Awakening Review

Wednesday May 25, 2011- This week I finished reading "Awakening" by Stovall Weems. It was a tremendous book. Here's my review...

From the moment I picked this book up, I have felt not merely impacted by it, but activated. Fasting has been a regular practice in my Christian walk, but I don't think I have ever read a more applicable piece of literature on the subject ever. Stovall is brilliant with weaving the practical information and the spiritual benefits through testimonies and personal stories in the church. This was an incredible read. As a matter of fact, last week my wife and I started the 21 day Awakening plan. It has been incredible to see the freshness that comes with prayer, fasting, and devotion to the Word of God. I will say this, this book challenged me, my wife, and those that I serve. Thanks Stovall.
Remember "...Weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes with the morning." Psalms 30:5 You see, morning comes when you wake up!!!

"OUT OF THE WRECK I RISE"

Thursday May 19, 2011- This morning my wife forwarded me her daily devotion. Here it is... I was reading my devotional this morning from Oswald Chambers in my Utmost for HIS Highest.

It was awesome and thought I would share.......

"Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?" Romans 8:35

God does not keep a man immune from trouble; He says - "I will be with him in trouble." It does not matter what actual troubles in the most extreme form get hold of a man's life, not one of them can separate him from his relationship to God. We are "more than conquerors in all these things." Paul is not talking of imaginary things, but of things that are desperately actual; and he says we are super-victors in the midst of them, not by our ingenuity, or by our courage, or by anything other than the fact that not one of them affects our relationship to God in Jesus Christ. Rightly or wrongly, we are where we are, exactly in the condition we are in. I am sorry for the Christian who has not something in his circumstances he wishes was not there.

"Shall tribulation . . . ?" Tribulation is never a noble thing; but let tribulation be what it may - exhausting, galling, fatiguing, it is not able to separate us from the love of God. Never let cares or tribulations separate you from the fact that God loves you.

"Shall anguish . . . ?" - can God's love hold when everything says that His love is a lie, and that there is no such thing as justice?

"Shall famine . . . ?" - can we not only believe in the love of God but be more than conquerors, even while we are being starved?

Either Jesus Christ is a deceiver and Paul is deluded, or some extraordinary thing happens to a man who holds on to the love of God when the odds are all against God's character. Logic is silenced in the face of every one of these things. Only one thing can account for it - the love of God in Christ Jesus. "Out of the wreck I rise" every time.
Hope this encourages someone else like it did me. God Bless!