Review: Crash the Chatterbox

Steven Furtick offers plenty of tweetable quotes in his book "Crash the Chatterbox." Seriously, every chapter ends with a quote and the hashtag #crashthechatterbox. But there are hundreds more for the reader to pick out on her own - and they're great quotes too. This book is full of incredible advice. Now, I know I'll have a hard time implementing or remembering any of it, as that's the way I am, but this is a book I want to read more than once, and it is full of my underlines and stars and so on.

I greatly appreciated Furtick's take on the negative chatterbox in our lives. Some authors will be so concerned with their motivational speaking, they'll forget to add the disclaimer - that we're still sinners and we still  need to recognize our sin. Furtrick does a wonderful job of encouraging readers, while reminding them that our freedom and happiness can only come from our gratitude for and acceptance of God's gifts, particularly the gift of salvation. Before we were ever born, before we ever sin, God chose us and made the opportunity for our salvation. Nothing we can do o n our part can save us. But God can replace our negative thoughts with positive thoughts, and he can use us for His good purposes.

There's so much more to be covered that I can't write in one review. You'll just have to read the book for yourself. "Crash the Chatterbox" is a wonderful read for anyone struggling with self-confidence or negative thoughts. Everyone needs to read this book at some point in their life.

*Disclaimer: I received this book for free in exchange for my honest review.

Review: 100 Tough Questions about God and the Bible

If author Stephen M. Miller is a "Christian," he could have fooled me. His book, "100 Tough Questions About God and the Bible" reads like a liberal's answer to everything.

On occasion Miller offers a great answer that interests me and sticks with me as a way to defend my faith, but the great majority of the book's answers refer to "Bible scholars" and "Christians" who really don't fit those terms except by wide liberal society's standards. The answers referred to in such cases are natural explanations, explanations of metaphors, and calling the Bible stories legend and not truth - legend compiled hundreds of years after the stories told took place.

As for the more "Christian" explanations, the majority of the time Miller just explains that Christians say "take it as is" or "have faith." Sorry, but even I had better explanations for some of the questions asked. And a lot of the questions asked left me asking, "Really? You're going to start with these petty questions? Shouldn't we start with the more important essential things and move from there?"

*Disclaimer: I received this book for free in exchange for my honest review.

Review: Raised?

"Raised? Finding Jesus and Doubting the Resurrection" by Jonathan K. Dodson and Brad Watson is basically a Bible tract expanded to fit a small book. While I appreciated a few historical facts at the beginning of the book, I had a difficult time reading the rest. The authors encourage skepticism so readers can move on to solid, reasonable faith. However, in the process of explaining the resurrection and its significance, the authors pretty much bored me with what I already knew. I suppose skeptics with an open mind may find this book a good read, but hard skeptics will laugh at it and the rest of us Christians will skim read because we already know all this stuff. I was hoping for a book that would give me more to defend my faith with, but it didn't really do that for me.

*Disclaimer: I received this book for free in exchange for my honest review of it.