“Be still and know that I am God”

MORNINGS WITH JESUS 2012 is a daily devotional with 366 days of scripture and devotions for each day of this leap year.

Each devotional starts with scripture, followed by the devotional, and then the application. They are only a page or less in length, so don’t take much time to read. Just a few minutes of time to get your focus on God, and start the day off right.

This is not a detailed Bible study for the serious scholar, or for the fifteen minutes of Bible study that the maturing Christian should have. However, it is an excellent way to begin each day by focusing on God.

The devotions are written by some of our favorite fiction authors such as Judy Baer, Tricia Goyer, Camy Tang, and some that are known for their other devotions, like Keri Wyatt Kent.

I enjoyed reading through this devotional and using it with my family each day. I highly recommend this devotional as an excellent start to the day. 377 pages. Available in kindle, hardcover, and paperback.

When the questions are hard and the answers unpopular, will you stay devoted to Christ?
Are you ready to speak the truth even when your friends roll their eyes, take offense, or walk away?

The core beliefs of the Christian faith have become today’s four letter words. Annoyed by the Christ-follower’s “narrow-mindedness,” our politically correct culture enforces a highly selective tolerance: fist-bumping any philosophical fad and moral deviation as long as it’s not in harmony with Grandma’s leather Bible.

The four letter words addressed include (but are not limited to):

 True: Its unreasonable to believe the Bible has the monopoly on truth
 Know: Science contradicts the Bible
 Pain: If God is real, He’d stop the pain
 Evil: Good and evil don’t really exist—Christians are judgmental
 Damn: Hell isn’t real
 Wait: Sex isn’t a sin

FOUR LETTER WORDS is a great resource for small groups and Bible studies, college groups, personal study, anyone wanting to know Jesus, youth groups and retreats. Discussion guide is included at the end of every book.

FOUR LETTER WORDS is one of the first fully interactive, QR enabled books on the market. You can use your smartphone to scan the codes throughout this book for more resources.

We live in a world that hates Christians. Everything is tolerated except Christianity. And when we ask for our views to be respected, people scream intolerance. This is a much needed book. Uncompromised. $13.99. 207 pages.

An interview with Ed Welch, author of 

What are some questions we can ask ourselves to determine if we are being too controlled by the opinions of others?    

The list is a long one here. Am I angry? hopeless? self-protective? afraid? ashamed? depressed? withdrawing? Do I lie to make myself look better? Do I try to attach myself to the celebrity or popular person with the hope of enhancing my own reputation?

Can you explain the term “peer pressure” and what it really means?  

I don’t hear this word as much as I once did. It usually means that we are willing to do things we wouldn’t normally do as a way to be accepted by others. There is a good kind of peer pressure, when a youth group really wants to know Jesus better, but that’s not the way it usually happens. We have a lot of the Old Testament biographies in us, and in those cases when a person who belonged to God met a person who loved his or her idols, the follower of God started following the idols and not vice versa. Of course, in the age of the Spirit that can be different.

You say that so much of life comes down to three questions. Can you tell us what they are and how we can find the answers to them?

The questions are Who is God? Who am I? and Who are you?  The answers can be a little difficult to discover. Most of us know the correct theological answers to these questions, but there are the correct ones and then there are the ones we really believe. That why the topic of the opinions of other people is so handy. It can surprise us with our REAL answers to those questions.

So what are some of the real answers?

Who is God? Picky, distant, nice but irrelevant.

Who am I? Needy, I must find an identity in myself – who I am and what I do? The problem is that God isn’t very relevant and other people don’t solve the problem because I am a never ending hole that is looking to others so I can feel okay about myself.

Who are you? A threat, a god.

If we use these three basic questions, the question about God tends to be irrelevant, which is at the very heart of the problem. The normal answer is, he loves me [but so what?]. Why doesn’t his love make that much difference? It’s because other people have become our substitute god. The only way that God’s love becomes relevant is for “Why do I care?” to become a confession, as in “Lord, why do I care so much about me and my desires?” That takes an ordinary desire [for approval, love, acceptance, belonging . . . ] that has grown to extraordinary proportions so that it is a ruling or even idolatrous desire, and it brings that desire back to being an ordinary one in which other people’s poor opinions can hurt us, but not control us.

And who are other people? We want to love them just a little more than be loved by them.

You write a lot in your book about worship. Tell us why this is such an important theme and how it applies to the issue of people pleasing.

Worship seems like a once-a-Sunday thing, but Scripture puts life in either/or terms: either we love God or something else, we trust in God or something else, we bow down to God or something else. Bowing down or worshipping is a vivid and accurate way to describe what is always taking place in our hearts. The word control gets at it. What controls us is our god. What controls us is what we adore and worship.

How can recognizing everyone in our lives—acquaintances, loved ones, friends and enemies—as FAMILY change our perspectives and the way we live with and think about others?

We can have wretched families that are more like enemies than families, but most of us are familiar with relationships in which we love people freely. We don’t have to put on airs, we are always wondering what they are thinking about us. Instead, we simply love and enjoy them. When we are interested, we are more interested in them than we are in what they think of us. That recognizable experience moves us toward a way out from this particular human struggle. At the end of the day, love God and love your neighbor is where we will find lots of answers.

About the Author: Edward T. Welch, M.Div., Ph.D., is a licensed psychologist and faculty member at the Christian Counseling & Educational Foundation (CCEF). He has counseled for over twenty-five years and is the best-selling author of many books, including When People Are Big and God Is Small; Addictions: A Banquet in the Grave; Blame It on the Brain?; Depression: A Stubborn Darkness; Crossroads: A Step-by-Step Guide Away from Addiction; Running Scared: Fear, Worry and the God of Rest; and When I Am Afraid: A Step-by-Step Guide Away from Fear and Anxiety. He and his wife Sheri have two daughters, two sons-in-law and four grandchildren.

 What Do You Think of Me? Why Do I Care?: Answers to the Big Questions of Life by Edward T. Welch
New Growth Press/November 2011
ISBN 978-1-935273-86-8/160 pages/paperback/$12.99
www.newgrowthpress.com ~ http://www.ccef.org/blog

]]> http://christianbookwormreviews.com/2012/01/interview-ed-welch-author-of-what-do-you-think-of-me-why-do-i-care/feed/ 0 http://christianbookwormreviews.com/2012/01/review-love-finds-you-in-amana-iowa/ http://christianbookwormreviews.com/2012/01/review-love-finds-you-in-amana-iowa/#comments Tue, 24 Jan 2012 17:04:26 +0000 Laura http://christianbookwormreviews.com/?p=6508 Title: LOVE FINDS YOU IN AMANA, IOWA
Author: Melanie Dobson
Publisher: Summerside Press
June 2011
ISBN: 978-1609361358
Genre: Inspirational/historical

Amalie Wiese is traveling from New York to Iowa to join the new Amana communities as a head cook. She’s also engaged to marry Friedrich, another man in the Amana community. It takes five weeks of brutal travel by wagon train to reach Iowa, and Amalie’s train is almost stopped by Rebel soldiers burning Yankee cities and towns and running the wagon train travelers off in to the forest where who knows what evil waits.

When Amalie arrives in Amana, she is anxious to see Friedrich. But he is no where to be found. Then she learns that he went off, against the wishes of the community, to fight in the War Between the States. Friedrich’s best friend, Matthias is still there, but he’s distant and cold.

When Matthias also leaves for the battlefront, war rages in Amalie’s heart. Who will claim the victory?

LOVE FINDS YOU IN AMANA, IOWA is set thirty years earlier than Ms. Dobson’s Love Finds You in Homestead, Iowa which is also set in the Amana communities. I loved the book in Homestead, Iowa, and was looking forward to reading this one. A friend of mine actually received this book for review but she hated it, and passed it on to me to review instead.

LOVE FINDS YOU IN AMANA, IOWA is a slower paced story, dragging at times, and Amalie at times seems a cold and uncaring heroine, but that is only because she cares so deeply she’s afraid to let herself feel—she might violate the rules of the community. Friedrich is also a caring man. Deeply in love with Amalie, but also hating the war that is raving between the states, and what it is doing to the oppressed people. Matthias himself is torn by the war, but he is above all, obedient to his leaders and if they say no, the answer is no. I cared for all these people, and had to keep reading to find out what happens, but the story is very slow, enabling people to put it down and not forcing them to keep reading. I’m giving it 4.5 stars. $12.99. 315 pages.

I received this book in return for review from Christian Bookworm Reviews

In August of 1944 Paris is on the cusp of liberation. The soldiers of the Third Reich are fleeing the Allied advance, but enroute they steal countless pieces of irreplaceable art. Reichsmarschall Hermann Goring will stop at nothing to claim the most valuable piece of all, the Mona Lisa.

Swiss OSS agents Gabi Mueller and Eric Hofstadler are on a mission to rescue the valuable French pieces of art – but can they save them not only from the ravages of war, but also from German hands?

CHASING MONA LISA is a book that I hoped I would love. I loved all of Ms. Goyer’s historical fiction set during World War II and before, but this book left me cold.

Loosely based on a true story, about how people tried to protect the famed Mona Lisa, this book had potential. But it is written in a style that left me skimming, with lots of art information and historical facts tossed in, as well as overly descriptive accounts of the landscape and other sights.

Unfortunately, CHASING MONA LISA read like it tried to be authentic with the many facts, but there was no real story line which left me hopelessly confused and bored. However, I see many reviews across the board equally balanced between 3 and 5 stars so don’t take my word for it—this is only my opinion. You might totally love this book. I don’t. $14.99. 322 pages.

Danna Carpenter cannot buy help, since her husband was murdered, she is now the Sheriff and cannot get any help. It is nearly like there is a plot against her. A new man in town offers his help, turns out he is a private investigator hired to find out who is stealing cattle in the area. Throwing his hat in the ring to help her, sets him up as a target too.

Trying to find out who murdered her husband is at the top of Danna’s priority list. But she is hindered by the fact that no one will help her as deputies, and she keeps wondering if someone is threatening the former deputies, keeping them from helping her and causing her fail at her job.

The attraction to the new guy in town, also really alarms Danna. She has never felt like this, even with her husband who was murdered.

This was quick read, really sweet story with a happy ending. Definitely a book to read and enjoy on a quiet afternoon. 4 stars

This book was provided by Christian Bookwormreviews for review purposes only..no payment was received for this review.

“I am the bread of life” John 6:48

Those words really put holiday overindulgence into perspective don’t they? Perhaps the overindulgence we could enter into this Christmas is filling up on the “bread of life” instead of the bread of this world—after all, Jesus was placed in a manger (a feeding trough!) as a baby.

When we think of the bread of this world, do you think of physical bread? It can be that as well as what I call the “soul junk food” of this world. I’m referring to the PG-13, R-rated (and worse) so-called “entertainment” of this world (TV, movies, music, etc.).

Okay, now I’m meddling, right? It’s just that I’ve found that if I’m filling up on the world’s junk food through my eyes and ears, I also seem to want to satisfy my mouth with the world’s processed junk foods for my body.

When I’m taking in less life through the Word into my spirit, my discernment and choices in other areas of my life aren’t as clear or focused.

Pick a Scripture Snack” Each Day

Fill up on real soul food! Pick one “Scripture snack” to chew on each day. Today my “snack” from the Word was the verse at the beginning of this article where Jesus said, “I am the bread of life.”

Throughout the day I went back to that Word and asked the Lord to give me new revelation on it. I noticed my focus became clearer, I made better choices in a number of areas and I felt satisfied on the inside (not “stuffed” and numb from overindulging my flesh as I had so many times before).

More Practical Tips

In addition to ensuring your heart and mind are full of the Word, here are 5 tips to help you spearhead the movement in your family to a healthier Christmas and 2010:

1. Make a difference in someone’s life. Focus on one or two people you are going to get to know better over the holiday. This can be a member of your own family, a friend, a neighbor, perhaps even someone at church who needs to be with a family at Christmas (why not yours?).

2. If you don’t move, you lose. Much of the weight gain during the holidays is due to a lack of physical exercise. Decide to get some exercise in early in the day before the hubbub of activity starts.

3. Make it a family affair. After the big meal, be the instigator behind a “Let’s all go outside and walk off some of that delicious dinner before dessert!” I think you’d be surprised how many will thank you for it later!

4. Don’t skip meals. Even if you think you may be eating more over the holidays, don’t make the mistake of skipping meals so you can “stock up” later.

5. Drink plenty of water. Stay well-hydrated. It will also ensure you eat less. We often reach for a high-calorie snack when our body is really crying out for water.

Above all, stay focused on making sure your spirit is well-fed. You will sail through the holidays and into 2010 with your heart full, your mind clear and your body full of energy as a fit witness for Christ. He is able to do “exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us” (Eph. 4:20).

Let’s believe Him for it – and share our victory with others this holiday season.

And now I’d like to invite you to learn about the new PraiseFast program, get my free "Fit Favorites Devotional" and PraiseMoves FitNews. Please go to http://praisemoves.com.

© Laurette Willis 2009

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Christian Fitness Expert and author Laurette Willis is the Director of PraiseMoves, offering fitness programs, DVDs, books and training for those interested in a Christian alternative to yoga, and fitness for spirit, soul and body at http://praisemoves.com. To follow Laurette on Twitter visit http://twitter.com/Fit4Christ and on FaceBook: http://facebook.com/praisemoves

Georgie Gail is a rural switchboard operator, and proud of her independence. She may live in a man’s world, but she does a man’s job…or at least she did, until the telephone company sends out Luke Palmer to look over her shoulder.

Luke Palmer is more than just an employee of the telephone company. He is a Texas Ranger, sent there to apprehend a notorious gang of train robbers. Repairing telephones and tangling with the tempestuous telephone operator is the last thing he wants to do.

But when his stake-out puts Georgie in peril, he realizes more than his job is one the line.

LOVE ON THE LINE is the latest high-powered romance by bestselling author, Deeanne Gist. I have read almost all her books and have loved almost all of them, including this one. I absolutely love the tension between the hero and heroine.

Georgie and Luke don’t exactly make good impressions on each other on their first meeting…nor the second or the third. Readers will root for this unlikely hero and heroine. Be prepared for some unexpected surprises. The author’s note at the end of the book is interesting as well. $14.99. 368 pages.

Title: REMEMBERING YOU
Author: Tricia Goyer
Publisher: Guideposts
November 2011
ISBN: 978-0-8249-4812-2
Genre: Inspirational/contemporary/general

Ava Ellington has just broken up with her boyfriend, Jay, and her job is quickly going south. Fearing she’ll be fired, Ava promises to come up with a news story that people will want to see, not turn the channel. But she doesn’t know what it is—at least until her mother falls and breaks her leg, and Ava is asked to accompany her elderly grandfather to Europe to visit all the World War II battle sites and concentration camps. She plans to video tape the men talking about their memories and the battle fields.

When Ava and her grandfather get to Paris, plans go awry. First, Ava is shocked that her grandfather’s best friend, Paul, is accompanied by his grandson, Dennis—Ava’s first love. Secondly, their tour guide cancelled and they were going to skip all the battlefields but go straight to the concentration camp. Ava’s and her grandfather decide to break off from the tour and go on their own, but then Ava learns that Dennis and his grandfather are breaking off too. They decide to travel together.

But traveling with two elderly men and an old flame isn’t easy—still, Ava hopes that she’ll be able to reconnect with her grandfather, keep her job—and possibly stir up the embers that once connected her and Dennis.

REMEMBERING YOU is another “World War II” book from Ms. Goyer. Not exactly like the ones I loved (From Dust to Ashes, etc) but instead this one is contemporary with a modern day hero and heroine, and the war heroes of the day telling their stories. As a result, the book is more telling, as the men looked at the fields and talked, but it is still quite interesting. I think I would have liked to have seen pictures.

If you like contemporary romances with a large helping of history, then Tricia Goyer’s REMEMBERING YOU will be perfect. It might also be perfect for the WWII veteran on your Christmas gift list. Fascinating notes from the author are included at the end of the book, as well as discussion questions. $14.99. 311 pages.

Title: BABY, IT’S COLD OUTSIDE
Author: Susan May Warren
Publisher: Summerside Press
September 2011
ISBN: 978-1-60936-215-7
Genre: Inspirational/historical/romance

Dottie Morgan made a mistake. The blessing was that she had a son. But now her son, a high-school football champion, is dead, killed in WWII, and Dottie is in mourning. She wonders if she’ll ever survive the loss.

Violet Hart went to serve in factories, installing wheels on the vehicles that were used in the war. She came home with everyone seemingly blaming her for putting the boys in the line of danger, blaming her for the deaths of the boys that didn’t come home, because she did a man’s job. She fell in love with another soldier, Alex, but now the Christmas card she sent him was marked “return to sender.”

Dottie has few food supplies in her house when a storm blows in. Violet goes out to her farm to try and borrow a star from Dottie and rescues Dottie from certain death. But she’s involved in an accident on the way out of Dottie’s yard. And two more join them as the evening progresses, all stranded by the storm. Will this holiday be more than a parade of memories? Could it bring hope?

BABY, IT’S COLD OUTSIDE is set in the aftermaths of WWII, after the boys who were returning had returned. When those who loss someone were still mourning. And when all were trying to find the strength to go on.

Dottie was bitter, hurt and upset for things that happened to her. So much so that she couldn’t see what was right in front of her eyes. Violet wants to open the town of Frost, Minnesota up to living again—restarting the Christmas story hour, hanging the star, and reviving other old traditions—ones that Dottie holds captive in her bitterness. But each of these women have someone in the background—someone they never realized was there. This is a really good Christmas story and includes a recipe at the end of the book. $12.99. 314 pages.