FOLLOW ME ...BOOK REVIEW Book Title: Follow Me.     Author: David Platt. As a believer in Christ, when you read the Bible, you discover that Jesus is the only way to heaven. You get to understand that those who die apart from Christ face a horrifying future. Yet, for whatever reason, you’ve made little effort to warn your family and friends. You pass by them daily without saying a word to them about Jesus Christ. Perhaps as you read this, you’ve began to look at your life and think, ‘This doesn’t make sense! Either, I don’t really believe the Bible or I’m extremely unloving. I’m more concerned about being rejected than I am about someone else’s eternal destiny.’ If this is where you are, then that’s great! You are exactly where the author of follow me wants you to be. Davit Platt is the lead pastor of The Church at Brook Hills in Birmingham. He seeks to point the reader to see that following Jesus Christ involves losing your life – and finding a new life i...

WOMEN IN MISSIONS...….  Women have contributed much to Missions throughout history. However, their role in this area has never been free from controversy. Ours is not to discuss the controversies but to ask ourselves what are the opportunities.   “We get so caught up and focus on the tree that Women can’t eat and we forget that there is a massive garden to enjoy and lay hold of” Sam Bierig When you think of women in missions, which names come to mind? Most of those their well-documented lives continue to inspire us to live lives fully yielded to the Gospel. But the legacy of women on the mission field doesn’t end with them. For hundreds of years, women have been the lifeblood of missions, crossing enemy lines, crossing borders and even risking their lives to spread the Gospel. We have Biblical examples of women who diligently responded to God’s call. In the early church many women were active in mission. They responded to God’s word an...

Book Title:TRUE FACED Authors; JOHN LYNCH, BRUCE McNICOL, BILL THRALL… The authors of this book relay the message that God’s dreams for us are ultimately not really about us. His dreams only take form for the benefits of others i.e.them feeling loved, filling their heads with dreams and hopes, guiding them, serving them, influencing them etc. God’s dreams for us reflect His heart. If we are therefore not maturing in sync with His heart, how can we distinguish others- centered dreams form our own self-centered dreams? God wants to reveal Himself to us in authenticity. His dream for us is that we would influence others far more out of who we are rather than out of what we do. So, above all else, your destiny requires you to be a maturing person. The Father wants us to mature into the likeness of His Son. True Faced goes ahead to talk about how then we can be true faced before God and others in order to live out the purpose for which God created us. THE MASK Pretending to b...

Book Title: CHRISTIANITY EXPLORED. Author: Rico Tice and Barry Cooper Christianity Explored is an exposition on the Gospel according to Mark. The authors seek to make the readers better acquainted with who Jesus is. Rico Tice, one of the authors, did not have a particularly religious upbringing and thus reading the book becomes more interesting as one seeks to find out what then brought the change in his life. From the introduction of the book that has most of its references from the book of Mark, we are made to keep asking ourselves, ‘Just who is this man Jesus?’ Mark, the writer of the Gospel gives us a clear answer. Jesus is ‘the Son of God’- Mark1:1, He is ‘the Lord’ over sickness, nature, death and sin. As He teaches, calms the storm, raises the dead, heals the sick and forgives sin, He is acting in God’s world with God’s authority. He behaves as if He is the ruler over everything, as if He is God Himself. And if that is true –that Jesus is God- then things start gett...

  ORDERING YOUR PRIVATE WORLD .                   Author: Gordon MacDonald . What on earth is a private world? That’s a good place to start. Gordon explains it as the part of life where we know ourselves. Best of all, it is where self-esteem is forged. Where basic decisions about motives, values and commitments are made, where we commune with our God. As he puts it, for practicing Christians, our most persistent advocate of ordering our private world is the Holy Spirit. Is there need to have my private world in order? From the book, I can most certainly say yes. Our inner world is more spiritual in nature. Here is a center in which choices and values can be determined. Where solitude and reflections might be pursued. It is a place for conducting worship and confession. If neglected, this private world will not sustain the weight of events and pressure that press upon it. Our outer world on th...

Cont' of REST IN THE STORM- Kirk Byron Jones . Jesus wakes up and addresses  the storm " Peace Be still" In Greek Jesus was telling the storm to "muzzle itself", to hold its energy inside itself and to bring the turbulence to a place of rest. Amazingly the storm obeyed. Jesus command emphasized the capacity for peace to be observed through an internal holding , or muzzling of energy. The power to affirm a state of calm lies within the storm itself. The storm has the ability to diffuse its own rage. Its within the storms capacity to have peace if it will restrict its own energy , which is raging out of control.  The storm must believe and execute its potential to calm itself, and hold itself. Implied here is more than a momentary action but continuous action.  TO GET CALM AND KEEP CALM!!! Peace is not merely the absence of conflict but the presence of Christ. Its neither something we affirm through our awareness of and commitment to a divinely grante...