No more excuses. God's grace has it covered

We all need to be reminded once in a while that God is bigger than our, well, our everything. Lately I’ve been talking about how Jesus helps us deal with our fears. We just need to turn to him and put him in charge of our insecurities, our circumstances, and our lives. Much easier said than done.

And generally, when we have trouble turning those things over, it’s because we think that God won’t help us because of our past mistakes. But here’s the kicker, God's grace is greater than all of that.

Kyle Idleman explains it a lot better than I can, and his newest book Grace Is Greater: God's Plan to Overcome Your Past, Redeem Your Pain, and Rewrite Your Story (Baker Books, 2107) is the written version of his explanation.

This book is an easy read, and Idleman is the consummate storyteller. It could be easy to stay at the surface, and just enjoy his engaging style, but it doesn’t take much effort to go beyond the humor and sense the pain that so many people experience because they won’t or can’t acknowledge God's Grace.

The book is broken into three sections all of them dealing with Grace being greater. It’s greater than our mistakes, our hurts, and our challenges. And when we put all that together, grace is still greater!

This book could be used in so many different settings—anyplace where there are hurting people who need to understand that God loves them, and that His grace is sufficient

4.5/5

I received a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for a review. 

Jesus in Your High School

For quite some time, as we as a country have insisted on being politically correct, it’s been harder and harder to talk about God or Jesus in public schools. Not that we haven’t always been able to, just that we’ve been afraid to. After all, someone might be upset. We don’t always grasp the concept that it’s not illegal to talk about Jesus with people who are interested in talking about Jesus. There’s a big difference in forcing someone to accept your belief system, and opening the door to someone who is interested in learning more about why you believe the way you do.

Luckily there are people like Brian Barcelona, who heard from God, and rather than hide behind political correctness decided to follow God's call on his life.  That call, and the resulting journey, is the story being told in Brian’s book: The Jesus Club: Incredible Stories of how God Is Moving in our High Schools (Chosen, 2017). 

Brian didn’t grow up in church, but as a teenager entered into a walk with Jesus. The relationship grew, and shortly after he graduated from High School, God spoke to him in a way that really left him no options but to obey. It’s often hard for us to imagine what God and will do when we are willing to do as he asks, and stay out of his way the rest of the time. But Brian had this God-sized dream of reaching high school students for Christ, and doing it right there in the schools.

Like many other dreams, this one started small, then grew and grew, and it seems like each time things were about as big as Barcelona thought they could get, God added something else to the equation, and things got even bigger.

As the press release puts it: What happens when a former teenage atheist hears God's call to do the impossible—and decides to act on it?

You’ll want to read this book to see how with God, it’s not impossible.

4.5/5

I received a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for a review.

Not the Treasure I Was Expecting

Leanna Cinquanta tells an interesting story, but it’s more than just a story—it’s her story. 

Unfortunately, it took me a while to figure out just how powerful of a story it is. Her story is called Treasures in Dark Places: One Woman, a Supernatural God and a Mission to the Toughest Part of India (Chosen Books, 2017)

Based on the title I was really expecting more of the story of her time in India; and the back cover copy hints at tales of sex trafficking. But this is an autobiography, and the first part of the book is about how Leanna grew up in a basically faithless home. I was confused as she shared stories of living in poverty, but the family was always saving for something, and managing to put enough aside to get it. Impossible wasn’t a word in the Cinquanta family’s vocabulary

And then comes her conversion story, and some of the mysteries that young Leanna had experienced start to make sense. Jesus, was making himself known to her.  And even though for her entire life, her parents had been telling her that she could be and do whatever she wanted to, it took Jesus to prove it to her.  

Leanna is one of those people who hears Jesus speaking to her on a regular basis, and many of us would like to be in that enviable position. But like so many of us, even when it’s clear what God is asking us to do, we want to bargain. In Leanna’s case that call was to India. She pleaded with God to send her anyplace else, but God had plans for her, and He wasn’t about to change His mind.

There are some incredible stories of her life in India, but the big disappointment in this book is that there is only a little about what is being done to rescue children from the sex trade. The little there is seems to have been added in the last couple of pages as an afterthought, almost as though some editor had decided at the last minute that the addition of the story of an abused child would increase sales.

A compelling story, but it needed to have been told in a more dynamic and engaging manner

I received a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for this review. 3.5/5