Readers will find enjoyment in this fast-paced mystery about a young woman, Libby, searching for her best friend, Nicole, after she watches kidnappers take Nicole in a boat. Somehow the kidnapping is related to the new inheritance Libby has just received - a mansion called Tidewater Inn and the new family she discovered she had: a father, an aunt and a brother and sister she never knew existed. The story is captivating and I finished the book in one day, it was so much fun!
How clean was this book? Very clean. No cursing. The romance in the story had only touching hands, arms and shoulders, and hugs, and kissing. No sex ever occurs between anyone.
This book asks the question of suffering:
One of the characters asks "Where was God when my parents were killed? Why do bad things happen to good people." Reply: "God was with your parents when they died and they are with him now. God gives us the grace to get through tough situations." Another says "I'm not a very good believer. I make it to church only once a month. Maybe that's why this is all happening. God is punishing me." Reply: "Forget that idea. Bad things happen even to good people. Life is hard. Goe never said it wouldn't be. And He's with us in the hard times." Another said "How do you think your dad feels when he looks down from heaven and sees how you're acting?" Another, "What good did it do Dad to try to please God if he was just going to kill him? If God cared, he wouldn't have taken both my parents. They told me God loves me. I wish I could still believe it."
It was nice to see the sovereignty of God emphasized in one sentence: "God could choose to spare this little spot or wipe it out. It was all in his control." The book also showed the struggle for characters to be generous and the faith it took to give everything they had to people in need, leaving nothing for themselves and trusting God to provide. There was a LOT of emphasis on What Would Jesus Do and an important WWJD necklace. It was mentioned a few times that someone prayed but no prayers are recorded in the dialogue.
The questionable Christian teachings: Christian Libby is told by a more experienced Christian, ""Put it in God's hands. God loves Nicole (an unbeliever)." The thought comforted Libby. Nicole wasn't alone. No matter what happened, God held her securely." But from the Bible, we know unbelievers are under the wrath of God and have no confidence that he will spare them. When Nicole was afraid to die without God, Libby instructs her, "All you have to do is ask him to forgive you, Nicole. He's here with us. No matter what happens." Nicole was sobbing, "I can't. I don't know how."
The music pushed in this book are questionsable: Bob Marley's regae - Marley strongly rejected the Christian Jesus and taught Rastafarian's beliefs about his god Ja in the lyrics of his songs. Why would a Christian listen to songs with lyrics mocking our Jesus and about turning to another god? The other choices mentioned were Counting Crows and Beethoven.
I guess the saddest part about this book is that there was NO thanks given to God for anything. No one was seeking after God's glory. It was all self-seeking and Christian-lite thinking and theology. I would recommend this book for the story but not the Christianity.
The end of the book was disappointing. It was a weird end. The good guys and bad guys by the end were odd, hardly mentioned, individuals. There was no wedding. THe book ended quickly and with loose ends and an odd human "savior".
Disclaimer: I received this book free of charge from the publisher but I am not required to give a positive review in exchange for the book. This is my critical review of the book as if I had bought the book with my hard earned money.
BUY IT: Father Hunger by Douglas Wilson
I do recommend this book to Christian men as a good example of what biblical masculinity is all about. This book restores the male's role as protector and provider and also does no disservice to the woman's role. Wilson explains both roles and relates that they are designed to be different but to work together in unity. One role is not superior or inferior. They are just different.
This book also restores the importance of children growing up with fathers. Male figures that hold strongly to their Christian beliefs should be the foundation for Christian families. I loved that the author showed a very admirable, strong, masculine role for men to embrace. I hope more men embrace this role and more wives LET and ENCOURAGE their husbands to take the lead role and not to usurp that role.
The only part of this book that could really be improved was the beginning was slow and the wordiness of the book. Sometimes it took a lot of words to get to a point or to paint a picture. I didn't highlight nearly the amount of sentences as I normally will in a good book. So, this book had good points, but nothing new from John Piper's books on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood. So, if you've heard it before, you probably won't get too much new from this book.
Disclaimer: I received this book free of charge from the publisher but I am not required to give a positive review in exchange for the book. This is my critical review of the book as if I had bought the book with my hard earned money.
This book also restores the importance of children growing up with fathers. Male figures that hold strongly to their Christian beliefs should be the foundation for Christian families. I loved that the author showed a very admirable, strong, masculine role for men to embrace. I hope more men embrace this role and more wives LET and ENCOURAGE their husbands to take the lead role and not to usurp that role.
The only part of this book that could really be improved was the beginning was slow and the wordiness of the book. Sometimes it took a lot of words to get to a point or to paint a picture. I didn't highlight nearly the amount of sentences as I normally will in a good book. So, this book had good points, but nothing new from John Piper's books on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood. So, if you've heard it before, you probably won't get too much new from this book.
Disclaimer: I received this book free of charge from the publisher but I am not required to give a positive review in exchange for the book. This is my critical review of the book as if I had bought the book with my hard earned money.
PASS: One Devil to Another by Richard Platt
At first I thought "Okay, a book from a demon's perspective trying to trick humans into never finding God could be interesting." I thought this could be a clever little marketing idea and thought seeing the tricks demons use could be interesting. But when I actually started to read this book, I realized how dangerous and misleading the teachings of this book are - they destroy the character of God subtlely and almost unnoticably. Without careful discernment, the reader will miss all the clever insinuations that God is really not good. While reading this book, I felt like Satan himself wrote this to trick Christians into a false view of God and I felt this book was blasphemous and disrespectful to God. While bashing demons, this book subtely also bashes God. So while we all already know demons are bad, what good can come from a book that teaches God is "The Adversary, dishonest, a liar, not powerful, weak, sneaky, etc"?
This book is all from the first person perspective of a demon. So our "main character" is a demon and the whole book is written from his evil eyes. This idea alone isn't that dangerous because we expect the demon to be evil. The problem comes when God's character is destroyed and God is painted throughout the book as "evil" "the Adversary" "dishonest" "a liar" "a trickster" "unscrupulous" "breaking God's own rules" "not all powerful" "not in control" "helpless" etc. What good can 180+ pages of lies about God help us love and worship our God? And what's with a full page drawing of a demon on every other page? Yuk... What Christian gets enjoyment out of drawing demons? And not just one. Try like 15.
This book destroys the character of God! And I think many younger Christians will not catch the false unbiblical teachings in this book. This book pretends to teach Christian ideas but fails. It asks "Why do bad things happen to good people?" But it never gives us a real true biblical answer. In fact, it avoids the answer and claims that God permits bad things but doesn't want them. This makes God a weak god who can't even create a world that works the way He wants it to work. This is a sort of Arminianism.
Disclaimer: I received this book free of charge from the publisher but I am not required to give a positive review in exchange for the book. This is my critical review of the book as if I had bought the book with my hard earned money.
This book is all from the first person perspective of a demon. So our "main character" is a demon and the whole book is written from his evil eyes. This idea alone isn't that dangerous because we expect the demon to be evil. The problem comes when God's character is destroyed and God is painted throughout the book as "evil" "the Adversary" "dishonest" "a liar" "a trickster" "unscrupulous" "breaking God's own rules" "not all powerful" "not in control" "helpless" etc. What good can 180+ pages of lies about God help us love and worship our God? And what's with a full page drawing of a demon on every other page? Yuk... What Christian gets enjoyment out of drawing demons? And not just one. Try like 15.
This book destroys the character of God! And I think many younger Christians will not catch the false unbiblical teachings in this book. This book pretends to teach Christian ideas but fails. It asks "Why do bad things happen to good people?" But it never gives us a real true biblical answer. In fact, it avoids the answer and claims that God permits bad things but doesn't want them. This makes God a weak god who can't even create a world that works the way He wants it to work. This is a sort of Arminianism.
Disclaimer: I received this book free of charge from the publisher but I am not required to give a positive review in exchange for the book. This is my critical review of the book as if I had bought the book with my hard earned money.
BUY IT: The Truth About Forgiveness by John MacArthur
The Truth About Forgiveness from John MacArthur is a deep book about sin and our need as humans to be forgiven by a holy perfect God. This book is not really about humans forgiving each other, but our need for God to have mercy upon us. Every single Christian needs to read this book because this is what the gospel is about. This is what our salvation is about. It's full of deep truths about salvation and sin. MacArthur addresses society's ways of excusing sin and sweeping it away under psychology labels like "addition". He explains how people blame everyone but themselves for their sinful conditions and then they deny that these are sins by claiming they are outside of one's control as addictions. If we humans could see that our bad habits are actually sins and could fall upon Jesus Christ to save us, we could be free of those sins that we call addictions. That is what this book is about. It points out the true human condition of sin.
Quotes that summarize this book:
"These days everything wrong with humanity is likely to be explained as an illness. What we used to call sin is more easily diagnosed as a whole array of disabilities. All kinds of immorality and evil conduct are now identified as symptoms of this or that psychological illness. Criminal behavior, various perverse passions, and every imaginable addiction have all been made excusable by the crusade to label them medical afflictions. Even commonplace problems, such as emotional weakness, depression, and anxiety, are also almost universally defined as quasi-medical, rather than spiritual, afflictions."
"But assume for the moment that the problem is sin rather than sickness. The only true remedy involves humble repentance and confession (the recognition that you deserve the chastening of God because you alone are responsible for your sin)—then restitution, and growth through the spiritual disciplines of prayer, Bible study, communion with God, fellowship with other believers, and dependence on Christ. In other words, if the problem is in fact spiritual, labeling it a clinical issue will only exacerbate the problem and will offer no real deliverance from the sin. That is precisely what we see happening everywhere."
"The sad truth is that disease-model treatment is disastrously counterproductive. By casting the sinner in the role of a victim, it ignores or minimizes the personal guilt inherent in the misbehavior. “I am sick” is much easier to say than, “I have sinned.” But it doesn’t deal with the fact that one’s transgression is a serious offense against a holy, omniscient, omnipotent God."
Disclaimer: I received this book free of charge from the publisher but I am not required to give a positive review in exchange for the book. This is my critical review of the book as if I had bought the book with my hard earned money.
Quotes that summarize this book:
"These days everything wrong with humanity is likely to be explained as an illness. What we used to call sin is more easily diagnosed as a whole array of disabilities. All kinds of immorality and evil conduct are now identified as symptoms of this or that psychological illness. Criminal behavior, various perverse passions, and every imaginable addiction have all been made excusable by the crusade to label them medical afflictions. Even commonplace problems, such as emotional weakness, depression, and anxiety, are also almost universally defined as quasi-medical, rather than spiritual, afflictions."
"But assume for the moment that the problem is sin rather than sickness. The only true remedy involves humble repentance and confession (the recognition that you deserve the chastening of God because you alone are responsible for your sin)—then restitution, and growth through the spiritual disciplines of prayer, Bible study, communion with God, fellowship with other believers, and dependence on Christ. In other words, if the problem is in fact spiritual, labeling it a clinical issue will only exacerbate the problem and will offer no real deliverance from the sin. That is precisely what we see happening everywhere."
"The sad truth is that disease-model treatment is disastrously counterproductive. By casting the sinner in the role of a victim, it ignores or minimizes the personal guilt inherent in the misbehavior. “I am sick” is much easier to say than, “I have sinned.” But it doesn’t deal with the fact that one’s transgression is a serious offense against a holy, omniscient, omnipotent God."
Disclaimer: I received this book free of charge from the publisher but I am not required to give a positive review in exchange for the book. This is my critical review of the book as if I had bought the book with my hard earned money.
BUY IT: John MacArthur's The Truth About The Lordship of Christ
The Truth About The Lordship of Christ from John MacArthur is a 100% must read book! This is the kind of book every single Christian needs to read because it is just that good. It's full of deep truths about salvation and sanctification, the process of becoming Christlike. It also explains that the true gospel is one that includes the Lordship of Christ and that non-Lordship teachings are unbiblical and false.
One of my favorite parts: "He was saying that if you’re a true disciple, you’ll be willing to create a division in your own home. That goes against all of our instincts because we want peace in our homes more than anywhere else. That’s our refuge, that’s where the people we love the most and know the best live. We don’t want to be at odds with them. But when we commit ourselves to Jesus Christ, we’ll be true to Him, even if it destroys our homes, our neighborhoods, our cities, or our nation. If that’s the price, we’ll pay it.
Disclaimer: I received this book free of charge from the publisher but I am not required to give a positive review in exchange for the book. This is my critical review of the book as if I had bought the book with my hard earned money.
One of my favorite parts: "He was saying that if you’re a true disciple, you’ll be willing to create a division in your own home. That goes against all of our instincts because we want peace in our homes more than anywhere else. That’s our refuge, that’s where the people we love the most and know the best live. We don’t want to be at odds with them. But when we commit ourselves to Jesus Christ, we’ll be true to Him, even if it destroys our homes, our neighborhoods, our cities, or our nation. If that’s the price, we’ll pay it.
Disclaimer: I received this book free of charge from the publisher but I am not required to give a positive review in exchange for the book. This is my critical review of the book as if I had bought the book with my hard earned money.
BUY IT: John MacArthur's The Truth Of Grace
This book is filled with a beautiful overview of how the grace of God affects all aspects of Christianity. When nearly every Christian book is preaching a false inadequate gospel, MacArthur sticks to the gospel truth and explains to readers the difference between God's true gospel and today's easy-believism gospel that doesn't even save! This book is so important to read and I cannot recommend it highly enough.
The part of this book that stood out the most to me was when MacArthur went into the difference between true salvation and false assurance of salvation and how these relate to sin. If we receive the true gospel, we will receive the Holy Spirit and this Spirit will change our hearts to desire the things of God (truly, not just halfway). By the grace of God, we are given faith, repentance and a desire to obey God's law (in deed and in spirit/heart). If we receive the false easy-believism gospel, we will never really receive the Holy Spirit but only think we have. And so all our good works will be from our own efforts. We will have no Holy Spirit to help our good works. These will be self-righteous works, just like the Pharisees. Works from the hands of human achievement. MacArthur rightly points out, the good works of a Chrisitan are from God. All good things are from God. I think it is so important to know the difference between NOT accidentally trying to earn your salvation through works vs actually living for God and because of your love for God and His things (His law), then good works naturally flow from a believer. The motivation and power from which good works flow are different in a believer and unbeliever. This is so key. Please read this book because your salvation or someone you know will need to know this true gospel and realize that they may have been tricked into false assurance of salvation all along.
Disclaimer: I received this book free of charge from the publisher but I am not required to give a positive review in exchange for the book. This is my critical review of the book as if I had bought the book with my hard earned money.
The part of this book that stood out the most to me was when MacArthur went into the difference between true salvation and false assurance of salvation and how these relate to sin. If we receive the true gospel, we will receive the Holy Spirit and this Spirit will change our hearts to desire the things of God (truly, not just halfway). By the grace of God, we are given faith, repentance and a desire to obey God's law (in deed and in spirit/heart). If we receive the false easy-believism gospel, we will never really receive the Holy Spirit but only think we have. And so all our good works will be from our own efforts. We will have no Holy Spirit to help our good works. These will be self-righteous works, just like the Pharisees. Works from the hands of human achievement. MacArthur rightly points out, the good works of a Chrisitan are from God. All good things are from God. I think it is so important to know the difference between NOT accidentally trying to earn your salvation through works vs actually living for God and because of your love for God and His things (His law), then good works naturally flow from a believer. The motivation and power from which good works flow are different in a believer and unbeliever. This is so key. Please read this book because your salvation or someone you know will need to know this true gospel and realize that they may have been tricked into false assurance of salvation all along.
Disclaimer: I received this book free of charge from the publisher but I am not required to give a positive review in exchange for the book. This is my critical review of the book as if I had bought the book with my hard earned money.
Pass: Max Lucado's Great Day Every Day
I guess I shouldn't have expected a deep book, considering the author, but I didn't expect Max Lucado's Great Day Every Day to be so "devotion-like". I felt like I was reading a feel-good devotional. Or reading Joel Osteen, with all positive thinking, positive messages. I have read some of Lucado's books before and although I wouldn't call them deep, at least they have a little substance. This book was shallower than most.
Like all his other books, this book includes the false easy-believism gospel. Lucado teaches that all we need to do is believe in who Jesus is and what he did and we will be saved. But the gospel that Jesus preaches in the Bible is all about dying to self, conviction of sin, and repentance. Why else did John the Baptist and Jesus keep going around saying "Repent! Repent!" Lucado does not include repentance in his version of the gospel. A gospel without the core message is no gospel at all.
Disclaimer: I received this book free of charge from the publisher but I am not required to give a positive review in exchange for the book. This is my critical review of the book as if I had bought the book with my hard earned money.
Like all his other books, this book includes the false easy-believism gospel. Lucado teaches that all we need to do is believe in who Jesus is and what he did and we will be saved. But the gospel that Jesus preaches in the Bible is all about dying to self, conviction of sin, and repentance. Why else did John the Baptist and Jesus keep going around saying "Repent! Repent!" Lucado does not include repentance in his version of the gospel. A gospel without the core message is no gospel at all.
Disclaimer: I received this book free of charge from the publisher but I am not required to give a positive review in exchange for the book. This is my critical review of the book as if I had bought the book with my hard earned money.
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