Audacious

Audacious.  Not a word that you hear very often, and certainly not one that you use very often, but after reading Sun Stand Still by Steven Furtick I think it will find its way to the forefront of my spiritual vocabulary.

Though this book isn’t necessarily written as such, I felt as if I were hearing a sermon.  A sermon from a very motivated and inspiring preacher.  But these aren’t only words, they are built around one of the most amazing accounts of God moving on behalf of his people that you will find in scripture.  The faith, or should I say audacious faith, of Joshua is used as the sounding board that encourages us to get outside the box and start standing firmer on the gift we have been given in our relationship with an all powerful God.  To believe in the impossible, to seek what can’t be seen, to become what we have the potential to be.

After reading this book, I can see how this Pastor Furticks desire to trust God far beyond what he was able to accomplish on his own, moved him into an audacious faith to built a church that not only thrived, but exploded.  It is obvious to me that this man not only preaches it, Steven Furtick puts it into active practice and challenges us to do the same

I received this book for free from WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group for this review.

A modern look at sanctification

Take a rubber band and pull it tight.  As long as it is tight you have potential energy, let it go, and all the energy that it stored is released.  This mental picture kept popping up in my mind as I read Mark Battersons newest release, Soulprint.

In Battersons latest, he relies heavily on the life of David and how every area of his life was leading to a much bigger picture; a picture that though often troubled, was rife with God and how this King was guided by Him.

The biggest thing I gleaned from this book is that there really is no need for a self help book that tries to build in you everything you need to succeed.  Batterson maintains, and I agree, that all you need to succeed was within you before you were born.  You were created unique in all the history of the universe and everything you need to fulfill the plan built around that uniqueness is already within you waiting to be recognized.

Sanctification (the process of making holy) is a spiritual concept that in recent times has fallen under the name it and claim it philosophy, and often it is not even a part of the spiritual life.  Mark Batterson has done a great job in both bringing it back to its Biblical foundations and back to the forefront where it belongs.

I received this book for free from WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group for this review.