Everybody Always

Becoming Love in a World full of Setbacks and Difficult People

1. Creepy People - We Don't need to be who we are used to be ; God sees who we're becoming - and we're becoming love

2.  Meeting Carol- God doesn't give us promises; He gives us each other

3. Love Everybody, always- Love one another. ' what is simple often isn't easy; what is easy often doesn't last.

4. The Yellow Truck- Don't tell people what they want; tell them who they are

5. Limo Driver- Don't build a castle when you can build a kingdom

6. Skydiving - God was with us so we'd be with each other

7. A Day at the museum- It doesn't matter what our faith looks like, it matters what it is

8. The Pizza Place - What we've spent our lives collecting may not be worth it

9. From the light house window- Everyone hits a couple of notes wrong, keep playing your song

10. three green lights - we don't need as much confirmation as we think we do. The difference between prudent pause and persistent paralysis

11. Last one, best one- God often uses our blind spots to reveal Himself to us

The Power of a Parent's Blessing

1. Create a culture of blessing in your family and in your community by blessing your friends, neighbours and coworkers
2. If you are married, make a regular habit of praying together as a couple daily and speaking a blessing over each other.
3. Receive ministry to be healed of past cursing of identity
4. Begin to separate identify from behaviour when relating to and disciplining your children.
5. Develop a regular habit of having a Sabbath meal together as a family once a week.
6. Consider becoming a change agent by inviting one other family to dinner on your family blessing night
7. Embrace and use the power of blessing at the 7 critical stages of life

• Conception
• Time in the womb
• At birth
• During infancy and early childhood
• At puberty and release them into their adult identities
• Bless your children at the time of their marriage
• Bless your parents in their older age 

Parenting: 14 Gospel Principles That Can Radically Change Your Family

1. Calling
Principle: Nothing is more important in your life than being one of Gods tools to form a human soul.

2. Grace
Principle: God never calls you to a task without giving you what you need to do it. He never sends you without going with you.

3. Law
Principle: Your children need GO'd slaw but you cannot ask to law to do what only grace can accomplish

4. Inability
Principle: Recognizing what you are unable to do is essential to good parenting.

5. Identity
Principle: If you are not resting as a parent in your identity of Christ, you will look for identity in your children.

6. Process
Principle: You must be committed as a parent to long view parenting because change is a process and not an event

7. Lost
Principle: As a parent you're not dealing just with bad behaviour but a condition that causes bad behaviour

8. Authority
Principle: One of the foundational heart issues in teh life of every child is authority. Teaching and modeling the protective beauty of authority is one of the foundations of good parenting

9. Foolishness
Principle: The foolishness inside your children is more dangerous to them than the temptation outside of them. Only God's grace has teh power to rescue fools.

10. Character
Principle: Not all thhe wrong your children do is a direct rebellion to authority; much of the wrong is the result of a lack of character.

11. False Gods
Principle: You are parenting a worshiper, so its important to remember that what rules your child's heart will control his behaviour.

12. Control
Principle: The goal of parenting is not control of behaviour, but rather heart and life change

13. Rest
Principle: It is only rest in Gods presence and grace that will make you a joyful and patient parent

14. Mercy
Principle: No parent gives mercy better than one who is convinced that he is desperately needs it himself.

How's Your Soul?

A easy to read book that leaves you thinking. 

Growing Deep in Faith

Started reading this for devotions after I was challenged on what I was doing everyday for devotions. Another trying period and I was running on empty, without faith. Walking by sight and not by faith. This book is made of short excerpts on how to live by faith.

The Kiss of Heaven

Borrowed this from the church library after reading the 'Art of Mentoring' by Darlene Zschech. She has a way of inspiring you to believe in God's greater plans and this book was how we could experience God's favour as we seek His blessing to pursue the dream He has planted in our hearts. It took me a while to read this as it has been quite a dry/distracted spell but it provided timely refreshment. It helped me a dream a little more again.

Deep Magic Dragons & Talking Mice

Bought this book as a favour to a friend as I was going to a christian bookshop. My first thought was what sort of title was it ' deep magic dragons & talking mice?' But it turns out to be a snappy taste of some of the more impactful ideas of C.S. Lewis. One of C.S. Lewis strengths is explaining complex terms in every day analogies and this further simplifies it to the reader.

Pilgrim's Progress

A tale of a pilgrim's journey to the end. Well worth your time. We are all work in progress, on a journey. It's a reminder to be ever watchful and be sober minded as the things of the world easily ensnares and the enemy is like a roaring lion. And your heart is deceitful. 

Has God Predetermined Every Tiny Detail In the Universe, Including Sin?

The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the Lord. Proverbs 16:33

The biggest suffering was planned for God for the overall Good. To focus these thoughts on the cross. And only a Sovereign God can bring good out of evil. 

The Doctrine of Suffering

 Romans 8 
 1. God is Great Sovereign and Good - Suffering tends to point that is God not able to heal, not in control, not good, not wise - at the end of Job, he comes to the conclusion that God is great and sovereign
 2. Humble View of Man - suffering reminds us of the depravity of man, sin. - sin caused the broken world - even in suffering, we dont know all that God is doing.limited perspective
 3. Exalts the Glory of God's Grace and Sacrifice of His Son - fellowship in His suffering - glorifies God's grace and magnify Son's suffering on the cross
 4. God has a Variety of Reasons for Sufferings - sometimes its about strengthening faith - exalt Himself as sufficient when we have joy and confidence, despite in circumstance - How are you using 5. Suffering and the Advancement of His Kingdom Goes Hand in Hand - God's salvation was the suffering of His son - how to show without suffering, the dangerous people still do not know God

Sacred Marriage

This book was given to us even as we started on the journey together as one. It's been an interesting read, of how marriage is to make us Holy and more like Christ. Interesting in that my sister mentioned this when she got married. I think each time I picked up the book, it inspires to to be more Christ centred till the next selfish moment. Haha.. anyway 1st of 2 books given.

' What if God designed marriage to make us Holy more than to make us Happy?'

The Grand Weaver

Bought this book when I was in USA on my book spree. Books were amazingly cheap, below $10 from Amazon. This is why I needed the help of friends to lug everything home. But I think sometimes I like the idea of owning a particular book, more then reading it. And this book was bought, as an introduction into reading the works of Ravi Zacharias, a well known apologists. It has been left on my shelf untouched for awhile as I guess, it was not the season. Interestingly enough, he has a slot on the radio channel that I listen to in the mornings and I have heard him speak. I had taken his book out again, in a bid to read something more wholesome but not much progress was made until I was asked recently on how do you find/know your calling in life? And I think it does come in handy.. skimmed through it to give my friend some food for thought but I should probably read it in detail.. considering that the questions are probably relevant now for this season.

1. Your DNA Matters
2. Your Disappointment Matters
3. Your Calling Matters
4. Your Morality Matters
5. Your Spirituality Matters
6. Your Will Matters
7. Your Worship Matters
8. Your Destiny Matters 

Helper by Design- God's Perfect Plan for Women in Marriage

Started reading this to gather perspectives/interpretations of what a woman's role is in marriage. Bought this book due to one of the reviewer's comment : I very much appreciate her emphasis on the Scriptures, allowing God to enlighten us through His Word, instead of being convinced by good argument.

It has been a journey. Helping me unlearn some things, and change some of my perspectives.

A Skeptic's Guide to Faith

Accidentally bought ' a book titled Designer Sex, by Philip Yancey', only to realise it was a pamphlet based on a chapter extracted from this book. There are three parts to this book, What are we missing, , Signs of Disorder and Two worlds.

The Art of Mentoring

Started reading this as we were starting to mentor the younger leaders in our church. Challenges you.

Anger, Handling A Powerful Emotion in a Healthy Way.

Anger originates in the perception that something is wrong and that this sense of morality finds its root in the fact that we are created int eh image of a God who is holy and has established moral code for the good of  His creatures. Anger is not evil; anger is not a part of our fallen nature; anger is not Satan at work in our lives. Quite the contrary, Anger is evidence that we are made in God's image; it demonstrates that we still have some concern for justice and righteousness in spite of our fallen estate. It reveals our concern for rightness, justice and fairness.

I Was Just Wondering

I think one of the main reasons why I like Philip Yancey is because he distills some of the greater writings into palatable bite size nuggets of enlightenment There was a phase when i was so inspired by his description of certain classical writers that I bought the original books- it didn't help that I was in the States and books were really cheap off amazon. But 2 years later and counting, I have not managed to finish a single book with many 'given up halfway' attempts in between.

This book is a collection of his thoughts as he reads and observes the different phenomenon around him. Its kinda like a collection of blog posts arranged in loose themes. I love his writings because they juxtapose the reality of the world with God and show that they actually complement, unlike popular belief that they are always in conflict. I don't mean that the values of the world and God are in sync, but the distortions and beauty that we see around us are shadows of what the bible says. Its like how the old testament foreshadows Jesus, the world and the human experience foreshadows a greater being and realm. And in doing so, he strips away the jargon and the the hypocrisy to offer a new perspective.

The Me I Want to Be

Young Adult's Cell group material July 2011- current

Your Life is God's project, not yours.

The Me I want to be, not should be.

1 John 1:9

1 John 1:9

⁹ If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousnes

This is not meant for the believer. 

Only Paul was chosen to speak to gentiles and he wrote 3/4 of the new testament. Nowhere in his books is there mention to confess our sins. If confession was so important, he would have wrote about it somewhere.

Destined to Reign

This was my summary ( refer to post below). It is not written in nice prose but rather sentences that spoke to me- characteristic of all the other summaries in this blog.