PASS: The God of Grace by Andy Stanley

This is a book that re-tells Old Testament bible stories and then interprets God's grace into the way God interacted with the humans in the stories. Each chapter takes a different bible story or multiple stories and then says "God dealt gracefully with humans" because they didn't deserve such merciful treatment.

This book is a fast light read because we've heard the story of Adam and Eve, Abraham, Jospeh etc many times and 2/3rds of this book is the re-telling/paraphrasing these stories.

Although the book paints a nice picture of a graceful God, I didn't find this book very deep. Example: Stanley takes the creation story and explains that God didn't have to make the world so beautiful - that was grace.. God didn't have to give Eve to Adam - that was grace. God could have destroyed Adam and Eve for the fall, but instead He allowed them to live outside of the garden - by grace.

By the end of the book, I felt it was nice to see that ALL good things are undeserved, unearned and all come from the grace of God. I just wish this book could have had more depth and not been 2/3rds re-telling stories we already know by heart. I feel there are much better and deeper books that would bring us to reflect on the grace of God. This book was just kind of "blah" or "okay". You could easily go without having read it, it wouldn't go in my library and I would never recommend it to others. I'd say "read it if you want but it's only so-so".

Readers may be interested in knowing Andy Stanley is writing from an Arminianist Christian perspective.

Disclaimer: I received this book free of charge from the publisher but I am giving my honest review.

OKAY: Close Enough To Hear God Breathe by Greg Paul

The title of the book is poetic and catchy, but I don't feel it relates well to the book. A title like "Is God Like Human Parents?" would very accurately describe this book. This book is broken into 5 Parts (1 The Heart of the Matter, 2 Creation, 3 The Fall, 4 Redemption, 5 Consumation) with 3 chapters in each part. The book is full of parent-child stories and is not very deep, so it makes for a quick read. The idea behind this book is to look at God as if he were a human parent and to look at us humans as his children. Each chapter begins by telling a human parent-child relationship story and then ends by explaining how God views us humans in a similar way.

I'm not sure of the theological accuracy of this book, and I'm sure many will have disagreements with relating God to human parents, but it does make for an interesting read. At the end of each chapter, you stop and go: Does God really think/feel/behave like human parents in this way?

As an example:
Part 2's first story tells a story of how the author adores his son because the son is a reflection of himself, then concludes that God must adore humans because we reflect God.

The second story is of the author's cold unemotional father who provides physically for his family but is so hard-headed that his sons don't speak to him for 3-25 years!!! BUT the author concludes that his own human father loved all his kids because he provided for them physically. So the author says although God is distant, doesn't speak to us, is unemotional and much like his cold father, that God also provides for us physically, so God must love us.

Disclaimer: I received this book free of charge from the publisher but I am giving my honest review.

BUY IT: Our Last Hope: Awakening The Great Commission by Ronnie Floyd

This book is about making missionary work the most important goal of your life - become another Apostle Paul. The author focuses greatly on planting churches in enormous numbers all around the world and preaching in all parts of the world. The author's goal is to convince you of the importance of missionary work, calling it the "last great hope".

As a Christian woman, I found this book very interesting. It challenged my current lifestyle and even if it doesn't change my goal in life into becoming a missionary, it certainly has challenged my perspective on missions and made me re-evaluate the importance of missionary work. It also makes me question whether the Bible REALLY does tell us to become missionaries or if that did end with the apostles. Not only did the author hold my attention, but I found this book very thought-provoking. I would recommend this book to others - it is worth considering, even if you don't agree 100%.

If you read this book, expect to be convinced, pressured, guilted or scared into becoming a missionary. To say the author takes missions VERY seriously is even an understatement - he goes to the extreme of nearly (without outright saying it) questioning one's salvation if they aren't a missionary and he uses scriptures to back up his side of the story. Floyd is quite convincing. One way or the other, you will certainly come away with that feeling of "Oh boy, I better get off my butt and become a missionary" much like some say "I better read my bible more".

xxv: Per the author, in the book of Matthew, we are commanded to "make disciples - of all nations", but there were no organized missions anywhere until 1783, when British William Carey, a Baptist pastor, had to work by himself because he was told by other ministers that the charge was no longer binding. Since Carey, missions grew around the world.

As a sample:

xxvii, pg3: Floyd describes The Great Commission as "Tell every person in the world about Jesus Christ and make disciples of all nations." He wrote "we have no choice - this, the fulfillment of the Great Commission, is our last great hope." We are ALL to become missionaries and there is nothing more important in life than to save people from a horrible end in hell.

pg5: And just in case you are wavering, he quotes James "if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man looking at his own face in a mirror; for he looks at himself, goes away, and right away forgets what kind of man he was. (James 1:22–24)" Floyd almost presents it like "if you don't become a missionary" you are disobeying God and you may not be saved after all. If you REALLY loved God, you would become a missionary. Floyd writes on pg7 "focus utterly and completely on pleasing God"

pg 9: "How many people do we encounter every day who are dying of thirst for the living water only Christ can provide, but we’re too busy to tell them? How many people do we encounter every day who are dying of thirst for the living water only Christ can provide, but we’re too busy to tell them?"

pg10-11: "If only I could spend all my time, all my abilities, all my strength on what really matters. I look around and see our streets teeming with people who are consumed by football or politics or Hollywood or Wall Street or the dating scene or the Internet. I understand the lure of all these things. But as for me, I want to trade in my remaining years, months, days, and minutes—God alone knows their count—for the kind of seeds that will take root among people and then blossom in heaven. I now see my moments as currency, and I can spend them on trash or treasure. I don’t want to give any precious resource of this life to that which isn’t eternally significant."

pg14-15 "Look again at the question I’ve posed—Do I know Jesus intimately?—and think about how you would honestly answer it. Take your time—you’ll never answer a more important question. You see, we’re talking about the Great Commission. How can someone have a passion for obeying it if he or she hasn’t fully internalized its message? What if I asked you to tell people all over town about a new restaurant when you had never dined there? You wouldn’t be so excited about that subject, and frankly, you wouldn’t be a very effective spokesperson. But if you had been there, enjoyed the specialty of the house, and knew it was the greatest meal of your life—so fantastic you would never want to dine anywhere else, for any meal—then no one could stop you from telling your friends about that place. If you’ve truly tasted of the Bread of Life, if you’ve sipped from living waters that well up to eternal joy, there is absolutely no way you can live without telling others about it. You want everyone to have a chance to sit at that table, even people you don’t know—people across the country or across the world. That’s why the Great Commission is my passion, and why it should be yours."

pg19: "To know Christ is to love Him; to love Him is to share Him. We want everyone to experience what we have experienced. We want it because we are obedient, because it’s natural to share what is wonderful with others, and because those others face an alternative that is terrible beyond imagining."

pg20: Floyd writes that if you love Jesus, this love "will lead you inevitably to caring about the Great Commission."

pg21: "What could I give up, you will wonder, so that I could support our friends who are winning people to the Lord? Never again will you want to simply indulge in your own pleasure— you’ll know the joy of returning to God what has always been His."

Disclaimer: I received this book free of charge from the publisher but I am giving my honest review.