Book Reviews

Jumping Through Fires

Wednesday, 20 January 2010 15:33 Written by Alan Gerling

Jumping Through Fires by David Nasser

I’m not sure what I expected when I “picked up” a copy of David Nasser’s new book, Jumping Through Fires: The Gripping Story of One Man’s Escape from Revolution to Redemption. I heard David Nasser speak last year at the National Worship Leader’s Conference. If you know me well, you know that I often say that most people learn their theology from what they sing in church, not what they hear in church. What you remember is not usually specific examples from the sermon, but rather the songs that you sing in your car, home and often in your head. There are however a handful of times that I’ve heard a message by a speaker so riveting that I remember it starkly. One example is when Pastor Mark talked about what divorce really is. He talked about two becoming one flesh. Then to demonstrate what happens when you tear that flesh apart, he ripped a teddy bear in half. The one message that has been on my mind for the last half of a year or so is David Nasser’s message. If you go back through my blog a bit, you will find the link to the video of that message. It is powerful, but I highly recommend that you watch it a couple of times.

So, it was with that frame of mind that I sat down to read this book. Jumping Through Fires is a well written, engaging book. I would say that it is an easy read, and I got through it in a couple of hours. Nasser’s style is storytelling at its best. He tells the story in a linear style, and then goes back and fills in the tangents that would have sidetracked most authors throughout. The result is that you become so engaged in the story he’s telling that when he goes back afterwords and fills in holes, you appreciate more the stories he just told.

Reading about Nasser’s life is really reading about Jesus’ working through a tapestry of events that unfolded over the course of 20 or so years. You really see how God moved through events, often events that are bleak, to eventually bring a young man to saving faith, and then send him out to touch the lives of people all over the globe.

The story starts when David Nasser is 9 years old, and his family is caught up in a religious revolution that changed their world. Nasser talks about moving to America, going from shy Iranian kid, to school druggie, and then Christ taking hold of his life and story, and using it to spread the gospel. One story that moves me is the story of his first visit to youth group, and how God used a team of worshipers with servant hearts to soften the hard heart of Nasser’s Muslim father.

I did find myself wanting more from this book. Perhaps because the book is a strict autobiography, and at no point does Nasser go off on a tangent and start preaching at his readers. He simply lets the events speak for themselves and lets the reader draw their own conclusions about God’s power in lives. It does give me a bit of perspective on the talks I have seen him give, and likely on any future books I will read by him.

I would encourage you to go out and grab a copy of this book and enjoy!

Secondhand Jesus

Wednesday, 06 January 2010 13:49 Written by Alan Gerling

Secondhand Jesus by Glenn Packiam

Last Friday I read through the new Glenn Packiam book Secondhand Jesus. Glenn is one of the worship pastors of New Life church in Colorado Springs, Colorado. He runs the New Life School of Worship and regularly leads worship for the college ministry there, theMILL. I’m sure you will recognize the church name New Life first from the Ted Haggart scandal and then from the shocking tragedy that happened there only a couple of years later.

This book is primarily about the wake-up call that happened as a result of the former scandal. He calls this the first of many what-the-heck moments that happened that caused him to reevaluate his walk with Christ, and his ministry to the Church. In this book he talks about four rumors of God that have crept up in the “suburban church.”

#1: God will give me what I want.

#2: God can be added to my list of loyalties.

#3: God is pleased with my goodness.

#4: God prefers specialists.

I won’t go through the rumors, I’ll let you pick up a copy of the book and let you do that yourself, but the fourth rumor is the basis for this book. When I read the title, Secondhand Jesus, I assumed that it was about spreading the gospel. Instead the title refers to the cosmic game of telephone that many Christians have chosen to play. Rather than getting their information straight from the source (Christ himself through the Bible), they have contented themselves to learning about Him from secondhand sources. This is why when you ask many Christians why they believe what they believe, they can’t tell you. Too many people skipped the steps to reach conclusions, and are satisfied with being told the answers by someone else. I wonder if this isn’t the reason that when I read the book, UnChristian, I saw such a disconnect between who and what Jesus calls His Body to be, and what we actually are.

To talk about each of these rumors, Glenn walks through the story of the Ark of the Covenant. He does so in a straightforward fashion. I found the book an easy read, yet it was deeply insightful and often convicting. I found Glenn’s openness throughout the book to be refreshing. He closes the book with a description of the tragedy that happened only a short time after the scandal that caused him to reevaluate his walk.

I would highly recommend you grab this book. Read it with an open heart and mind.

There is Laid Up for Him a Crown of Righteousness

Wednesday, 06 January 2010 13:48 Written by Dan Learned

There is Laid Up for Him a Crown of Righteousness by David Brainerd

Proceed with caution! This man's life and death may change you.

Seeded throughout the private, personal journals of the young missionary (chronologically speaking - he went home to heaven at age 29) is a depth of spiritual wisdom, fervor for God's kingdom and glory, and love for the Savior, quite unparalleled, if not unrecognizable, in modern Christianity. Christian “mystics” would recognize in Brainerd what they themselves both preached and sought - a wholesale abandonment to God, His purposes and His will.

Brainerd's growth in grace began with his conversion in 1739. His own words best describe: "My soul rejoiced with joy unspeakable to see such a God, such a glorious divine Being...My soul was so captivated and delighted with the excellency, loveliness, greatness and other perfections of God, that I was even swallowed up in Him...I wondered that all the world did not see and comply with this way of salvation, entirely by the righteousness of Christ."

One whose heart has been so entirely apprehended by the Almighty is enabled to see with great clarity his own soul. He was given discernment to grasp the depth of his own depravity, and this may possibly have played a part in his frequent melancholy; but this sensitivity was balanced by a keen awareness of his Redeemer's marvelous perfection, the beauty of His flawless remedy for sin, and the wonder of being clothed with the alien righteousness of Christ.

The missionary was consumed with promoting God's Truth among not only heathen Indians and ignorant settlers, but other clergymen of his day as well. He endeavored to instruct, exhort and encourage all, even on his deathbed. The hardships and privations he endured in the preaching of the glorious gospel of Jesus Christ are remarkably descriptive and quite beyond our ability to imagine. Total self-denial marked him clearly. He faced death at many turns. He was willingly and joyfully spent for his Savior. But, oh, what fruit God brought forth! Read and see.

Listen, as he describes for us the essence of true Christianity in contrast with its counterfeit, from his journal entry on the Lord's day, May 24, 1746: "Could not but think, as I have often remarked to others, that much more of true religion consists in deep humility, brokenness of heart, and an abasing sense of barrenness and want of grace and holiness, than most who are called Christians imagine; especially those who have been esteemed the converts of the late day. Many seem to know of no other religion but elevated joys and affections, arising only from some flights of imagination, or some suggestion made to their mind, of Christ's being theirs, God loving them, and the like."

Another entry; June 18,1747, just months before his death in Jonathan Edward's home: "Especially, I discoursed repeatedly on the nature and necessity of that humiliation, self-emptiness, or full conviction of a person's being utterly undone in himself, which is necessary in order to a saving faith; and the extreme difficulty of being brought to this, and the great danger there is of persons taking up with some self-righteous appearance of it...being never effectually brought to die in themselves, are never truly united to Christ, and so perish."

Can you at all identify, dear Christian?

Take a journey through the early years of our great land with a courageous servant of God. Allow yourself to be challenged by a commitment to and love for the Savior that was fleshed out in remarkable ways. Observe his anguish in being expelled from Yale (under questionable circumstances), but God in His great Providence used painful disappointment to mark out the path for a fruitful life. This is a book to touch the soul, to be re-visited time and again, to be worn out with handling.

Perhaps what makes this journal so compelling, is not the chronicling and inspiration of a remarkable missionary life, so much as the MESSAGE that God, through Brainerd, anointed to His glory. The evangelical church needs to recover this message today. Delve in and be changed!