"Paul, the Spirit, and the People of God" (Gordon D. Fee)

TITLE: Paul, the Spirit, and the People of God
AUTHOR: Gordon D. Fee
PUBLISHER: Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2023, (240 pages).
 

The Holy Spirit is God's Empowering Presence. Paul teaches and lives it. He urges the people of God to do the same. How do we not only learn more about the Holy Spirit? Is it possible to experience the presence of the Holy Spirit, maybe like what the Early Church had experienced? Perhaps, before we move into the actual application, we need to learn more about the continuity and discontinuity gap between the Old and New Covenant. Recognizing the struggles to link these two important truths, well-respected professor, Dr. Gordon Fee has written his Magnus opus on the Holy Spirit from the perspective of Pauline theology. From Paul's window into the Holy Spirit, he draws out the connection between what Paul says and what we experience in our present life in Christ, before extending it to the relevance of the Holy Spirit's work in the lives of the Church. For that to happen, we need to draw a series of connections between the past and the present. This includes relationships between:

• Understanding and experiencing the Theology of the Holy Spirit;
• The old covenant and the new;
• The Individual and the Community;
• Present and Future
• Soteriology and Eschatology;
• Conversion to Covenant;
• and more...

"Pilgrim's Compass" (Paul H. Lang)

TITLE: The Pilgrim's Compass: Finding and Following the God We Seek
AUTHOR: Paul H. Lang
PUBLISHER: Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2019, (128 pages).

Pilgrimage is one of the most popular words to describe a Christians's journey or spiritual growth. Whether one is talking about calling or searching for God's will for our lives, it all begins with the greatest commandment to love God and our neighbours. Spurred by rising yearnings to have a more intimate and personal relationship with God, people are directions. They need a spiritual compass to lead them in their expedition. This book fills in this need as well as to help one "hear the call of God and respond in faith, journeying together with friends on the path to a Spirit-led and joyful life." Unfortunately, Christianity has a checkered history with regard to the pursuit of God in this pilgrimage. After Constantine legalized Christianity, the faith became more institutionalized, making the way of spirituality more formal and rigid. Faith formation is tied to religious affiliation. So much so that spirituality has been defined more on man's terms rather than God's terms. People tend to be more willing to adapt to culture instead of paying the cost of discipleship. Looking at the emerging church, author Paul Lang notices the way culture and the history of Christendom had mangled the way of God. We need a pilgrim's compass and we need it badly. Despite the excesses of the past and the mistakes by the institutionalized churches, there are many who have bucked the cultural trends. The desert fathers and the reformers are some examples of such courageous people of faith. Lang offers us some tools to help us begin our pilgrimage by embarking with the end in mind: definition of a pilgrimage and the recognition of ourselves as pilgrims on the journey. This journey is not necessarily limited to a physical movement. It is a metaphor to guide us through each and every possible opportunity, which includes both physical and non-physical aspects. Tools of the journey include maps, the Bible, spiritual practices like the Lectio Divina, Daily Examen, Prayer, and helpful acronyms to guide us. One example is the ESWN directions of a compass:

"In His Image" (Jen Wilkin)

TITLE: In His Image: 10 Ways God Calls Us to Reflect His Character
AUTHOR: Jen Wilkin
PUBLISHER: Wheaton, IL: Crossway Publishers, 2018, (176 pages).

This book makes an audacious claim, that after reading this book, we will never have to ask what God's will is for us in the conventional way. Instead of "What should I do?" ask the better questions: "What should I be?" Knowing what we ought to become would guide all of our questions pertaining to our goals, our future, and our desire to honour God. This simple but highly effective paradigm shift puts us on a whole new path forward as far as seeking God's will is concerned. It is essentially following that narrow way, the kingdom road, the path of God's character. We turn our search for something outside of ourselves into an awareness of an inner need for change. We become less interested in spiritual information and look toward spiritual formation. We follow less in the ways of the world and more in the way of Christ.  Ways like being holy to be more like God. Being more loving to grow beyond human limited love toward spiritual freedom that loves beyond limit. We learn about God's goodness that we could aspire to emulate. That light is not just about doing good things. It's about reflecting Christ's goodness. We learn about just law, just discipline, just wrath, and just character. We learn mercy, graciousness, faithfulness, patience, truthfulness, and wisdom, all of these attributes are exactly what we need and all could be found in God. The goal is to become better people ourselves. The way is to reflect Christ's character. Turn away from the world. Turn toward Christ. Move forward to become more and more like Christ each day. The 10 ways that Wilkin has listed can help kickstart our journey to become more like God.

"Reading Your Life's Story" (Keith R. Anderson)

TITLE: Reading Your Life's Story: An Invitation to Spiritual Mentoring
AUTHOR: Keith R. Anderson
PUBLISHER: Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 2016, (224 pages).

We are relational people. We grow best in a nourishing environment of friendship and honesty. Friendly and open with others; honest and bold about ourselves. We cannot grow on our own. We need others to guide us. We need spiritual direction. We need to be mentored in our own journey of life. Learning to read our life story remains one of the most crucial things we need to do. Unfortunately, this is also one of the most neglected. Some of the most important questions are often either not asked or ignored. This book attempts to boldly ask and to gently illuminate. It is an introductory book on the art of spiritual direction. It tells us about the importance of mentoring, what it is, what it looks like, and how we can go about establishing a mentor-mentee relationship. It shows us ways to:

• start and sustain a dialogue
• cultivate an honest and healthy curiosity about life stories
• appreciating human relationships
• desiring to deepen intimacy with God and others
• learning to tell one another’s stories
• being authentic through honest discovery

"Calling in Today's World" (Kathleen A. Cahalan & Douglas J. Schuurman)

TITLE: Calling in Today's World: Voices from Eight Faith Perspectives
EDITORS:  Kathleen A. Cahalan & Douglas J. Schuurman
PUBLISHER: Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 2016, (238 pages).

What do people in generally think about calling? Is it only something that Christians ask? Surely, the Buddhists, the Muslims, and the secularists in society would have their own perspectives too. In fact, according to the editors of this book, many students and colleagues have been asking the same question: "What do other people think about calling?" or "Is there an equivalent concept in your religion or belief?" So they went forth to ask various individuals whether they can contribute to the overall understanding of what calling means according their faith perspective. They found eight! According to Cahalan and Schuurman, their purpose for this book is to help "build a better, more humane world" by establishing bridges of understanding of one another's beliefs. Apart from that, Christians reading this book would be able to revisit their own understanding of what calling means in their own tradition. They can dispel any notion that calling is merely for the ministry or church related endeavors. They can avoid limiting calling to only supernatural matters, but to be inclusive of all matters. They can look at calling more in terms of freedom of choice rather than some strict "blueprint" we have to adhere to. In a conversational approach, each of the eight contributors are given an opportunity to talk about what calling means.

"Frequency" (Robert Morris)

TITLE: Frequency: Tune In. Hear God.
AUTHOR: Robert Morris
PUBLISHER: Nashville, TN: Thomas-Nelson, 2016, (240 pages).

This book is essentially about hearing God. We live in a busy world, full of activities and all kinds of attractions. In a technological world, many of us are easily distracted by beeps on the phone; random postings on social media; prompts on the emails; and moving images on the computer. Even the very sight of the latest digital gizmos would make us momentarily move away from our actual work. As people burn through schedules and deadlines, invariably, sooner or later, they would ask questions like: "What is it all for? Why am I doing what I am doing? What is the purpose of my life? Where is God? Am I out of sync with the leading of the Holy Spirit?" The key to knowing God and hearing God's voice is not some syllabi, model answers, or

Questions about calling, discernment, spiritual clarity, and purpose are all too commonly asked. However, answers are not so forthcoming. The reason is because answers from God are not delivered on a silver platter of self-generated templates but learned through the gradual development of a relationship between God and us. In this book, Robert Morris shows us that if we want to know ourselves better, we need to know God. We need to take time and intentionality to get to know God as a Person. We can hear God through Scripture. We can also hear God through the Holy Spirit. Both will never contradict one another. Following this, we are reminded of the beauty of being sheep, that hearing God is not distant or difficult. In fact, it is part of being God's children where we would easily recognize God's voice. As His sheep, we would instantly recognize God's voice. It all lies in that personal relationship with God. It is about our identity in God. It is that total awareness that we are all like sheep needing a Shepherd. Based on John 10, Morris shares:

1. We have an innate ability to hear God
2. Our ability to hear God is learned
3. We can mature in our ability to hear God

"Delighting in God" (A.W. Tozer)

TITLE: Delighting in God
AUTHOR: Aiden Wilson Tozer (compiled by James L. Snyder)
PUBLISHER: Minneapolis, MN: Bethany House Publishers, 2015, (208 pages).

What does it mean to delight in God? For Tozer, it means being engaged in the pursuit of God. It means having the knowledge of the Holy. It means longing to be in the presence of God. Though he has never gone to seminary, he has published more than 40 books, which continue to impact many readers today. His voice is a consistent clarion call for Christians to take their faith seriously and to take their worship of God even more seriously. How can we worship someone if we have not known Him? Tozer's passion is to preach about God in everything he does. His passion for God is unmistakable. Ask him to speak or write about any topic and he would eventually come back to God. This book is meant to stir our hearts with deeper longing for God.

The eighteen chapters in this book deal with perceptions that would affect how we delight in God. A man of God will naturally gravitate to want to love God. The basis of all of our perceptions in grounded in the theology of God. It is the foundational truth that enables us to pursue rightly after God. The Church incubates the Christian education needed by believers. Tozer prefers the word "reformation" over "revival" because true growth in the evangelical church comes not from charged up energy but from a renewed sense of God. Our worship can only grow when our perceptions of God are accurate. He points out some of the mistakes that lead to our erroneous perceptions of God.

1. Wrong Presumption: We assume what was in the Bible will automatically be in us. We need the Holy Spirit to convict us with the Word.
2. Spiritual laziness: How do we get people to thirst for God when they are too lazy to think?
3. Love for the World: We let the world standards define our levels of spirituality.
4. Unwillingness to die to the flesh.

"God is Able" (Priscilla Shirer) [*Giveaway Offer]

TITLE: God is Able
AUTHOR: Priscilla Shirer
PUBLISHER: Nashville, TN: B&H Publishing, 2013, (166 pages).

[* The publisher has kindly made available a free giveaway. Just make a comment on this blog with your email contact to enter the draw. Note that giveaways are limited to US and Canada residents only.]

A song commonly taught to children goes like this:

"He's Able. He's Able. I know He's Able.
I know my God is Able to carry me through.

He healed the broken-hearted
And set the captive free.
He made the lame to walk again
And caused the blind to see."

As children learns this words through music, adults learn the meaning through life. Sharing about her broken heart, her marital struggles, her worry over bearing a child, her tussle with guilt and regret, salvaging a friendship, and doubts about her place in ministry, popular speaker Priscilla Shirer has written another inspiring feel-good book about living victoriously in God. It is about being able to be confident more in God who is able to carry us through anything. She puts together the testimonies of how the impossible became suddenly possible. Like the husband of a friend who repented before God, after leaving his wife; how God healed a nine-year-old boy of his brain tumour; and how a stranger from Singapore paid for all five family members to travel halfway round the world and back! The book is written using alliteration with the letter T.  In eight chapters, Shirer tries to convince readers that God is able in at least eight ways.

First, the Time to believe and to set things in motion is now. Ephesians 3:20-21 contains promises that believers can practice immediately. There is no better time than "now" to be connected to God. Whatever the challenges, whatever the doubts, whatever the constraints we face, with God, there is always hope.

Second, any journey of hope needs to begin with a Turning to God. Continuing her meditation on Ephesians 3:20, the words "unto Him" is about turning away from the things of the world toward God. This means that we need to turn away from ourselves as well, to trust that God knows best. Like the Old Testament spies of Israel who managed to read the signs correctly when they adopt the eyes of faith; or when Mary Magdalene wept at the empty tomb, only to find Jesus looking for her instead. When we turn to God, we turn to a God who is powerful and able.

Third, Truth keeps us firm footed on facts and faith. It is when we know God is true, we can place our trust amid the seemingly unending series of problems and disappointments. God's Omnipotence is truth.

Fourth, earthly things do not last, which is why we need to keep our eye on the Transcendence of God. Even as the issues of this world try to nail us down in despair, the hope in God can lift us way beyond what our earthly senses tell us. God is eternal. God's grace is exceedingly abundant. God's will is abundantly better than anything the world can give.

Fifth, Totality means all the way, not just half or part of the way. When God loves us, God loves us all the way. Everything we know, everything we have, and everything we do, we cannot outknow God, outpossess God, or outdo God.

Sixth, Turbo reminds us that God's power is exceeding great, that even death cannot hold Him. This power is within us, simply because God is with us. This power works within us and is meant for us to use it as the Holy Spirit leads us.

Seventh, Tribute is about giving thanks, honour, praise, and glory, to God and God alone. It is that perfect circle that what begins and belongs to God, goes back to God and God alone. The more we realize that all we have and do are all in the grace of God, the more we can become thankful that we praise God from whom all blessings flow. I like the analogy of the football stadium where many people clamour to get into the stadium in order to get a peek at the game. When the glory of God resides in one place, people from all over will clamour to get a glimpse of God's presence.

Finally, Telling It represents our response to all of the preceding seven things about "God is Able."

So What?

Priscilla Shirer has a communications style that is both captivating and concise. Going through all the eight points based on her exposition of Ephesians 3:20-21, readers are invited to sit and meditate on this precious verse, just to get a better sense of who God is and what God is able to do. In our modern world, we multitask a lot of things. We train ourselves to manage our schedules. We try to keep our own lives in order. Often, we stumble or fumble through our feeble attempts, and only at the most desperate moments, we come to God. We plead with God. We realize our human attempts are nothing compared to the overwhelming ability of God. Sometimes, we learn things the hard way, that we have to fall down and hurt ourselves first when we ignore the guiding hands of God. Shirer lets the Word of God be the hand that we can hang on to. Knowing God is able is not enough. We need to let that knowledge come forth in our daily lives. It takes our awareness of eternity in order to appreciate the timeliness of God's purpose and the timelessness of God's plan. We need to be humbled in order to turn back to God in submission and surrender. We need to be reminded all over again that God's Truth is the only Truth that matters. We need to be lifted above our measly human concerns to see the bigger picture of God's universe. We can take comfort that even when we know in part, God knows the whole. Thus, we can trust God more for He sees more things than we can see. Why then do we behave as if we know better than God?

All of these add up to give us many reasons why our response to God is to worship God and to make God known widely. God is able not because any book, any author, or any teacher says so. God is able because he IS so.

Rating: 4 stars of 5.

conrade

p/s: note that this post comes with a giveaway. If you like to participate in this giveaway, just send me an email or make a comment on this post. I'll get back to you by December 15th, 2013 if your entry has been selected. Note that the giveaway is limited to residents in the continental United States and Canada. All decision made is final.

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This book is provided to me courtesy of B and H Publishing in exchange for an honest review. All opinions offered above are mine unless otherwise stated or implied.

"Unglued" (Lysa TerKeurst)

TITLE: Unglued: Making Wise Choices in the Midst of Raw Emotions
AUTHOR: Lysa TerKeurst
PUBLISHER: Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2012, (208 pages).

When one lose control of one's emotions, the unraveling of self has begun. Badly. Not only will it hurt other people, it has a boomerang effect of hurting the self, sooner if not later. The problem is the inability to make sense of progress, and to accept imperfect progress. Call it perfectionism, anxiety, or simply wanting a quick-fix mechanism, when one loses control, all emotions can break loose. We need to be unglued from all these things that entangles us, that makes us hurt people. Slowly, bit by bit, we let grace enable us to put the pieces back together with choices that honour God and love people. Choose to do the right thing in the right spirit. In doing so, one gets to live in an abundant, unlimited supply of goodwill and grace.

Here is TerKeurst's roadmap in two parts. First, she points out the perils of letting our raw imperfect emotions define our sense of perfection or the right thing to do. This requires one to go through a process to be "unglued" from these unhealthy emotions. It requires new thinking on old paradigms. Instead of fixing our attention on circumstances, we learn to fix our attention on God. Before one can be unglued, one needs to recognize the imprisonment, and the labels that imprison and condemn us or lock us in the past. She lists four categories of "unglued reactions."

1. Exploders who shame themselves.
2. Exploders who blame others.
3. Stuffers who build barriers
4. Stuffers who collect retaliation rocks.

Exploders are those who push their emotions outward. Stuffers push emotions inward. If we can free ourselves from any of these, and let ourselves come under the liberating Hand of God, we will be ready to embark on a journey of becoming new people in God. The middle part of the book focuses on identifying, on diagnosis, and on freeing ourselves from these debilitating emotions. She offers practical steps to deal with each category of reaction. 

Second, she helps readers to move from a state of refusal to release control of one's sense of perfection, toward a willing acceptance and joy of "imperfect progress." This is about believing that one can act differently and not react compulsively. It is about wrapping every step with grace. It is about connecting with love and goodwill, to hand to God our raw emotions to be processed under the loving Hands of God. Honor, Grace, Compassion are the three points to keep in mind.

My Thoughts

TerKeurst cuts through the choppiness of human emotions with a skilled and gentle hand. Her voice of reason is compelling. Her understanding of the raw emotions is convincing. Written primarily for women, the author is able to state the problem, loosen the ropes that bind, and to guide readers to live free in grace. She makes many apt observations.

• "God give me emotions so I could experience life, not destroy it."
• "Choosing a gentle reply doesn't mean you're weak."
• "The more I compare, the emptier I become."
• "Feelings are indicators, not dictators."
• "No jealous thought is ever life-giving."
• "The difference between boundaries and barriers is honest transparency."
• and many more....

Her five steps to recovery is worth remembering. At some point, we all do need to take charge of our raw emotions instead of letting them control us. Practical and useful, this book is a valuable resource when it comes to managing our own emotional outbursts to imperfections in life. More importantly, it lets God transforms us to learn to live our imperfect lives with gratitude, grace, and faith to know that one day, God will make all things perfect in His time.

Rating: 4.25 stars of 5.

conrade

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This book is provided to me free by Zondervan and NetGalley without any obligation for a positive review. All opinions offered above are mine unless otherwise stated or implied.

"A Grace Revealed" (Jerry Sittser)

TITLE: A Grace Revealed: How God Redeems the Story of Your Life
AUTHOR: Jerry Sittser
PUBLISHER: Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2012, (272 pages).

This book is a sequel to the earlier book that launched the writing career of Jerry Sittser.While the bestselling book, "A Grace Disguised" talks about how the author grieves and takes on a perspective of seeing God's grace amid his personal tragedy, "A Grace Revealed" begins where that book left off. There are at least three main things that Sittser is trying to do. Firstly, realising that the first book tends to be a theological treatise to readers on how to think about loss and grief, Sittser begins by story-telling the entire life event to make it more personal than the first book. Secondly, he wants to move away from any fixation on the tragedy, toward a more helpful eye of redemption. What has happened has happened. What remains to be done is to learn to live on toward a future with hope. Thirdly, Sittser invites readers to story their own lives as they read about Sittser's own story. Rather than concentrating on the works of Jesus in one's life, it is even more redemptive to focus on the PERSON of Jesus Christ.  Such a move is God's initiative, not ours. The four key components of redemption are:

1. "Redemption involves a story."
2. "God is the author of the redemptive story, from beginning to end."
3. Settings and circumstances if submitted to God, can liberate us.
4. "The goal of redemption is not immediate happiness .... but holiness of life..."

By telling lots of personal stories, the author is able to show readers the path he has been traveling. We read about how the deaths of loved ones have been continually used by God to hone his personal understanding of redemption. He shares further intimate details about how his first moments of his infamous tragedy becomes to moot point in learning. We are all in a way, a work in progress. We are characters in search of a story. Redemption comes when we are able to see our own stories and to connect them closely with the story of Jesus dying on the Cross for us. Christ redeems us by freeing us from the bondage of sin and unhealthy grief. A story is also truth with us as a major player in it. It is important because our past stories determine our future stories. It is even more important that we let God be the main influencer. In other words, we need to see our stories in the light of the bigger story of God and His relationship with creation. Redemption is always a recognition of our small in relation to the big. When God redeems us (small), it is always part of the wider picture of redemption of the world (big).

Redemption is not about happy endings on earth. It is about seeing Heaven. Adversity exposes our weaknesses and humbles us. "Without adversity we remain spoiled children." Whether in good or in bad, we all need to learn to be "spiritually ambidextrous," able to grow in God whether in prosperity or in adversity. God begins where we are. Even marriage can be one of "God's workshops."

It is interesting to see how Sittser's book resembles Donald Miller's "A Million Miles in a Thousand Years." Like Miller's book, Sittser's deal with plots, characters, story, authorship, the end, the beginning, and the middle. Similarly, Sittser weaves in many personal anecdotes and illustrations even as he invites readers to write their own stories as they read. There is a small difference. While Miller's attempt is about telling us what storytelling means, I think Sittser's effort shows us what storytelling means. I am not trying to say which book is better than the other. I am merely highlighting some personal observations.

Thankfully, Sittser goes farther to mention the need to see redemption from the perspective of God's timing and timelessness. As far as the past is concerned, it is not merely the capacity to remember, but the MANNER in which we remember. Redemption is learning to see the past from God's eyes. As far as the future is concerned, we can only trust and hope that God be merciful. The final few chapters add in additional fodder for spiritual formation, working out the three Christian virtues (faith, hope, love), supported by four cardinal virtues (prudence, justice, temperance, fortitude), to help us recognize the redemptive path. While Sittser tries to show us the beginning and the end, the most interesting part is the middle. What do we do in the present? In the story of Tricia face to face with the murderer of her good friend Susie, we learn that God will always have the last say to all of life's problems, pain, and suffering. We need to allow enough time in order to make sense of things. This time is not ours to determine. The earlier we learn to trust God for the unknown, the better we are able to deal with the known. This is the key learning I gain.

Ratin: 4.5 stars of 5.

conrade

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This book is provided to me free by Zondervan and NetGalley without any obligation for a positive review. All opinions offered above are mine unless otherwise stated or implied.