Christian Book Notes

Powell, Keith C.  The Power of God Thinking.  Alachua:  Bridge-Logos, 2009.  217 pp.  $14.99.  Purchase at Amazon for $11.69 or less. Kindle Edition – $8.24.

Introduction

Keith C. Powell is the founder of Crown of Life Ministries – a ministry dedicated to teaching the biblical truths of trusting in the God of the Bible to lead you.  Keith is an ordained pastor with the Nazarene church.  You can read more about the Power of God Thinking at his website.

Summary

The Power of God Thinking is a fairly straight forward exhortation to trust God through your faith in Jesus Christ for everything.  He begins with breaking down the barriers of common thinking in most of churches across the land and moves towards “unlocking” the power of thinking more like God.

By the end of the book, you have moved from thinking about God inside a box (always a danger) to thinking outside the box with what God is capable of doing in and through you.

Review

Keith walks a razor’s edge between a biblical approach to thinking like God and the New Age prosperity preachers/teachers.  While his writing is deeply rooted in Scripture (so is that of the New Ager’s), he does seem to isogete (that is use Scripture to prove the point he is wanting to make) in a few areas.  Nonetheless, his writing will cause you to expand your thinking and help you to break out of the box that we so often put God in.

I appreciated that he drove home the message that to think like God requires faith in Christ and knowledge of the Scriptures.  In fact, on page 37 he writes, “God-thinking allows you to believe God and by faith fulfill your God-ordained calling to be conformed into the image of His Son.”  That is missed so often when discussing what God wants for our lives that when it is stated, it is kind of a shock to the system.

Still, by chapter 21, he is discussing how God wants you to have money.  In the current climate of prosperity and health and wealth heretical preaching, we must be cautious.  Never does Keith tell you to speak to your wallet and never does he tell you that your ultimate end this side of eternity is to be rich.  Yet, as I stated previously, he walks a fine line here.

Ultimately, I struggle with any teaching that says God wants you to have money (even in the context of using it properly) because Christ Himself, the God-Man, did not even have a home to sleep in.  Matter of fact, all He owned was His tunic!  This is why I struggle with anyone teaching about God wanting to bless us financially and materially.

Recommendation

I can recommend this book to a mature and discerning believer.  This is in large part because of the heresies that are prevalent in the church today.   His chapters on money and the subjectivity of the entire book is one of those red-flags that is waved when reading a book like this, but, as I have said, Keith primarily keeps his writings centered on Christ.

Reading this book has altered the way I think in some areas of life and ministry, but again, this is tempered by my doctrinal presuppositions (which were not challenged) as my framework by which I do understand the Christian life and mandate.

Cross, Kevin with Steven White. Embezzlement: A True Crime Story. Alachua: Bridge-Logos, 2010. 228 pp. $14.99. Purchase at Amazon for $10.19 or less.

Introduction

Kevin Cross has already authored one insightful book, Building Your Financial Fortress in 52 Days, which I have reviewed here. In Embezzlement, we read how Kevin came to understand the biblical principles for managing money. You can find out more about Kevin’s ministry, Cross Stewardship Ministries at account417.com or read more about this book at Embezzlement.com.

Summary

Embezzlement

is an autobiography of a snot-nosed punk who thought he could get away with everything only to discover that he could not. It is a story of how God reached into one man’s life and intervened at the most opportune time. This not only saved Kevin’s life physically, but it ultimately saved his life spiritually.

The story begins simple enough. A young man wanting to climb ladders gets aggravated with his current standing in life. To rise from the ashes as it were, he decides to begin stealing money. He and a friend are able to hatch a plan to embezzle money from the Broward County Sheriff’s office and filter it all into one of two phony bank accounts.

All is going well until he gets drunk one night and spills his guts to two of his friends who want to know how he is suddenly making all of this money. They then run to the mafia (of which they are related) and let them know. The mafia in turn decides they want in on the action. They kidnap the two kids (19-year olds at this time) and threaten their lives and the lives of their family if they do not pay up.

After this close scrape with death, someone (Kevin still does not know who to this day!) alerts the sheriff’s office to Kevin’s schemes. He and his buddy get arrested (his buddy has not talked with him since) and thrown into separate prisons. While in prison, Kevin comes across a Bible and is saved while reading Matthew 11:28-30 (from the Message).

After losing everything, Kevin starts over determined to build wealth and pay his debts the proper, God-honoring way. He gets a couple of jobs that he cannot stand and then begins a tax service out of his mom and dad’s house. Ultimately, God has blessed Kevin and now through this book and his ministry, Kevin wants to return the blessing to others.

Review

What I enjoyed the most about this particular biography was just how real it was. While I am sure much language was changed (I am pretty sure it would be R-rated if language was used!), many of Kevin’s short comings were front and center.

At some level, he truly believed he was doing a good and honorable thing by stealing the money from the sheriff’s office. After all, he did plan to invest some of it and return all the money he actually stole with a nice little profit (keeping some for himself and his friend) to show the sheriff that he was doing a service for the county and the office.

Kevin and Steve never try to dull the edges. Rather, they show the stupidity of his ways and then how God (note, not Kevin) has brought him up from the grave—almost literally to what he is today. Throughout the book, the reader feels as though he is listening in on a man reflecting back on his horrible decisions in life but then realizing that the exchange that Christ made for him on the cross was not only more than he deserves, but the ministry that was given him is for Christ’s glory alone. If you ask me, it sounds much like Paul in 2 Corinthians 11:30 who while discussing his past of how great he was in the world’s eyes, counts it all as trash when compared to the riches and glories found in Christ (Phil. 3:8ff).

Recommendation

Kevin Cross, with the help of Steven White, has authored two very enjoyable books. Embezzlement was written second, but is the very foundation for Building Your Financial Fortress. It shows that Kevin is not speaking from behind a desk without any experience. Rather, he has “been there, done that” and has the criminal record to prove it!

If you are looking for a biography that will inspire you in the area of finances, this is certainly worthy of your reading. While Kevin Cross is not a “dead theologian” or a pastor, he is a Christian who has a wonderful story of God’s grace and mercy. To read his biography is to, in a very real way, peer into the heart of each and every one of us who has at some point felt as though we deserved more and took matters into our own hands only to learn that what God has and wants for lives is oh so much better. Read this biography

Hildebrand, Lloyd B.  2012: Is This the End? Alachua:  Bridge-Logos, 2009.  258 pp. $14.99. Purchase at Amazon.

Introduction

Lloyd Hildebrand is the Publisher/CEO of Bridge-Logos Foundation.  He has served in many different capacities such as pastor, professor, counselor, editor and writer.  In 2012, he sets out to help us understand what and why there is this sudden increase in Doomsday conversations.  With the release of the movie in late 2009, much more attention has been drawn to the reality that our world will end.

Summary

Quite simply, 2012 is a conglomeration of end times prophecies from Indian groups like the Hopi, the Mayans, the Toltecs, and the Aztecs.  There are also prophecies made by religions and religious organizations such as Islam, Judaism, the Masonic Lodge, Roman Catholicism, and Hinduism.  Hildebrand also throws in the prophecies of Nostradamus, Merlin the Magician and the Web Bot Project for good measure. The book concludes with what the Bible says about the end times as well as what we should do with the knowledge that all agree that the world will end.

Review

The book itself is a nice resource insofar as all of the prophecies are brought together in one volume.  However, I struggle with his “Left-Behind-esque” take on the end times and Revelation.  Hildebrand could have done a better job of treating the book of Revelation using a resource like Revelation: Four Views by Steve Gregg.  Instead, he, too predicts that the end is near (I guess this is true for all people since tomorrow is never promised!) through what some call “newspaper eschatology.” The rest of the book was objective in nature, it would have been nice if this section was just as objective.

The other Christian element he includes, as a means of evangelism, is rooted in his heart’s desire to evangelize the world and is his attempt to share the gospel.  The problem is that he falls into the same problem that many evangelists fall into.  That is, he offers a prayer to be read for one’s salvation.  It is not so much the prayer that concerns me (though the prayer has no salvific value to it whatsoever), it is what he writes immediately before and immediately after the prayer:

If you want to become a child of God, a member of His family, a person who will ive forever, and a new creation, please pray as follows: [insert a paragraph long prayer] [end of prayer].

Welcome to the family of God! You are now free from the guilt of your past, and you are free from all fear of the future.

There are more men and women dying and going to hell because they have put their faith in a prayer and what someone told them rather than placing their faith in Jesus Christ alone and finding the assurance of their faith in the scriptures rather than the date they wrote in their Bibles or what they were told.

Movie

I include a review of the movie along with the review of the book because of the topic.  Truthfully, the movie ticked me off!  I do not know quite how to state it nicer than that.

It wasn’t so much the concept of the end of the world (and our knowing when it would happen) as much as it was the slap in the face to Christianity it turned out to be.  First, Woody Harrelson’s character was the “religious fanatic” who was trying to blow the cover on the government for hiding the truth.  Any time Woody Harrelson has a character in a movie, you know he will add some zest.  Second, when the Catholic’s gathered in St. Peter’s Square in Vatican City, they were all dressed as though they were ready for their own funeral.  The family they showed actually looked as though they were dead already.

The proverbial straw for me was how the world “ended” and how man saved themselves.  Basically, there was a global flood except for the Cape of Good Hope in Southern Africa.  The world was saved by seven (note the number) arks.  Inside the arks were animals and man-made artifacts and people.

So, what the world and science claims did not take place in the Bible, a global flood, is exactly what destroys the earth in 2012, though God promised to never flood the earth again (Gen. 9:11, 15).  Moreover, what the world claims was impossible to build and sustain life, i.e., an ark, is exactly what saves mankind.  Never mind they used seven of them.  I only saw the movie because I was reviewing this book.  If you do not need to be ready to answer questions about the movie, save yourself some money and time and do not see it.

Recommendation

This is a fine summary of the end-world prophecies across many religions and secular spectrums.  It is written from a mostly objective point of view with the facts stated clearly.  Given that there will be much written about the end times coming in 2012, this may be a book worth picking up so that you have a better understanding of what is being discussed.  However, I would not recommend this book to just everyone because there is a fear factor involved that can most certainly lead to a build up of hysteria like Y2K did in 1999.  Also, as mentioned in the review section above, I have problems with his “evangelism” at the end of the book along with the biased interpretation of Revelation.  Nonetheless, for the discerning Christian reader, this book will more than likely prove to be a valuable resource in the coming months. Pick up a copy, but do not use it for evangelism.