Tag Archives: Reading

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Openings

How God Often Reveals Himself To Us

Sometimes, I am amazed by what God points out to me when I spend time in his Word. It is completely true that Scripture is living and vibrant. Every time you read it, you can find something new, something that you may have never noticed before. This happened to me recently, as I was researching some words for another study.

Openings

Our church is currently in a sermon series that we have called Upside Down, where we are looking at God’s view of money, finances and stewardship. What God gives us about this topic in his Word is completely flipped from most of what we hear from the world’s perspective.

I was studying a passage in Malachi 3, preparing for a sermon, and was digging into the meaning of the phrase “windows of heaven” or “floodgates.” As I dug into the passage, I determined that the idea of an “opening” was really what God was trying to convey to Israel, and to us. So I expanded my study, and began looking for passages that spoke of openings.

One of the passages I found is from the final chapter of Luke, where a couple of disciples have an encounter with Jesus on the road to a town called Emmaus. How many times have I read this passage? How many times have I wondered what it was like for those two disciples as they encountered Jesus? How many times did I miss this process by which we often learn more about God and his work and will in our lives?

Luke details the event, and right in the middle of it, there are three openings, which I think are progressive in nature, helping us to see know God wants us to understand. Luke explains three different actions, or openings.

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Epiphanies In The Psalms

Insights Revealed With Startling Clarity

Have you ever had an epiphany when reading the Bible? One of those moments when something becomes so suddenly clear that it almost catches you by surprise? That happens to me occasionally, and it’s always an exciting moment for me.

Epiphanies In The Psalms

First of all, let’s define the word “epiphany.” According to dictionary.com, and epiphany is “a sudden, intuitive perception of or insight into the reality or essential meaning of something, usually initiated by some simple, homely, or commonplace occurrence or experience.” In other words, in a normal, everyday reading of God’s Word, something can jump out at you so suddenly, and with such insight, as to catch you by complete surprise.

That happened to me a few days ago. I have been reading through C. S. Lewis’s book, Reflections On the Psalms, and I had an insight that I have never thought of before. It caught me off guard, and it has been bouncing around in my mind ever since. I’m not certain I understand it completely, and will probably have to reflect on it for some time before I do. But I feel like it is one of those nuggets of truth that I just can’t seem to let go of.

The Psalms were written before Christ obviously, and are included in the Old Testament. As such, they were a primary part of the Hebrew Scriptures. Throughout them, you can find the concept of God’s judgment all over the place. This idea is common in the New Testament as well, and pervades almost every page of Scripture to some degree. It’s a very integral theme of God’s narrative with mankind.

For the Old Testament Jewish reader, the judgment of God brings to mind the scene of a courtroom, just as it does for us today, but with one very significant difference. In our minds, we see that scene as a criminal court, and we are the ones on trial, about to experience the judgment of God. For the ancient Jew, the scene wasn’t a criminal court, it was a civil court. An ancient reader would see the courtroom scene in a very different way, with himself as the plaintiff. For us, we seek God’s mercy, and an acquittal. The ancient Jew would have sought justice, punishment for those who have wronged him, and damages paid to make it right.

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Midnight At The Tuscany Hotel by James Markert

A Book Review for The Randleman Review

I have read and enjoyed several of the novels written by James Markert over the last few years. His writing style is fun and engaging, and his ability to capture my attention and hold it is pretty steady. With this novel, however, I had a harder time staying connected to it for some reason.

For the life of me, I cannot point to anything I didn’t like about Midnight At The Tuscany Hotel. It just didn’t grab my attention like his other novels have. Don’t get me wrong, the story line was great, and it was an intriguing plot, set in a time period I love, and had an air of the mystical with an emphasis on Greek mythology. I loved that part of it.

All in all, it was a great book. I just had a difficult time staying engaged for whatever reason. I may come back to this book in a year or two and read it again, and probably enjoy it immensely. At that point, I will probably be able to enjoy it more fully.

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The Maxwell Leadership Bible

A Book Review for The Randleman Review

The Maxwell Leadership BibleI have been a longtime fan and reader of the leadership material produced by John Maxwell.

I was first introduced to Maxwell at an InJoy conference several years ago that our ministry staff went to in the Kansas City area, and was immediately hooked. Since that time, I have read several of his books, and gained a lot of leadership abilities from doing so.

Maxwell spent the first portion of his career in ministry, and that influenced a lot of his leadership abilities. Drawing lessons from the Word of God was a natural connection, and an excellent source of foundational material for successful leadership. Seeing a need in contemporary society for leadership, and recognizing the void that existed in this area, Maxwell began to implement biblical principles into the leadership framework, and has since become a mainstay in the leadership community.

It was only natural, then, to produce a Bible with footnotes based on a theme of leadership. Inside The Leadership Bible, Maxwell has given overviews of each book, with emphasis on leadership material found within that book. From there, on various pages throughout Scripture, you can find various examples of the Laws of Leadership, and leadership profiles of people found within the pages of God’s Word.

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Life Plan Review

Staying On Top Of The Greater Things

Several years ago, I developed a Life Plan, outlining the most important aspects of my life, and what I wanted to achieve in each of those areas. Periodically, I take the time to review that plan, in order to make sure I stay on track.

Life Plan Review

I was first introduced to the idea of a Life Plan by Michael Hyatt, through his blog on leadership. At that point, he was the CEO of Thomas Nelson Publishers, and was striving to help others develop their leadership abilities on the side. Since then, he has made his leadership platform his main work, and has developed it into a full time business.

His blog and podcast are full of great leadership resources. Most of these are designed for the corporate or business mind, but there is a lot of overlap into the church as well. I find a lot of his resources to be extremely helpful, to the point of being almost invaluable.

One such resource is the development of my Life Plan. I initially wrote out a detailed plan for my life around 2011, identifying those areas of my life that were most important to me, and striving to make them the best that they can be.

I have written about this before, describing what a Life Plan looks like, and how I have fit it into my life.

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The Wiersbe Study Bible

A Book Review for The Randleman Review

The Wiersbe Study BibleThe first time I was introduced to the writing of Warren W. Wiersbe was when I was a student at Ozark Christian College, in a preaching class. One of our assigned readings was a small book called Elements Of Preaching. It was simple and yet profound, and formed some of the basis upon which I still craft my sermons and lessons twenty-five years later.

It didn’t take me long to track down a few other books by Wiersbe to add to my library, each as helpful as that first one. When I saw that there was a new Wiersbe Study Bible, I was immediately interested in looking it over. And I was not disappointed.

Of course, the text of the Bible is not what is on review here; it is the study notes that accompany the text itself. And these notes are phenomenal. Warren Wiersbe has a very intellectual mind, and that is very apparent in any of his books that I have read over the years. But these notes, while containing much that is challenging to the thought process, also remain very approachable and are not above the head of the average Bible reader.

The Wiersbe Study Bible has several great features that can help anyone striving to learn more about the Bible. Each book has a detailed introduction and an outline. Along with the overview, each book contains a section called “Be Transformed,” which is a practical application section, outlining several key aspects of each book for daily growth. Add to this the study notes, special notes, and cross references, and you have an excellent tool for spiritual growth.

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The Baggage Handler by David Rawlings

A Book Review for The Randleman Review

The Baggage HandlerFiction is fun to read, but when fiction has a point to it, that seems to make it even better. Some of my favorite examples of this are novels written by Andy Andrews, such as The Traveler’s Gift, The Noticer, and The Heart Mender. In that vein, David Rawlings has written a fictional novel with a solid point in his book The Baggage Handler.

The premise is simple. Three different people have their baggage mixed up by an airline. Each of them are struggling with significant issues in their immediate lives. As they arrive at the location where they can receive the correct baggage, they each meet the Baggage Handler. This young man speaks some pointed truths into each of their lives that they may not have wanted to hear, but they needed to hear.

The Baggage Handler is a quick and easy book to read, but as the pages turned, I realized that Rawlings holds some deep insights into more lives than just the three fictional lives presented in his book. The truths he presents are simple, yet profound, and the impacted my thoughts in a way that was fresh and gave some new perspective to some of the baggage that I find myself carrying in my own life.