Renew

I love books. I'm always reading a couple (or three or four) at a time. As I look back on what I read in 2010, most of the books were written by dead people. Here's the best of what I read that was actually published last year (with one exception). In stead of a simple list of 10 books, I'm recommending the "best" of 10 categories. 1. Best Book - To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy, and Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World by James Davidson Hunter If you, like John Mayer, are 'waiting for the world to change,' if you are finally waking up to the reality that (most) things cannot be solved by political means, if you have given up on your beauty pageant dream for a better world, you really need to read this book. Hands down the best book of 2010. 2. Best Children's Book - Pinkalicious and the Pink Drink by Victoria Kann My 3-year-old has the original Pinkalicious book memorized (really she can recite it word-for-word. Did I ment...

I must have said (or heard) "Happy New Year!" a hundred times over the weekend. But how do you have one of those? Success at work, a happy wife, well-behaved kids, a run on the beach, a few more margaritas? Where does true happiness come from? The great English Puritan John Owen helps answer the question about our happiness, ironically enough, by stating what brings sorrow to God's heart. "The greatest sorrow and burden you can lay on the Father, the greatest unkindness you can do to him, is …" How would you complete that sentence? Owen said: "The greatest sorrow and burden you can lay on the Father, the greatest unkindness you can do to him, is not to believe that he loves you." John Owen continues: Many saints have no greater burden in their lives than that their hearts do not constantly delight and rejoice in God. There is still in them a resistance to walking close with God … So do this: set your thoughts on the eternal love of the Father and see ...

“We do not draw people to Christ by loudly discrediting what they believe, by telling them how wrong they are and how right we are, but by showing them a light that is so lovely that they want with all their hearts to know the source of it.” Madeleine L’Engle

I am so full of myself and my own importance. If I am not noticed and my work not recognized, I grow sullen. (For instance, why don't more people read my blog?!) Then I read of Jesus' service to his disciples in John 13. He takes up the basin and towel and washes their feet, a job that was usually reserved for Gentile servants. It was beneath the Master, but He did not regard it as such. "The stairway to the ministry is not a grand staircase but a back stairwell that leads down to the servants quarters." -Edmund Clowney

Eric Metaxas has written a terrific biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer . Reading it (which I highly recommend) has prompted me to pull my books by Bonhoeffer off the shelf (alas, I only have two) and read the man himself. His little prayer book on the Psalms is rich and rewarding and prods me to do more than just read about prayer: The phrase "learning to pray" sounds strange to us. If the heart does not overflow and begin to pray by itself, we say, it will never "learn" to pray. But it is a dangerous error, surely very widespread among Christians, to think that the heart can pray by itself. For then we confuse wishes, hopes, sighs, laments, rejoicings--all of which the heart can do by itself--with prayer. And we confuse earth and heaven, man and God. Prayer does not mean simply to pour out one's heart. It means rather to find the way to God and speak with him, whether the heart is full or empty. No man can do that by himself. For that he needs Jesus Christ.

OK--I know I'm biased. I studied Bible and Biblical Languages in college and grad school. I have a passion for God's Word. That's why I majored in it and am spending my life teaching and preaching it. But as I tell my kids, the Bible is the most important thing you will ever study. Don't just take my word for it. God has a few things to say about His Word. (See Deuteronomy 4:2; 12:32; Psalm 119; Proverbs 30:6; Isaiah 40:8; Matthew 5:18; Revelation 22:19.) Consider, also, what some of our past presidents have said. Read them and weep. "It is impossible to rightly govern the world without God and the Bible." George Washington, 1st President "I have examined all religions, and the result is that the Bible is the best book in the world." John Adams, 2nd President "Almighty God hath created the mind free . . I know but one code of morality for men whether acting singly or collectively . . Nothing is more certainly written in the Book of Life than tha...

I have a new friend (via Facebook). Her name is Sharon Hersh. She has written a book called Begin Again, Believe Again . Here is an excerpt of a recent blog on the same theme. Perhaps you'll find a friend in her as well. I haven’t written a blog for a long time. I have a lot of excuses. It was a rough summer, and yet despite the vicissitudes of hope and despair of the past months this new book hits the bookstore shelves October 29, 2010. I can’t think of a better theme for my own heart and life right now than Begin Again, Believe Again. Perhaps the most important word in the title of this book is again. Whatever season of life we are in, we inevitably face the opportunity to try again, risk again, hope again, forgive again, love again –to begin again and believe again. I am coming to believe that the word again is probably one of the most important and difficult words to live out. Whether it’s beginning a diet again, a relationship again, sobriety again, a letter to a long-l...