Author: Josh King

Readibility: 1

Length: 181 pgs

Aurthor: John Piper

Fasting… when was the last time you did it?  Ever?  Why is fasting so rare today and what does this say about us?  Is it because we are physically full that we are spiritually lethargic?

All this questioning might prompt another question, why should we fast?  This book answers that question.  If you are looking for a “how to” book on fasting, this isn’t it.  This book is concerned with a greater question.  Oh, that you would read A Hunger for God, and that there would be some unsettling in the pit of your stomach right now that would cause you to go without food in longing for something more satisfying.  May these snippets whet your appetite for fasting.

Beware of books on fasting. …The discipline of self-denial is fraught with dangers – perhaps only surpassed by the dangers of indulgence. 

‘Desires for other things’ – there’s the enemy. And the only weapon that will triumph is a deeper hunger for God. The weakness of our hunger for God is not because he is unsavory, but because we keep ourselves stuffed with ‘other things.’ Perhaps, then, the denial of our stomach’s appetite for food might express, or even increase, our soul’s appetite for God.

What we hunger for most, we worship.

Half of Christian fasting is that our physical appetite is lost because our homesickness for God is so intense. The other half is that our homesickness for God is threatened because our physical appetites are so intense. In the first half, appetite is lost. In the second half, appetite is resisted. In the first, we yield to the higher hunger that is. In the second, we fight for the higher hunger that isn’t. Christian fasting is not only the spontaneous effect of a superior satisfaction in God; it is also a chosen weapon against every force in the world that would take that satisfaction away.

Readability: 1

Length: 376 pgs

Author: Rob Mackenzie

By many standards David Livingstone would be deemed a failure. As a husband he was often away from his wife and never gave her a home. As a father he neglected his children. As a missionary he would see few converts. As an explorer he would never find the source of the Nile. As a doctor he never had an established practice. As a philanthropist he did not end the slave trade in Africa before his death. But God sees not as we see. Livingstone would write:

No mission which has His approbation is entirely unsuccessful. His purposes have been fulfilled if we have been faithful… And many missions which He has sent in the olden time seem bad failures. (I would comment that God’s purposes will be fulfilled even if we are not faithful. I think Livingstone would agree, the nuance being his purposes fulfilled in us.)

Oh what God has wrought from all of Livingstone’s un-successes! How many missionaries have been inspired? How much soil was prepared for a mighty harvest? Without doubt Henry Morton Stanley’s writing of his interview with Livingstone is what ignited the flames of love in Britian that would extinguish the slave trade. God used his tears as the flood to bring forth a great harvest. His zeal has infected me, thus I am thankful to God for this man.

Yes Livingstone had his faults, and he regretted them. If you wish to live without regret do not become a Christian, repentance necessitates it, and Christianity necessitates repentance. Livingstone regretted and repented of his sins, but he regretted none of his earthly sacrifices.

For my own part, I have never ceases to rejoice that God has appointed me to such an office. People talk of the sacrifice I have made in spending so much of my life in Africa. Can that be called a sacrifice which is simply paid back as a small part of a great debt owing to our God, which we can never repay? Is that a sacrifice which brings its own blest reward in healthful activity, the consciousness of doing good, peace of mind, and a bright hope of a glorious destiny hereafter? Away with the word in such a view and with such a thought! It is emphatically no sacrifice. Say rather it is a privilege. Anxiety, sickness, suffering, or danger now and then with a foregoing of the common conveniences and charities of this life, may make us pause and cause the spirit to waver and the soul to sink; but let this only be for a moment. All these are nothing when compared with the glory which shall be revealed in and for us. I never made a sacrifice. Of this we ought not to talk, when we remember the great sacrifice which He made who left is Father’s throne on high to give Himself for us.

We cannot pay God back, we only fall deeper into debt. The glorious debt of grace, oh to plummet into the red. Father, may such zeal as Livingstone had be graciously put into our hearts for the salvation of men’s souls to Your eternal glory.

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Readability: 2

Length: 154 pgs

Author: Dale Ralph Davis

I think The Word Became Fresh will be profitable for all, but I especially recommend it to all teachers and preachers.  The profit for general readership will be insight in how to read and interpret Old Testament narrative and make application to self.  Do not be intimidated by the subtitle, “How to Preach from Old Testament Narrative Texts.”  The book is a joy to read being full of whit and illustration.

Who would’ve ever guessed that a bizarre soap opera would proclaim the faithfulness of God?  But that is clearly the case when you see Genesis 29-30 backed up against the people-promise of Genesis 12; that is, as you are meant to see it.  And instead of moaning about the family breakdown you will proclaim the faithfulness of God from this text.  The chemistry of divine providence takes the sludge and crud and confusion of our doings and makes it the soil that produces the fruit of his faithfulness.

Is the Lord deficient in understanding kindness or am I deficient in understanding holiness?

Doctrinal appreciation may feed genuine worship but it should never be identified with it.  In our finest hermeneutical moments we are only a step from idolatry.