daddy4ms

It's that time of year again!  I have shared all of my new books through my weekly posts, New Book Friday.  Now, it's time to share my favorite books over the next several months.  They are in no particular order, but they have shaped my understanding of who God is and who I am which impacts my head, heart, and hands.  I would highly recommend you checking out these books.

Today's New Book Friday has been shared previously.  However, I am using the book in a class I am teaching beginning this Sunday.  This is a great book on relationships because it is not like any other relationship book you have read.  Thompson does a great job of focusing on the "DONE" prior to the "DO".

I finished Counsel From the Cross by Elyse Fitzpatrick last week. I highly recommend this to everyone and especially to pastors, counselors, and teachers. Here are some quotes from 2 of the last chapters (more quotes from final chapter in a later post): we learn not only that our thoughts should linger on the gospel, but also that doing so will change our attitude and mood. For every one look that they take at their sin, they need to take ten looks at God's love for them in Christ. From the gospel we learn who we are and how God sees us. His love for us is to have a powerful effect on our love for others, and it is the only thing that will motivate us to love as we have been called to. The problem with a large majority of these books (Christian parenting or marriage books), however is that they have pointed out the obligations of the gospel without first rehearsing the declarations of the gospel. but gospel-oriented parents give the law to show children their need...

In December, I started reading Gospel-Powered Parenting by William P. Farley.  Here are a few quotes from the first few chapters: I am convinced that the gospel is sufficient to answer all our parenting questions. The gospel is the incarnation of God's Son, his sinless life, his substitutionary death, his bodily resurrection, and his ascension into heaven, from which he will someday return to the earth in glory. But the cross is the heart and soul of the gospel. As do all parents, we have learned from God's gracious discipline that we are absolutely dependent on God's Spirit to complete the parenting process...It is God's job to bring results! this book will assume that effective parents equip their children to overcome the world--not by changing and controlling their environment (things external to their children), but by going after their children's hearts. We change their hearts by teaching the gospel, modeling the gospel, and centering our homes on the ...

I recently finished reading Everyday Grace by Jessica Thompson. The adult class I teach will be going through the book in the Spring of 2016.  Below are some thoughts on church, work, and those difficult people in our lives from Thompson: The truth of our belovedness is what sanctifies. The truth of the wonderful story of redemption is what sanctifies...In your struggle against sin, in your struggle to be a more "sanctified Christian," remember the truth of God's love for you in Christ...Our sanctification is completely about him and his work in our lives, his completed work, his ongoing work. Instead of fixing each other's broken parts, what if we started bearing with each other's broken parts?  So we are humble with one another, not thinking we are better than others. We are gentle with each other, instead of beating each other over the head with a long list of "you-should." A. W. Tozier writes, "one of the greatest hindrances to internal...

I am thoroughly enjoying Everyday Grace by Jessica Thompson.  It is a great book on relationships that focuses on the gospel rather than "how to fix" things.  Here are some quotes from her chapter on marriage: And yet, the truth is that I am aware of God's unmatched love for me, of his good and plentiful gifts, and yet every day I run after other loves. Wrath is what you and I deserve...In fact he did have legitimate wrath that needed to be poured out on somebody. Praise him for sending his only Son to bear that wrath on our behalf so that we might forever know his love. Women are not sanctified by what their husbands do or don't do... Men and women are sanctified by believing the gospel. We are made holy by what Jesus did for us, by how he has loved his church.  We are made lovely by his love. Marriage is not one-size-fits-all. Each marriage is unique as each person sins uniquely and has unique strengths. Unrealistic expectations kill grace. The c...

How does Jesus as a friend impact our relationships?  Jessica Thompson in Everyday Grace has some thoughts.  Here are a few chapters from her chapter on friendship: God doesn't feel obligated to be our friend; it is his joy to be in relationship with us. This obedience is not what makes them friends; it is what characterizes his friends...If we are true believers of Christ, we will obey. His love for us is what engenders a heart of obedience. Being obedient will obviously lead to a better life for us. God has given us rules for living so we can know how to enjoy him and life the most. Relationship with God is the ultimate goal of Christianity. There is one Messiah, and you and I are not him, and we shouldn't expect our friends to be our Messiah either.  Beloved friends of Christ, may we never forget that all of the love and acceptance we look for in each other can be found only in the arms of Christ.         

I am currently reading Everyday Grace by Jessica Thompson.  She is also the author of Give Them Grace and a family devotion called Exploring Grace Together. She has so many good things to say in Chapter 3 that my book is full of green highlighter.  Here are a few quotes to think about: We have too high a view of our ability to do things right if we just have the right instructions...we also have too low a view of God and his love for us. In our laser-like attention to the doing, we forget what has been done. We can get so caught up in the doing that we forget about the people we are supposed to love. Here is another reason I think most relationship books are off: They focus on the doing. As you taste (Psalm 34:8) this multifaceted relationship with God, it will transform all of your other relationships. There is no "one size fits all" when it comes to relationships. The whole Bible is written in such a way that in most verses we see the done before we see...

I am continuing to read Everyday Grace by Jessica Thompson.  It is a good book on how grace affects all of our relationships.  Here are some quotes from Chapter 2: God's grace comes crashing into the darkness of deception and blame-shifting. Instead of only giving judgment for their sin, he gives hope of redemption. This hope of redemption is the only hope we have in relationships. Either way, when we are doing well or doing badly, we are focused on ourselves. This inward focus will be the very thing that keeps us from the end goal of having a healthy, thriving, God-glorifying relationship. Owning our own mess will make us gracious toward everybody else who is a mess also...We won't withhold forgiveness, because we will see how much we have been forgiven. God does not wink at sin. He takes our sin very seriously, to the point of demanding that blood be shed to pay for our sin...God demands complete perfection, a complete fulfilling of the Law. He doesn't ask...

I am reading four books right now.  Here are my favorite quotes from my recent reading at the Perk: The great theme of Walter Marshall's book is that Christians grow in obedience by the power of the gospel, not by their own strength. Christians are in union with Christ, and their Christian growth flows from this union, not from their own efforts. The gospel is essential for growth in holiness. Only the gospel can empower obedience. That is why every generation of the church must discover afresh the sufficiency of the gospel of grace, and the power of the cross of Jesus Christ both to save and to sanctify. the key error of the Christian life is that people think that even though they have been justified by a righteousness produced totally by Christ, they must be sanctified by a holiness produced totally by themselves. The Old Adam lives in the world of control, of constant self-measurement and self-reliance. The Law, on most every occasion, draw...

As you know, during my sabbatical, I have been scheduling trips one-on-one with each of my kids.   Molly and I went to World's of Fun in June.  Mackenzie and Megan decided to pass on one-on-one and instead served with me in Guatemala for a week. Today, Mitchell and I are spending the day at Schlitterbahn in Kansas City.  Since it is my son and he does not like pictures, I will probably not be posting as many pictures as I have with the girls.  But I hope to get a few. We hope to be able to ride the world's tallest waterslide.  If you have not heard about it, here is a picture.  I hope we survive!

3 P's about our relationships: Perspective, Past, Purpose Perspective-how you read the Bible matters.  Picture-Life, Loss, Love, Life (Creation, Fall, Redemption, Restoration) I had put all my trust in my righteousness. How do you repent of being good? Is this a problem for me to solve?  I need someone constantly reminding me that "it is finished." It's not about how well we do. We need a gospel lens. How do we view our past? Where does evil want to trip you up? Betrayal, powerlessness, abandonment We want to be affirmed and validated.  All of us will seek approval from someone. Who will it be? Redemption keeps affecting us. Satan meant it for evil; God will redeem it for good. If you don't know what this means for your life, stop what you are doing. We need to allow time and space for the Holy Spirit to move in our relationships rather than trying to "fix" things.

Go over to http://www.1corinthians13parenting.com/blog/ today to see my New Year's post on being "new". What does this mean for our relationships?  I'm thankful for Jesus making me new and taking care of my sin.

Last week, I finished reading The Gospel by Ray Ortlund.  There is much to recommend in this book even though I disagree with practical application at points.  Here are some quotes from the final chapters: God is down underneath the mess, holding us all together, moving us steadily toward Christ In the same way, a gospel-rich church rejoices in hope. We are poor sinners who can look beyond present circumstances and enjoy our future by faith right now. This verse (Rev. 21:1) does not tell us that God will discard nature; it tells us he will redeem it. By the power of God, the gospel creates something new in the world today. . .Francis Schaeffer proposes four things that should mark a gospel-created church: sound doctrine, honest answers to honest questions, true spirituality, and the beauty of human relationships. But the beauty of human relationships in the church is itself an argument for the gospel . . .When the gospel is doubted, a beautiful church that sticks tog...

In the adult Go Deeper class I teach, we will be going through Good and Beautiful Community by James Bryan Smith in the next month.  It is book 3 of the Apprentice series.  The first two books look at who God is and how we live.  Book 3 focuses on us as the body of Christ. Below are some quotes from the introduction: When we move into this area, it is easy to lose the main focus (the heart) and put all of the emphasis on the wrong thing (the activity itself). Living faith is trust and confidence in God expressed in acts of love in our human relations and encounters with one another. Personal piety without social action can also become self-righteous and insensitive and lead to burnout. The problems are, ironically, identical. Both tend to see their actions (service or prayer) as they way to earn the favor of God and humans...And both lead to burnout because they are not empowered by the Spirit, only by the flesh. We are prone, he said, to put the emphasis on the a...

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 the adult Sunday School class I teach, we are going through our church's CHRIST acrostic. We have finally reached the letter "T" which is transparent relationships.  For this letter, we are looking at the "one anothers" in Scripture using Grace in the Empty Spaces by Mark McPeak as a resource.  This is a great resource for discovering how we are to treat each other in the body of Christ and beyond.

I finished reading Gospel at the end of April. I highly recommend the book.  Here are more quotes on relationships, generosity, and mission: It's impossible to really experience the grace of the gospel and not be transformed into a person of kindness, generosity, and love. You destroy the evil in someone by showing them extravagant grace. You are confronting them for their sake, because you are saddened by what their sin is doing to them, and what it is doing to your relationship. We should give in grateful response to a God who gave everything for us. When we give to God primarily in order to get more from Him, we are not worshipping God; we are using Him. Gospel-centered giving, by contrast, is characterized by freedom. We give in joyful response to the grace of Christ because there is nothing we'd rather do with our money than glorify Him and see His kingdom come on the earth. a spirit of generosity is simply not something you can produce by establishing a sta...

Mark McPeak is Director of Advancement at Free Will Baptist International Missions. He is author of Grace in the Empty Spaces , a study of the one another passages in Scripture. His topic was "Grace in the Empty Spaces of My Marriage" Lois asked Mark, "Do you want to be right or do you want to be happily married?" Over time in our relationship, empty spaces developed. How are you going to fill those spaces? With suspicion, mistrust, anger, bitterness, resentment? What was the critical input he was missing?  His wife's perspective She was on one side & I was on the right side  How About You? Where are you on the continuum between really good and not good? "Being right or winning is a really stupid relationship strategy" Maybe You . . . Shut Down Blow Up Are dramatic Are passive/aggressive Pout  Punish  Control  Ephesians 5:31-32 Our marriages are supposed to be a picture of Christ's relationship to the Chu...