Friday, January 25, 2013

Book Review: Found: God's Will

Found God's Will: Find the Direction and Purpose God Wants for Your Life. John MacArthur. David C. Cook. 80 pages.

Found: God's Will may be a short book, but it's a relevant book with substance. The premise is a simple one,
"Let's begin with a simple assumption. Since God has a will for us, He must want us to know it. If so, then we could expect Him to communicate it to us in the most obvious way. And how would that be? Through the Bible, His revelation. Therefore, I believe that what anyone needs to know about the will of God is clearly revealed in the pages of His Word. God's will is, in fact, very explicit in Scripture."
The chapter titles: "Is God a Cosmic Killjoy?", "The Crucial First Step," "The Fizzies Principle," "The Priority of Purity," "Silencing the Critics," "Facing the Flak," and "You're It."

MacArthur discusses five essentials clearly taught in Scripture as being part of God's will for every believer. These are the basics, these lay the foundation for the Christian life. He reveals these a chapter at a time, discussing each in depth and providing the Scriptural basis for each. These five elements build upon one another as well. In the last chapter, he summarizes: "God's will is that you be saved, Spirit-filled, sanctified, submissive, and suffering."

Favorite quotes:
The doctrine of salvation is unpopular because it includes the recognition of sin. Nobody likes to admit sin. And many people resist the idea that they need to be saved. 
But God's will is that people be saved! And basic to salvation is the recognition of sin. This lays it right at your feet. Either you are not saved from your sin and you need to come to Christ because that is God's will, or you are saved and need to reach others with the message of salvation. There is a world out there that needs Jesus Christ. God wants them to be saved, and you and I are the vehicles for the transportation of the gospel. That is God's will. You say you do not know what God's will is, but I'll tell you what it is. Above all it is that you know Christ and then that your neighbors hear about Christ. 
When you were saved, the moment you received Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit came to live within you. There is no Christian who does not possess the Holy Spirit.
Do you know what the Spirit-filled life is? It is living every moment as though you are standing in the presence of Jesus Christ!
Let me share how I study the Bible and how the Bible has come alive to me. I began in 1 John. One day I sat down and read all five chapters straight through. It took me twenty minutes. Reading one book straight through was terrific. (The books of the Bible weren't written as an assortment of good little individual verses. They were written with flow and context.) The next day, I sat down and read 1 John straight through again. The third day, I sat down and read 1 John straight through. The fourth day, straight through again. The fifth day, I sat down and read it again. I did this for thirty days. Do you know what happened at the end of thirty days? I knew what was in 1 John... You might say, "My are you smart!" No I am not smart. I read it thirty times. Even I can get it then!
The more you study the Word of God, the more it saturates your mind and life. Someone is reported to have asked a concert violinist in New York's Carnegie Hall how she became so skilled. She said that it was by "planned neglect." She planned to neglect everything that was not related to her goal. Some less important things in your life could stand some planned neglect so that you might give yourself to studying the Word of God... The more you would study the Word of God, the more your mind would be saturated with it. It will be no problem then for you to think of Christ. You won't be able to stop thinking of Him. 
Evangelism involves living a godly life in the face of an ungodly world. 
One of the problems of evangelism today is that Christians are not willing to stand nose to nose with the world and tell it like it is concerning Jesus Christ.


© Becky Laney of Operation Actually Read Bible

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