Jesus the Terrible Salesman
Jan2
Recently I’ve begun a hobby in sales, which has caused me to see salespeople in a new way and to consider my own sales process. I’ve also been noticing that Jesus was a TERRIBLE salesperson. Rather, He wasn’t a salesperson at all! He wouldn’t let His disciples say goodbye to their families (Luke 9:59-62), He demanded His followers give up everything they had (Luke 14:25-27, Mat 19:20-21), He spoke in parables so that only the ones who wanted to understand would hear His message (Mark 4:9-12), He ministered to people with great miracles and then told them not to tell anyone (Mat 8:2-4), He at one point confronted His disciples and told them not to follow Him anymore if they didn’t want to (John 6:60-71), and He promised them persecution (Luke 21:12, John 15:20). If “selling” Himself and His gospel was the goal, these weren’t the best techniques.
Jesus could have created a large following, changed the government, declared Himself King, stayed alive, and lived a happy human life. But it wasn’t His mission. He wanted to change the whole whole by conquering sin and death and salvaging humanity from the chains of the devil. He wanted to save the people then AND the people yet to be born (us); and He wanted to rescue us both from the pain of sin now AND from the pain of Hades that was due to us. He spent His life on us, so that we might have eternal life through Him. Later, He will come back to declare Himself King, change the government, win the war, and enjoy life with us–the earth will be baptized in fire and the heavens will open. It won’t be good news for everyone, but we get to decide carefully whether to on Jesus’ team or against Him.
I love that God does not infringe on our free will. We can make whatever choice we decide is best for us (to accept Him, or maybe not to), and He wants us to fully consider our spiritual choices. Jesus said:
“If anyone comes to Me, and does not [by comparison of his love for Me] hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple. Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple. For which one of you, when he wants to build a tower, does not first sit down and calculate the cost to see if he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who observe it begin to ridicule him, saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish.’ Or what king, when he sets out to meet another king in battle, will not first sit down and consider whether he is strong enough with ten thousand men to encounter the one coming against him with twenty thousand? Or else, while the other is still far away, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace. So then, none of you can be My disciple who does not give up all his own possessions.” (Luke 14:26-33)
Here in California there are many building developments that halted when the economy dropped that will likely never be finished. And I can think of at least one “king” who started a war he couldn’t finish. But Jesus says, don’t be stupid like that. Consider following Me. If you believe I’m the Messiah, that I died on your behalf, that I rose again and am still alive in heaven waiting for the harvest of My people to be ripe so I can return to remove evil from the earth–if you believe I am who I say I am and that I’m worth it: give up everything and follow Me.
Jesus didn’t come to trick and manipulate people. He’s not a conniving cult leader. And yet a portion of the Jews believed Him, began to spread the gospel and started this thing we call Christianity. If you aren’t a follower of Jesus, you should carefully consider whether He is worth following. And if you love Jesus like I do, let me remind and encourage you that it’s not our job to convince anyone of anything–just to allow the Holy Spirit to work in us, and to share the good news of the gospel in a way that allows everyone the chance to consider if Jesus is Lord.
Review of Relentless by John Bevere
Jan0
Genre: Spiritual Growth
NOT Recommended.
I want to start by saying that I really like John Bevere. I believe he hears from God and desires to teach in the ways of God. Several of his teachings have been a blessing to me. And so I am deeply saddened that no one prevented him from publicly declaring in this book the blasphemous statement that “we are Christ.” The first time he used this phrase I thought maybe there was a linguistic error, then the statement was repeated (more than once)! How did this happen!?! I find that this kind of theological error is too big to disregard. It causes all the good things he says before and afterward to be irrelevant. We can not be followers of Christ and also believe we are Christ; it does not work!
Indeed, we are not Christ! We are part of his body, yes. We have, through His grace, received inconceivable spiritual gifts and spiritual blessings that we don’t deserve and don’t yet fully understand: it’s amazing! Someone needs to tell the body how much we’ve inherited through Christ and in Christ–and that should have been the outcome of this book. But we are not Christ. He is the head of us (the source of us) and through His power we live. We are His body, and yet, we do not and will never replace Him. We represent Him, but do not become Him. We will do (and should be doing) amazing things through the power of the Holy Spirit–Jesus said even greater things than He did. Yet the power still comes from Him and is ushered in by our weakness. We are not and do not become Christ. We have the grace to carry the divine, while not being divine ourselves.
Since personally being delivered from the power of the occult, I can not emphasize this enough. We (the body) need to learn to walk in full understanding of our identity in Christ with power and confident access to the Holy Spirit. But we can not mistake the source of our power. It is not from within us (though the Spirit does dwell there when we invite Him to), or from other spirits; it comes from Jesus Christ who is our head.
I, honestly, would be very surprised if John Bevere actually believes what it sounds like he is saying (or maybe he does?). But certainly there has been a confusion, and I do believe that this is a big mistake. I hope that all involved in the realm of Christian writing and publishing will be careful in prayer and discernment with future publications.
I received a complementary ARC of this book from WaterBrook Multnomah.
Review of Heart of Ice by Lis Wiehl with April Henry
Jan0
Genre: Fiction/Suspense/Crime Mystery
Recommended.
This is the first book I’ve read of the Triple Threat Series, and I enjoyed it. It was light reading, suspenseful, with interesting characters–and it takes place in Portland Oregon, which happens to be one of my favorite cities.
The “triple threat” is made up of Federal Prosecutor Allison Pierce, FBI Special Agent Nicole Hedges, and crime reporter Cassidy Shaw. These good friends are able to investigate and solve crimes, and also support each other through every-day-life.
Heart of Ice is unique from other crime mysteries in that the perpetrator, Elizabeth, is introduced from the beginning–as someone the other characters know well. There is plenty of suspense, however, since the reader has inside information into the killer’s background and sociopathic mindset which the characters do not have. A few scenes were almost too intense/graphic for me, and since the book does realistically present situations of theft, murder, manipulation, arson, fraud and a bit of sexuality, I wouldn’t recommend it to teen readers.
It’s not obvious that this book is Christian fiction, though one character does have spiritual convictions (which are subtly displayed). Had I picked this up in an airport (for instance), I wouldn’t have guessed it was Christian at all, though the language was clean, and I suppose the darker elements (murder, etc.) could have been even more graphic. I’m interested to see if there may be Christian themes in the series overall.
I received a complimentary copy of this book as a part of the Thomas Nelson Book Review Blogging Program through booksneeze.com.
Dinner Miracles in our Home
Dec1
We were blessed to have three guests in our home last week visiting our area with their college a cappella group. It was our first time hosting strangers overnight, so we were very excited. Due to my excitement, or perhaps something else, I made two silly mistakes while preparing dinner for us and our guests: 1) I forgot to double the soup recipe that I made, so it was going to serve 4 large bowls or 6 small bowls at most, 2) I made cornbread and forgot to put in the 2 cups of cornmeal. I’m not sure how these things happened as I’m typically a pretty good cook and pretty level headed person. In fact, with the cornbread, I had a moment before baking it that I thought, “Something is wrong; it’s not typically this watery and the smell is wrong.” I looked over the recipe again to see what I was missing, but somehow my eyes didn’t focus on ‘cornmeal’ and I baked it anyway, assuming I’d done everything correctly.
I realized both my mistakes five minutes before we had to leave for the concert. By the time we got home with our college students it was going to be 9 pm–too late to remake anything, and all of our guests had dietary needs (as do we), so this wasn’t something that could be solved with ordering pizza. Instead, I prayed over the food–and the whole house–and trusted that the Lord would do something. The logical side of me was thinking, “If everyone eats half a bowl of soup and lots of salad…Maybe it will work.”
But two amazing things happened. First, the soup was multiplied. I watched as each of the guests served themselves a full bowl, worrying there would not be enough, then one for my husband and a half bowl for our son. I assumed I’d just be eating salad, but I reached the ladle and pulled it up to see that there was enough for me after all! Later in the meal, everyone took seconds–including me: that makes 10.5 bowls. And when we’d all eaten enough, we had so much left it wouldn’t fit in our storage containers and had to be stored in a pitcher instead! The next day I counted 3 full bowls of leftovers. God multiplied my soup from 4ish bowls to 13.5 bowls!!! This is more than triple! I’ve made this same soup many times for our family and sometimes my husband and I have eaten it all in one sitting. This was truly a miracle!
Second, the Lord did a miracle with my cornbread. It didn’t taste like corn–not even remotely. But it was MUCH BETTER than normal! It also had a very bread-like consistency despite being made almost entirely of liquid. I had warned the guests of my mistake beforehand: that the bread may be terrible and they were free to raid the refrigerator afterward. But it was not necessary, Jesus blessed us greatly, despite my lack of faith.
He is SO good!
Review of Night of the Living Dead Christian by Matt Mikalatos
Dec4
Genre: Allegorical Fiction/Satire/Spiritual Growth
Highly Recommended!
I’m not sure how to describe Night of the Living Dead Christian except that it’s full-on satire, very unique, and very good. Mikalatos mixes elements of fiction and non-fiction, and even includes himself as a character within the story. The story follows lycanthropic (werewolf) Luther Ann Martin as he discovers what it means to be a Christian and how to become free of his animalistic tendencies. Vampires, mad scientists, an android and a congregation of zombies are also woven into the narrative.
Each of the monsters or monstrous conditions represent various problems or tendencies within human nature, and through this, Mikalatos demonstrates the process of salvation and reveals much about the state of the church. There is a congregation of zombies, for instance, that do not think for themselves and act just like their leader. They run around proselytizing, stuffing headphones of podcasts into their victim’s ears, and trying to eat their victim’s brains. I’ve met this sort of creature; perhaps you have too.
Sometimes it takes imagining the world in fantastic terms to understand the reality; I love how Mikalatos mixes both realms outright. There is also an excellent Discussion Guide and Self-Diagnosis Guide to Common Monstrosities in the back of the book, which would be really fun to discuss in a small group or book club.
(Also, I enjoyed the whole book, as I’ve said, but really got into it around sixty pages in; and I mention this in case some readers are tempted to stop before the good stuff starts: keep reading!!)
To get more of an idea of the author and this book check out this video:
It just so happens that Tyndale gave me a certificate for a free book to give to one lucky reader. Leave a comment below telling me you want it and I’ll decide the winner in one week. This will be my first contest, so I’m pretty excited to have a free something to give away. 
I received a complimentary copy of this book through the Tyndale Blog Network.
This blog addresses the 'sticky' topics of Western Christianity in an attempt to shake, refocus, and unite the body of Christ, and to reveal the true gospel message to unbelievers.
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