pronounced the words, "I believe in Jesus Christ and accept him as my Lord and Savior" (as per Rom. 10:9-10) as if these words were merely some magical mantra or formula which when pronounced guarantee one's eternal security regardless of subsequent lifestyle and actions. Hebraically, such a concept of pronouncing a word without following it up with actions makes the word null, void, and meaningless. This is the concept that the writers of Scripture had when they penned such popular Christian salvation passages as Romans 10:9-10. To not understand the proper meaning of the words of Holy Scripture Hebraically can result in false teachings going forth leading to false conversions leading to many people thinking they are spiritually saved when in reality they are the walking damned! (p.6)

     Did you catch that????  Words are "null, void, and meaningless" if they are not followed up with action!  This makes perfect sense, and it bears out in scripture when we consider that we are to "bear fruit".  Jesus taught us that a tree is known by its fruit - not by the noise it makes!  Paul outlined for us what fruit we should be seeing in our lives and the lives of other Christians (Galatians 5).  But we tend to separate this from our saving faith.  Scripture does not!  One is the proof of the other!
    Have you ever asked anyone to make you a sandwich, only to hear them say, "POOF! You're a sandwich."?  It doesn't work in Christianity, either.  The Bible gives no support to, "Say this prayer...POOF! You're a Christian!"
     My intention is not to criticize or point fingers at others in any way.  But, if we don't straighten out our thinking on the very DEFINITION of our faith, we are indeed the "walking damned."  And, we will likely create more "walking damned" and praise ourselves for evangelizing!
     Scripture tell us to examine ourselves to prove whether or not we are in the faith (2 Corinthians 13:5), and we would do well to listen!  We must set ourselves straight before we can even hope to help others or lead them into faith (Matthew 7:3-5).
     What I am saying should be no revelation.  I have known many ministers and pastors who have noticed and struggled with the inefficiency and failings of our modern approach to "salvation".  Men and women of God are beginning to realize where things have gone astray, and they are fighting to make things right.  Let's have the same strength in our own lives.  Let's take it seriously and have the courage to change in our lives (or even ministries) whatever we feel has not lined up with the Word of God.  There is still time to get it right, but there won't always be.

"And thou, Solomon, my son, know thou the God of thy Father, and serve Him with a perfect heart and a willing mind:  for the LORD searcheth all hearts, and understandeth all the imaginations of the thoughts:  if thou seek Him, He will be found of thee; but if thou forsake Him He will cast thee off forever."

(2 Chronicles 28:9)

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