Category: Book Reviews

Demolishing Strongholds

by Johnny Hunt

– Freddie Gage has said, “Sin thrills and then it kills. It fascinates and then it assassinates. If you play, you’re going to pay.”

– Do you realize there’s a difference between forgiveness and consequences? Sometimes people think, You’re just holding this over me. You’re not forgiving. But forgiveness doesn’t always wipe out the consequences.

– We have a simple but critical choice to make. Either we learn how to dismantle the strongholds in our lives, or they will dismantle us.

– The Christian life is not difficult, as you may think. In fact, it’s impossible. That’s why God never called you to live it; He called you to die and let Christ live it through you. The weapons God gives you are mighty through God, not through you.

– A stronghold is any habit that got hold of you. At one time in your life, you were playing around with it because you didn’t see it as a big deal. And then one day, it just kind of closed its grip on you. And now you can’t get loose.

– A war is waging for control of your thought life. When you surrender to temptation, your thoughts become deeds, your deeds can become habits, and your habits can become a stronghold.

– To effectively combat the onslaught of the enemy, you need an arsenal of verses on the tip of your tongue, verses so familiar to you that they come to mind without any conscious effort.

– God wants us to suit up so we will develop a biblical mind.

– When you realize that more than one-third of every download on an American computer is pornography, you come to see what a challenge it is to think purely!

– Be sure of this: You’ll never change the things you’re doing until you change the way you think. When you let God change your mind, He’ll give you a biblical mind. And then God can use you to begin to make a real difference for good in this world. – you can’t coast for even one day. You’ve got to keep running.

– Sin is always progressive. It always wants more of you than it has, and it won’t be satisfied until it has destroyed all of you.

– We’d better wake up! The latest research is nearly unbelievable. Did you know that 79 percent of men ages 18 to 30 view porn at least once a month? Viewing pornography has become socially acceptable. Teens think of it as a huge attraction— and it keeps them from becoming fully devoted followers of Christ.

– Focus on three key things:

1. Renew my faith. Yesterday’s faith doesn’t cut it for today’s challenges.

2. Reclaim God’s promises. All of God’s promises are yes in Christ, but we have to continually draw on them and bank on them to overcome the new hurdles we face.

3. Resolve to correct unhealthy habits and build new ones. Habits grow gradually, so slowly that often we don’t see them developing. When a crisis hits, these habits get revealed for what they are, whether unhealthy or helpful. Then the task is to dismantle the destructive ones and build the useful ones. That requires both getting the wrong out and getting the right in.

– Erwin Lutzer, former pastor of The Moody Church in Chicago, wrote, “No matter how many pleasures Satan offers you, his ultimate intention is to ruin you. Your destruction is his highest priority.”

– I once sat at my desk and wrote down a long list of the consequences of sexual sin. I call it my “detriment list.” The list includes things like bringing reproach to my Lord Jesus Christ, but it also includes hurting the people I love (my amazing wife and my beautiful daughters, for starters), what it would cost me and my ministry, how it would bring me and the church I serve to public disgrace, and a host of other things that I consider vitally important. As I’ve read over that list, I’ve come to a simple conclusion: It’s not worth it.

– If we intend to enjoy victory over temptation, we need to understand that we can’t do it on our own. Apart from the power of Jesus Christ and the enabling of the Holy Spirit, we are no match for temptation or the devil. He’s spent nearly all of human history working to tempt human beings into sinning against God. He knows far too much about us and about our natures for us to imagine that we can stand up to him on our own.

– Do we need money? Sure. Is it wrong to have money? No. But having and chasing are two very different things. Our God, I’m happy to say, has a much better path for us to follow.

– The devil doesn’t want us to focus on something so much as he wants to take our focus off of something else. He’ll do whatever he can to make us blind to the life of contentment we enjoy when we focus fully on Jesus Christ.

– I believe that sex, greed, and pride are intertwined. Those really are the Big Three that take down most men. I also believe that pride may be the most dangerous of them all, because if you don’t get right with God in the area of pride, you’ll have a much more difficult time getting right with Him in the other two areas.

– C.S. Lewis rightly called pride “the complete anti-God state of mind.” He wrote, “If you want to find out how proud you are the easiest way is to ask yourself, “How much do I dislike it when other people snub me, or refuse to take any notice of me, or shove their oar in, or patronize me, or show off?” The point is that each person’s pride is in competition with everyone else’s pride. It is because I wanted to be the big noise at the party that I am so annoyed at someone else being the big noise.

– Before we look at the restoring power of confession and repentance, I think we should consider why sin is such a big deal in the first place. Why is it so important that we refuse to tolerate failure in our struggles with sin? The primary reason is that sin is offensive to God.

– Until we begin to grasp that our sin offends God—and that this is the real problem— we will never gain victory over sin.

– To confess means that you agree with God, that you call sin what God calls it. When you genuinely repent of your sin, there are three things you won’t do: First, you won’t  minimize your sin. Second, you won’t rationalize your sin. And third, you won’t generalize your sin; in fact, you’ll explicitly and specifically confess exactly what you did. You won’t say something generic like, “Please forgive me for whatever wrong I may have done.”

– Obedience is the absolute keyword for the Christian life, not victory. Some men tell me, “I’m praying for victory over such-and-such a stronghold.” But you don’t have to pray for victory. Pray instead that you will be obedient, because victory is a byproduct of obedience. Victory comes when you obey God. Pray that God will help you to obey.

Cure for the Common Life

By Max Lucado

– God planned and made each individual for a specific purpose. Living by enjoying what God has made us to do will be a joyful and fulfilling life.

– Find your sweet spot and live in it. The oak indwells the acorn.

– God did not make us all to do the same thing.

– The cure for common life lies in the strength of extraction. God made you for a specific purpose by giving you a specific set of gifts and abilities, find that and do it.

– God did not make you to be anyone else, he made you to be you – but he made you to be the best you that you could be. – Knowing your strengths can lead you to your sweet spot. God has given each one of us certain abilities.

– For the love of more, we might lose our purpose.

– Not every worker is made to be a manager. Not every person is made to do the same thing. David was not made to put on Saul’s armor. What fits others does not necessarily fit you.

– Don’t heed to greed, it will only get you into trouble. Prob. 15:16

– Don’t let your itch for things or your ear for applause deter you from God’s design for you.

– Don’t be afraid of risks – God is giving you talents, so get out there and use them to the fullest.

– Worship can cure every day common life. Taking your eyes off of self and placing them on God.

– God gives us an uncommon life as we give Him our common life.

– When you are full of yourself God cannot fill you, but when you are empty of yourself God can fill and use you.

– One third of Americans say that they hate their job. Two thirds of people are probably in the wrong job. Ecclesiastes 2:1

– Most people are miserable and grudge their jobs. But before changing occupations, change your attitude about your occupation.

– We have to work, but we can choose to work gratefully or ungratefully. Understand that all we do is for Jesus.

– We are busy but we must make time to stop and rest. You need to stop and get away, Jesus did it. God rested after six days of work, Jesus went away into the desert, and we would be wise to follow His example. Mark 6:31

– Moses had a staff, David had a sling, Samson had a jaw bone of a donkey, Rahab had a string, Mary had some ointment, Aaron had a rod, Dorcas had a needle

– Don’t be too big to do something small. 1 Peter 4:10 – With God there are no common people or common lives – every person counts and every life is unique.

Culture Shock

by Myron Loss

– As a result of poor cultural adjustment, many missionaries often have a hard time getting along with their fellow workers.

– Next to poor health, difficulty with interpersonal relationships is the reason most commonly given for people leaving the missionary profession.

– The human organism is capable of enduring only so much stress for so long before showing signs of deterioration.

– Excessive stress accounts for a good deal of missionary illness.

– Culture is what makes you a stranger when you are away from home. It’s the beliefs and expectation about how people act and what is accepted as being proper.

– In US, one can be a leader, successful and secure, but suddenly he becomes a learner when he gets to the field. He is corrected and humbled, and if he doesn’t learn to make the role switch, he will feel insecure, self-conscious and threatened. The experience brings out the worst in some students: stubbornness, rudeness, withdrawal, and hyper-criticalness.

– Language learning is one of the big causes of culture shock. One often feels like people are laughing behind their back and judging — and they are. It is tiring, boring, and frustrating. Nothing seems to go logically or smoothly, because logic is identified with familiar ways of talking and thinking. His self-esteem and self-worth is under attack.

– Change in routine. A wife learns that she no longer knows how to cook. Temperature and altitude are different, and there are no frozen foods or instant mixes available. Canned foods are expensive and vegetables and fruits must be washed carefully. Purchasing groceries may be going from store to store or street to street instead of merely changing isles like in the homeland.

– Culture stress affects every foreigner. Missionaries are not immune, even though they go in the Name and with the blessing of Christ. They cannot avoid physical and spiritual stress.

– If absolute cultural adjustment is the goal, then the missionary will feel frustrated: for no matter how much he may desire otherwise, he will always be considered a foreigner by the people.

– For most people, the early experience within the new culture is one of fascination with the sights and sounds. Gradually this fascination gives way to dissatisfaction with the inconvenience cause by the culture, and eventually ends in one of four responses: (1) total rejection of the new culture, (2) total rejection of the old, (3) grudging coexistence, or (4) healthy integration of the new with the old. Only in the latter are behavioral irregularities minimized and wholesome adjustment possible.

– The missionary does not need to worry about whether or not he is adequate for all of the trials that will be set before him. His adequacy is from God (II Cor. 3:5).

– The 1st term involves considerable stress from three different sources:

1. Culture stress and the need to relearn acceptable behavior

2. The stress imposed by the idealistic missionary image and the resultant pressure to achieve

3. The stress of normal life change events taking place with the initiation of a missionary career

– Life changes that cause stress:

1. Occupation — changing of jobs

2. Geographical move — pack, move, unpack, organize, decorate, make new friends, where to eat, etc.

3. Language — cannot make friends, get involved in basic life activities or get around until learn the language. It takes a year of stopping all to get the new language.

4. Living conditions — differences 5. Financial status, childbirth in a new country, marriage

– Too many first term workers resign and go away bitter toward their fellow-workers or mission boards. Resigning seems like the way to escape.

– According to the Missionary Research Library, missionaries who quit after their first term, forty-four percent of the missionaries felt that the board of mission could have done something that would have resulted in their continued service.

– Fifteen Tips for Survival to New Workers — to minimize stress and be able to stay after first term:

1. Set Reasonable Goals — the work will take longer than you think. Some need a kick in the pants, but most need to slow down or not set so high of goals. Less work in ministry and more focus on surviving after arriving. Can’t learn a language as fast as want or expect. Ps. 127:2 teaches that God gives us rest, so slow down a bit.

2. Don’t Take your Job Description too Seriously — your significance is not determined by your performance. You are not the messiah to the country, Christ is.

3. Be Committed to Joy — it’s the fruit of the Spirit (Gal. 5:22), but enjoyment in life has become a taboo for too many Christians. See every day as a new possibility and everything as miraculous. Joyful people are rare individuals.

4. Maintain Good Emotional Health — mentally healthy people have consistently have five basic qualities according to Menninger Foundation: (1) They have a wide range of interests and friends from who they draw personal satisfaction. (2) They are able to “roll with the punches”; their broad range of interests help them to see alternative solutions to personal crises. (3) They recognize and accept their limitations and their assets; they enjoy what they are, and don’t try to be something different. (4) They treat other people as persons; they have empathy for the needs and concerns of others. (5) They are active and productive, using their gifts to benefit themselves and others; they are in control of their activities, the activities are not in control of them.

5. Remember that you are Human — you live in a human tent which needs food, rest and exercise. No one is an island, we all need companionship.

6. Don’t be Afraid of Being a Little Bit Eccentric — you might like hang-gliding or thrilling hobbies that other missionaries don’t like, but proceed with care. Don’t feel forced to confirm to what your image of Joe Missionary does.

7. Be Flexible — there are areas in which to be inflexible (Scripture, grace, purpose), but in most areas of life are we should and must learn to be flexible.

8. Don’t Take Yourself Too Seriously — good sense of humor is a balm for many wounds.

9. Reduce Your Stress Where Possible — when stress comes too great, take a vacation, get away for a day, play some hard tennis, go out to a quiet restaurant, go hunting, go shopping, get out of town, read a good book or take a long hot bath. Don’t put off tomorrow what you can do today. Matthew 6:34

10. Make Your Culture Change Gradual — don’t cut off all the ties to home before you’ve established ties in the new culture.

11. Forgive Yourself: Forgive Others — don’t be too hard on fellow missionaries. Forgive yourself. Don’t turn your artillery on your own ranks; keep it aimed at the devil and hold your grudge against him for getting you into this mess of sin. I Cor. 13:5 12.

12. Establish Some Close Friendships with People From the Host Culture — People the world over have the same basic needs, longings and worth. They are persons, deeply loved by God.

13. Be Thankful — If you find that you are no longer thankful to God nor appreciate the kindness of other people, you are out of the will of God (I Thess 5:18).

14. Be an Encourager — don’t only expect to receive encouragement and support from others, be an encourager yourself. Look for ways to build up other people.

15. Take Courage; Someone Understands — Jesus knows all about crosscross-cultural adjustment, and He shares your struggles with you. – How veteran missionaries can Help new missionaries:

1. Give new workers measurable and attainable goals — don’t just throw them on their own. Frequently let him know how he is doing.

2. Don’t let yourself feel threatened by the coming of a new worker — if you are threatened, then you are fighting your own self-esteem.

3. Don’t underestimate the stress of culture change — remember that memory is biased and unreliable, so you will probably underestimate the struggles you had with culture change. Women tend to have a harder struggle with culture stress but this doesn’t mean they are weaker rather different in makeup.

4. Take a vacation — if you take one, the new worker won’t feel sub-spiritual for taking one. Find a hobby, read some good books or go on a picnic and don’t be afraid of others finding out. In fact, make sure they know.

5. Treat the new worker as an equal person — you may not be equal in rank, but you are equal in worth and being. If you find it difficult to accept younger workers as close friends and brothers, it is an indication that you probably feel threatened because of personal insecurity.

6. Believe in people — when the new missionary comes to you with a problem or seeking advice, don’t just give him an answer. He probably wants support and not just information. Understanding and love are especially valuable to those whose self-esteem is under attack as it usually is during cross-cultural transition. If you are going to help the new worker, you must accept him, believe in him and try as much as possible to understand him

Crush It

by Gary Vaynerchuk

– How passionate are you? Are you passionate enough to think about it at night and all throughout the day?

– The author lives by three basic rules:

1. Love your family.

2. Work hard.

3. Live your passion.

 

You don’t live for vacations or count the amount of hours you work, you love doing what you’re doing.

– Passion is contagious.

– The best communicators win.

– Can you tell a story?

– Tell me what you like and love. Persuade me that I should be interested and use/like what you are offering. If you can convince me, you will have me and then I will bring my friends; where me and my friends go, our money also goes and your business becomes stronger.

– Everyone wants to make $1 million overnight. Building a business, platform, and a name for your brand is not a sprint but a marathon. You can’t do it in 20 minutes, it’s going to take years and hard work.

– The biggest business in almost every business is the customer service, you are serving your customers.

– Use social media to build your brand. In the past, people paid big bucks on what you can do for free right now if you will use social media.

– Word-of-mouth is how you build businesses.

– Be authentic and be professional. Don’t be fake.

– Invest in important stuff, it’s worth the price.

– Hard work is going to have to be a cornerstone of your success. You can be talented, but if you don’t work hard, you will be outworked by someone else.

– You might want more time and flexibility and think that working for yourself is what you want, but if you’re going to go anywhere, you better work hard. If you thought your last boss was rough, your new boss (you) has to be a slave driver!

– No one makes big money or is successful by mediocre work.

– Remember that you have to keep putting in before you can ever take out or you will stop growing.

– Be reactionary and respond to the changes and needs in our society and you will be successful.

– Legacy is more important than currency. Maybe you can make more money, but are you proud and will you want to be remembered by how you did it? If not, don’t do it.

– Successful entrepreneurs are like good chess players, they can see what’s going to happen and they are prepared.

– Every person has their own personal brand.

– What is your personal brand?

– Do you know your passion and can you talk about it as good as or better than almost anyone else?

– Find people who are talking about your topic and connect with them.

– Be creating content constantly. Put out good content about things you love.

Courageous Christianity

by Bill Hybles

– HP + CP + CC = MI

HP — high potency (being filled with Christ and His power)

+

CP — close proximity

+

CC — clear communication of Gospel

=

MI — maximum impact (we are salt and light)

 

– Authenticity, compassion and honesty are keys to sharing Gospel.

– Showing kindness, mercy and compassion will open doors like few other things can.

– If you are always giving out to others but never take care of yourself, you will soon burn out. That is why Jesus went alone to the mountain to pray.

Cameron Townsend

by Janet Benge

 

– Cameron and his friend were in the army and went to hear a lady missionary give her testimony at a church because they heard on base that she was pretty. After she finished teaching, she asked Cameron and his friend why they were not missionaries. Cameron told her that they were soldiers, so they couldn’t go to Guatemala as missionaries. She responded saying they were cowards for wanting to be a soldier in a war where millions of other soldiers were and leaving the multitudes around the world to be evangelized by single women. That comment burnt him so much that he later became a missionary.

– He asked God to help him learn the language and studied hard until he did.

– He was not afraid to talk to government officials. He told them he could help the indigenous people become better citizens by translating the Bible into their language.

– He prayed and recruited 50 people for translating the Bible into indigenous languages.

– He brought down new people when he did not have the money. Only 2 out of 10 new recruits had support and the government of Mexico told him that they would support the other 8 that were currently there because he was helping the indigenous people.

– He had a burden for indigenous people everywhere that did not have the Bible in their language, so he started the Wycliffe Bible Translation Society, naming it after Wycliffe (who translated the Bible into English).

– He started asking for pilots and a plane to reach people in more remote areas.

– He made a movie about what he does and got the word out — this was around 1947 so not cheap or accessible like today.

– He wanted to set up a booth in the world fair. It would cost $250,000 but he was given the space for free. Even though they received the space for free, it would still cost around $100,000 to make a booth. He was able to raise all the money and, although he was not as financially successful as he wanted, he got 200 new recruits, now a total of 1600 missionaries working under him. Over 1 million people entered their booth to see what they were doing and heard a talk about his goals with the mission.

– He wanted to reach every tribe and language with the Gospel in his generation.

– He was always looking for people and tribes that did not have the Gospel in their language. And he did not accept “impossible” when he was told he couldn’t do something.

Better Dad’s, Stronger Sons

by Rick Johnson

 

– We may never be perfect fathers, but we should be lifelong learners.

– We must become men of action and men of honor in the eyes of our sons.

– Men who will stand up against adversities are men their sons can look up to.

– You as a man are your family’s leader whether you believe it or not.

– You might think you are insignificant or not a big deal, but to your son you are a very big deal.

– You are the man that God chose to be the father of your children. He could’ve chosen any other person in the world, but God chose you for the task.

– The very survival of us as a people depends heavily on dad’s.

– A father‘s legacy will influence and impact for generations to come – for good or for bad.

– The power that a dad has is incredible. There’s almost nothing that a kid cannot do when there is a dad present that believes in them.

– Masculine apathy is the number one problem in our churches.

– When a mom takes her boys to church, there’s a 15% chance that they will go to church when they grow up. When a dad takes his boys to church, there is a 75% chance that they will continue going when they are grown up. Dad’s make a very big difference.

– God did not tell you to lead and raise up your son and then leave you alone to fail — trust and seek God for His help to raise your son.

– You must reconcile with your past because a broken father will only raise a broken son. – Sons actively seek to bond with their father’s because they long for and need men of a good example.

– A boy needs his dad to show him how to live, convictions to have, and how to be a man.

– Fathers are a necessity of their sons.

– Fathers bonding with their sons will give their sons a sense of security, protection and preparation for any problems that life sends their way.

– Time is the most valuable commodity you can give your sons.

– Don’t emphasize your son’s weaknesses rather his strengths.

– Don’t avoid physical affection to your son.

– Don’t see your time spent with your son as a waste.

– Don’t abuse your authority. Col 3:21

– Rules should be reasonable.

– Teach your son how complacency is dangerous.

– Teach your son resilience, he will need it when he fails in any area.

– Teach your son to be loyal. You have to be loyal to teach loyalty.

– Let your son work and teach him about money.

– One of greatest gifts you can give to your children is to love your wife.

• Love and honor her.

• Thank her.

• Help her.

• Praise her daily.

• Provide and manage your money wisely.

• Make a covenant with God, wife, children and yourself that divorce is not an option.

• Be conscious that your son needs to know how to love a woman, and you are giving him that example.

 

– Teach your son about sex or he’ll learn from friends or somewhere else.

– You are accountable for your sons sexual purity, or at least teaching and warning him about it.

– Our sons are the next generation of dads, husbands and men and they need a live role model in action.

Being a Leader for God

by Warren Wiersbe

– You don’t “fill” an office; you use it for the good of the organization and the glory of God

– True leaders and followers gladly learn from each other.

– Leaders focus on purposes while managers are primarily concerned with processes, and that both of them must keep in touch with the people involved

– Christian leaders are people who, by faith, willingly use their character, abilities, authority, and opportunities to serve others and to help them reach their fullest potential, to their benefit, the benefit of the organization, and the glory of God.

– As Bob Cook used to tell us, “If you can explain what’s going on, God didn’t do it.”

– Real leaders don’t have to remind you where they sit or who put them there. They prove they are in charge by leading successfully, and that includes listening to you, being concerned for you, and helping you become a better worker and leader in your own sphere of service.

– George Muller used to say, “The only way to learn strong faith is to endure strong trials,” and the record in Hebrews 11 bears this out.

– Bob Cook used to remind us, “There is no substitute for character. You can buy brains, but you can’t buy character.”

– Ancient piece of wisdom: Sow a thought, you reap an action. Sow an action, you reap a habit. Sow a habit, you reap a character. Sow a character, you reap a destiny.

– William R. Inge, dean of St. Paul’s Cathedral, wrote in his Outspoken Essays, 1922, “We are always sowing our future; we are always reaping our past.”

– Four weeks before he was sworn in as the first president of the United States, George Washington wrote to a friend, “Integrity and firmness are all I can promise.”

– No amount of ability can compensate for a lack of integrity.

– Not the sword and scepter but the towel and basin and the cross symbolize Christian service.

– Executives ask one another, “How many people work for you?” but Jesus asks, “For how many people are you working?”

– Leadership isn’t just a job or even a profession. Leadership is the overflow of a life dedicated to God and devoted to serving others, always seeking to achieve worthy goals.

– Dag Hammarskjold wrote in his book Markings: “Your position never gives you the right to command. It only imposes on you the duty of so living your life that others can receive your orders without being humiliated.”

– John Knox said, “A man with God is always in the majority.”

– You can drive cattle, but you must lead sheep.

– True leaders never ask others to do what they themselves are unwilling to do. We lead the flock, not drive it, and that means the shepherd is the first one to meet the difficulties and dangers. We encourage our co-workers and never exploit them.

– Deuteronomy 17:14–20, and I recommend that you read and ponder it. Rehoboam would have especially benefited from the statement in verse 20 that the king must “not consider himself better than his fellow Israelites.”

– David’s reign was like the soft shower that brings refreshment and life (2 Sam. 23:1– 4), but the reign of Rehoboam was like a driving rain that ruins the crops (Prov. 28:3). Rehoboam was unwilling to serve the people; like his father Solomon, he expected them to serve him.

– Leaders can decay and their work decline if they are more concerned with impressing people than pleasing God. Paying more attention to the press releases than to the Scriptures and failing to heed the counsel of those who love God and love us will usually lead to failure. When we are so busy that we have no time for the Master, we are obviously too busy. “Could you not keep watch for one hour? Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation” (Mark 14:37–38). – Do what God tells you,” said evangelist D. L. Moody. “There is no use in running before you are sent; there is no use in attempting to do God’s work without God’s power. . . . We shall not lose anything if we tarry till we get this power.”

– The most pathetic person in the world is someone who has sight but has no vision.” Helen Keller

– For the Christian, vision without work is hypocrisy, and for any servant, work without vision is drudgery. The big picture and the future goals help us handle the small details and the nasty obstructions.

– Leaders must know themselves and not lie to themselves about either their weaknesses or their strengths. Leaders aren’t threatened if somebody else on the staff can do some things better than they can. They acknowledge it and make use of it.

– Our best investment is in the lives of the young men and women who will be the future leaders