Book reviewed by Author & Blogger Tim Challies

Money, sex, and power: three great gifts of God that can be used to such noble ends or abused to such ignoble ends. They can be harnessed to the greatest of good purposes or exploited to the most terrible of harmful purposes. All three are considered ghastly to some while they are worshiped as gods by others. This holy/unholy trio is the subject of John Piper’s latest book Living in the Light. While the book began as a series of conference messages, this is no lazy port from one format to another, but a careful, skillful rewrite and expansion.

Piper opens the book exactly as we might expect him to:

God did not conceive and create money, sex, and power simply to be a temptation. He had good purposes in mind. Money, sex, and power exist for the great aims of God in human history. They are not detours on the path to God-exalting joy. Along with all the rest of God’s good world, they are the path. With them, we can show the supreme worth of God. To show how that happens is one of the aims of this book. Therefore, the approach I take is to pursue the potentials of money, sex, and power as well as the pitfalls.

As he does so he demonstrates that “Money, sex, and power exist ultimately to show that God is more to be desired than money, sex, and power. That is, paradoxically, how they become most satisfying in themselves.” It is only when God is our greatest treasure and our purest pleasure that these three can take their rightful place.

First, the matter of definitions, for we cannot assume that we mean the same things even by such common terms. Money is a form of currency, of course, and a means of assigning value to objects or services, but it goes far deeper than that. “Money is one cultural symbol that we use to show what we value. It is a means by which we show where our treasure is; who our treasure is. The use of money is an act of worship—either of Christ, or of something else.”

Likewise, sex is far more than erotic stimulation or the desire for erotic stimulation. It “may be a good use of God’s good gift, or a merely selfish exploitation. What makes sex virtuous or a vice is not the pleasure, or the pursuit (to give it or get it), but something deeper. There are foundational issues of submission to the word of God and the condition of the heart.”

Power is the capacity to get what you want and “can be used to do evil or to do good. How you use your power shows where your heart is, what you love, what you treasure most—what you worship.”

Read more…

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By Karen Ehman & Ruth Schwenk

Are the kids bickering? Is your schedule jam-packed? Are the dishes and laundry piled up high? Perhaps it’s time that you pressed pause.

If you enjoyed reading our last book review, Hoodwinked, then you will enjoy this book written by the same authors.  Whether you’re juggling a career, kids’ schedules, and church commitments or you’re covered in spit-up and anxious about what the next eighteen years might hold, you can carve out a few quiet moments to rejuvenate your spirit.

Pressing Pause offers you a calm way to start your day, to refresh yourself in Jesus and drink deeply of His presence so that you are ready to pour out love, time, and energy into the people who matter most to you.  This beautifully laid out hard cover devotional has 100 encouraging devotions for moms which will help you begin each day with Scripture, drawing on God’s power, ingesting His Word, and learning practical ways to love and serve more like His Son.  Each devotion ends with some questions to meditate on and space to journal your thoughts.

Just a few minutes each day can help you centre your heart and mind on what God has for you as His beloved daughter. So resist the rush. Halt the hustle. Press pause and find some calm in the chaos.

CBD PRICE: R295.00

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By Karen Ehman & Ruth Schwenk

Ten myths moms believe and why we all need to knock it off.

Moms have been hoodwinked -tricked into believing lies that keep them from not only enjoying motherhood, but forging friendships with other moms who might tackle the tasks of motherhood differently. Myths such as – Mothering is natural, easy, and instinctive? cause moms to feel like failures if they have questions or apprehensions in raising their kids. Operating from the premise that, -The way I mother is the right (and only) way – puts up fences between moms instead of building bridges of encouragement between them. Lies such as “I am my child’s choices” tempt moms to mistakenly believe that if their child makes a wrong choice then they, in turn, must be a bad mom.

In their encouraging “we’ve been there” style, Karen Ehman and Ruth Schwenk enable mothers to:

• Identify the ten myths of motherhood our current culture perpetuates
• Replace the lies with the truth of what God says in the Bible about mothering
• Acquire practical tools to help them form new and improved thought patterns and healthy behaviors
• Forge healthy, supportive relationships with other moms of all ages and stages
• Confidently embrace the calling of motherhood as they care for their families in their own.

PRICE: R290.00     (limited stock available)

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Author: Christopher Ash     Reviewed by Tim Challies

It is good to be zealous—far better certainly than being complacent. I have often been dismayed at my own lack of zeal for the Lord and the lack of zeal of so many Western Christians. And yet even something as good as zeal can go wrong when it begins to get muddled up with the sinful nature and its many heart idolatries. What can happen, and what so often does happen, is that zeal leads to burnout.

In Christopher Ash’s book on the subject he says, “Burnout is a terrible price to pay for Christian zeal. For some, their circumstances mean there is no other way to live sacrificially for Jesus. But sometimes it can. For many of us there is a different path. One that combines passionate zeal for Jesus with plodding faithfully on year after year.”

Can you have genuine zeal without having it lead to burnout? Is there such a thing as a sustainable, non-complacent zeal? Ash believes there is and he speaks with a voice of experience having twice allowed his zeal to drive him to the very brink of a breakdown. He writes for all zealous followers of Jesus.  While the focus may be on pastoral ministry, his message is for all those who are involved in Christian service whether full-time, part-time, or simply through the normal kinds of service we render to our churches alongside our busy jobs, our parenting, and everything else that fills our days.   Read more…

CBD PRICE: R135.00

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Author: Randy Alcorn

• Is what we do with our money really any of God’s business?
• Does God mind if we spend money on ourselves?
• What about debt? Savings? Retirement?
• How much does God expect us to give?

God cares a great deal more about our money than most of us imagine. The sheer enormity of Scriptures teaching on this subject screams for our attention. In fact, Jesus says more about how we are to view and handle money and possessions than about any other topic, including both heaven and hell.

In Managing God’s Money, Randy Alcorn breaks down exactly what the Bible has to say about how we are to handle our money and posessions in a simple, easy-to-follow format. Filled with Scripture references, Managing God’s Money is the perfect reference tool for anyone who is interested in gaining a solid biblical understanding of money, possessions, and eternity.

CBD PRICE: R95.00

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Author: Roger Carswell

Wouldn’t you just love to grab a Christian, sit them down in the hot seat and grill them mercilessly on the tough questions about God, the Bible and the world? There are the tricky questions that everyone asks, like

• “Why does God allow suffering?”
• “How can a God of love send people to Hell?”
• “Does God care about my carbon footprint?”

In this book international speaker and author Roger Carswell gives straightforward, no nonsense answers from the Bible to these burning questions and many more. If you have ever wished you could have your question about God answered, or perhaps people ask you and you’re not sure what to say, then this book is for you – it probably has the answer!

CBD PRICE: R95.00

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Author: John Stott

The Universal symbol of the Christian faith is neither a crib nor a manger, but a gruesome cross.  Yet many people are unclear about its meaning, and cannot understand why Christ had to die.  John Stott explains the significance of Christ’s cross and answers the objections commonly brought against biblical teaching on the atonement.  At the cross he finds the majesty and love of God disclosed, the sin and bondage of the world exposed.

“I could never myself believe in God, if it were not for the cross. . . . In the real world of pain, how could one worship a God who was immune to it?”  With compelling honesty John Stott confronts this generation with the centrality of the cross in God’s redemption of the world — a world now haunted by the memories of Auschwitz, the pain of oppression and the specter of nuclear war.  Can we see triumph in tragedy, victory in shame? Why should an object of Roman distaste and Jewish disgust be the emblem of our worship and the axiom of our faith? And what does it mean for us today?

More than a study of the atonement, this book brings Scripture into living dialogue with Christian theology and the twentieth century. What emerges is a pattern for Christian life and worship, hope and mission.

It is work of a lifetime, from one of the world’s most influential thinkers, about the heart of the Christian faith.

CBD PRICE: R285.00 (Hard Cover 460 pages)

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Author: Lee Strobel

A Seasoned journalist chases down the biggest story in History… What will your verdict be in The Case for Christ?

Is there credible evidence that Jesus of Nazareth really is the son of God?  Retracing his own spiritual journey from atheism to faith, Lee Strobel, former legal editor of the Chicago Tribune, cross-examines a dozen experts with doctorates from schools like Cambridge, Princeton, and Brandeis who are recognized authorities in their own fields. Strobel challenges them with questions like: How reliable is the New Testament? Does evidence for Jesus exist outside the Bible? Is there any reason to believe the resurrection was an actual event?

Strobel’s tough, point-blank questions make this Gold Medallion-winning book read like a captivating, fast-paced novel. But it’s not fiction. It’s a riveting quest for the truth about history’s most compelling figure.

CBD PRICE: R190.00  (valid while stocks last).

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Author: Caleb Kaltenbach  Reviewed by Tim Challies

How a Pastor with Gay Parents Learned to Love Others Without Sacrificing Conviction

When he was a teenager, Caleb Kaltenbach came out to his parents. With fear and trembling, he told first his father and then his mother about a growing realization within, about his acceptance of a whole new identity. His parents responded coldly, they responded with disappointment, they responded with anger, they responded by telling Caleb that he had betrayed them and all they stood for. His is like many other coming out stories you have heard except for this: Caleb was coming out as a Christian to his gay parents.

Caleb Kaltenbach’s parents, both accomplished academics, divorced when he was just 3. Shortly thereafter his mother fell in love with a woman and settled into life with her. His father began to live as a gay man, though it would take some time before Caleb understood that. His childhood, then, was split between his father’s home, where he experienced a watered-down, liberal version of the Christian faith, and his mother’s home where he heard only that the Bible was homophobic and irrelevant, that Jesus was for the weak and pathetic, and that Christians were hateful. His mother was active in the gay rights movement, serving on GLAAD’s board, marching in parades, and fighting hard for the rights of gay people to be fully accepted and fully integrated into every part of society.

While Caleb grew up in this environment he had friends who were Christians and eventually those Christians began to share the gospel with him. He began to investigate the claims of the Bible and began to investigate the man who said he was the world’s only Savior. Over time he became persuaded that it was all true and put his faith in Jesus Christ. But then he had to tell his parents. He had to convince his parents that he still loved them, that he still wanted to be their son, that he still wanted them to be part of his life, that his new religious convictions did nothing to change his love and respect for them. They would always be his parents and he would always love them.  Read More…

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