Well, I have a new favourite book. It is in my top 3, which are:
1. "The Pursuit of God" by A.W. Tozer
2. "The Practice of The Presence of God" by Borther Lawrence
and now...
3. "The Transforming Friendship" by Leslie Weatherhead
I was seriously tempted to paste in a whole chapter, but doubted that anyone would actually read the whole blog (might set a record for the longest blog ever, though...).
Here is a taste...so many paragraphs like this one made my heart want to burst and my lungs shout 'amen'. (and those of you who know me know that I am not one who takes easily to those things)
"And what does He ask of me now? It cannot be too often emphasized that Christianity is essentially the most tremendous loyalty to Jesus Christ of which our personality is capable. Don't start by trying to be good! Start by being the friend of Jesus and you will become good. 'Follow Me'—and that is all He asks. No one knows what 'being good' is or means apart from Him. In Him all hard, cold, marble ethics become changed, like Pygmalion's statue, into the warm, living, breathing Jesus, whom we can follow and love and adore."
Oh man, reading that again now...I love that stuff!!!
Kind of cool that the book is old enough that the whole thing is online: http://www.luc.edu/faculty/pmoser/idolanon/TransformingFriend.html
I'll buy a Creme Brulee Latte at Starbucks to the first 5 people who tell me they read the whole thing.
Anyway, for those who are interested, here was my reading list from November:
Five Dysfunctions of a Team – Patrick Lencioni
Trading Spaces – Les and Leslie Parrot
Overcoming Emotions That Destroy – Chip Ingram
The Right Game – Using Game Theory to Shape Management – Adam B and Barry N.
The New Testamant
Doing Church as a Team – Wayne Cordiero
Nehemiah – T.S. Rendall
Nehemiah – Cyril Barber
Now if anyone is still reading, try just one more quote from this book and see if it doesn't make your soul explode.
"Is it a real fact, practicable for everyday life in the twentieth century, that we may have communion with Jesus Christ as really as we have communion with our earthly friends? Can we know that same Jesus of Nazareth who walked about in Galilee two thousand years ago? I do not mean can we treasure His words, can we follow His way of life, can we, following His example, be heroic as He was, can we benefit by His ideas; I do not mean can we imaginatively reproduce a picture of Him clearly enough to form a substitute for His actual presence; but can we really meet Him, know Him, commune with Himself ?"
Where are the writers who can write this stuff in our day? Maybe Gary Thomas has come closest for me.
