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If you are regular reader of the blog, on Fridays I have shared new books, favorite books, and most recently kid books.  Now, I am going to share discipleship resources that I would recommend each Friday. 

Have you hurt someone?  Has someone taken advantage of you recently? The final chapters of Recovering Redemption by Matt Chandler look at how we seek reconciliation in relationships whether we are the cause or recipient. The one who pursed us in making peace also desires that we respond to others in kind...by pursuing peace. Whenever believers are involved in conflict with other people, God remains the authority--not us. What am I supposed to do, God, when somebody like this is working against me all the time? Well, looks like He's already shown us what He would do: initiate and forgive, engage and reconcile, pursue peace at all costs. Why should it be any different in our case? One of the marks of Christian maturity is a willingness to absorb and forgive any ugliness or injustice that's tossed in our direction, and to let our desire for retaliation or rebuttal fall peaceably to the ground. Bitterness is a powder keg. Pay attention to it. It's not ...

In this chapter from Recovering Redemption, Matt Chandler shares how we live the Christian life knowing what He explained in earlier chapters of the book.  See previous posts on this blog.  And for believers, this means (1) renouncing what is old, (2) rerooting in what is new, and (3) perpetually asking God for help to keep this transformation happening. God's the one who knows you'll never be whole if the only solution He ever implements in your life is just pruning back the bad behavior. Renounce the roots, but not the Gardener. . .The problem is where we're seeking to plant them, where we're rooting them. But if we root these same desires in the kingdom of heaven--in the truths and promises of God--they will instead produce the fruit of the Spirit within us.       

Yesterday on the blog, I shared quotes about guilt and shame from Recovering Redemption by Matt Chandler.  Today, I am sharing from the same book on the topic of fear and anxiety.  This is a great book. Go and pick it up at Faith and Life Bookstore in Newton, KS. The gospel of Jesus Christ is still the one reassuring answer to your antsy heart. Eden was, by contrast, a place of peace and prosperity. And so, beginning from that tragic point in time, fear and anxiety began aggravating the human heart, so that even His redeemed children through the ages, down to this very day, would know the cruel feeling of being robbed, of living without the peace and prosperity He'd intended for us to enjoy. For while "Abba" does connote a level of family intimacy, it sends up more of the idea that "my dad can beat up your dad," that our Father is not caught off guard or pushed around by anything that seems too big or oversized for us, no matter what it is. The bottom...

Do you struggle with either of these?  I know I do.  I appreciated the thoughts from Matt Chandler in Recovering Redemption on these real life issues all of us face. I encourage you to read the quotes and then pick up the book at your local Christian bookstore. While both of them (guilt, shame) do indicate the falling short of some kind of standard, the one that guilt fails to meet is more often a clear moral code, a legality. The standard that shame fails to meet on the other hand, goes much deeper to the core of who we really are. Our identity. Guilt is more about what we do; shame is more about who we are. It's important to see this distinction. Guilt (robbing us of innocence) and shame (robbing us of honor) are the double helix that creates the DNA of our worst behavior. Shame is deeply rooted in identity. And the "self-ideal" we create for ourselves can often incorporate a lot of expectations that simply aren't included in God's ideal for us. Guilt ...

I am continuing to read through Recovering Redemption by Matt Chandler.  I highly recommend this book and will be leading a group of adults through it in 2015.  Here are some quotes related to struggles, belief, and changing: repentance growing up out of our hearts is a leading indicator of genuine belief on the inside. It shows us we're His from the roots up. But sin can't be trained; sin must be killed. In the end, godly grief produces within us such a hatred of our sin, we then receive from God the renewed motivation to actually turn from our sin. The secret, of course--the mystery--is that the Judge has rendered His decision based not on what we've done, on our innocence, but on the sacrifice and willing substitution of the innocent, crucified Christ.  His resurrection provides all the objective evidence we need that proves His promises are true, that His ability to conquer death is real, and that His atonement for our sin is activel...