I’m participating in a blog tour for the updated and revised version of Josh McDowell and Bob Hostetler’s classic book, Don’t Check Your Brains at the Door. Read further down, and I’ll tell you how to win a Kindle giveaway package worth $150 from the publisher, Thomas Nelson…
As many of you know, I’m a fan of Dave Ramsey, and have been following his financial management system for a couple of years, and am living my life without debt. So, when I saw that comedian Thor Ramsey (no relation) had written a book called The Total Money Meltdown, I was intrigued.
Why does it seem like America is in disarray? Why are median wages rising only slowly? What caused the financial crisis in the last few years? Why do both Democrats and Republicans hold positions that are bound to end in fiscal disaster? These are just some of the questions that Tyler Cowen addresses in his new book, “The Great Stagnation.”
In life, sometimes God throws a wrench into our carefully-laid plans. We set out our goals on paper, and we make a list of intermediate steps to reach that goal. Or, we spend six months on a business plan for our new business, only to find that it doesn’t work when we launch our business.
“Unlocking the secret of joyful giving” is the subtitle for this tiny little book by Randy Alcorn. As I read through this book, I felt myself being drawn more and more to change my life into a life of a giver. Many of you who know me know that I am kind of a finance guy—I’m the business manager at Grace Church of DuPage, and a fan of Dave Ramsey. My wife will tell you that I’m all about saving and investing. We put together a budget in the last few years that was very conducive to saving and investing.
[I]n Christian circles today, you might hear people say with disdain about another person, “Boy, is he ambitious.” Ambition is categorized with sins like pride, jealousy, and lust. People who are ambitious can feed this comparison by being ruthless and cold-hearted.
But Scripture doesn’t command against ambition; it commands against selfish ambition. In the passage above (James 3:13-17), James juxtaposes selfish ambition with wisdom. If one wants to be wise, they must not have selfish ambition, jealousy, pride or falsehood, but rather purity, peacefulness, gentleness, etc.
I just finished reading the book, “Weird: Because normal isn’t working,” and I fairly inhaled it (in the same way my 1-year-old son inhales a cracker: in a manner that my wife describes as a cross between a vacuum cleaner and a buzz saw). Thanks to Michael Hyatt for introducing me to this book.
I read an interesting article in TIME Magazine (online) today entitled “Is Hell Dead?” It’s ostensibly about a book written by author Rob Bell, who is also the pastor of Mars Hill Bible Church in Michigan. His book, “Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived,” posits that evangelical Christianity is too theologically rigid, and we really don’t know what happens after death.
The Internet has made the world smaller. Instead of writing letters and waiting weeks for them to arrive at their destination, we now write emails, and they arrive instantly. Instead of watching the nightly newscast or reading the morning newspaper, we can find the news at our fingertips at any second of the day. Instead of joining the local club, we can now join any club in the world, with people that have the exact same tastes as we do.
Last month, I bought my wife an Amazon Kindle for her birthday. There are some that might think, “A Kindle? They’re so going out of style now that the Apple iPad came out.” Not so. In fact, I think the Kindle will outlast the iPad, and here are a few reasons why:
