Book Review: FEARLESS by Max Lucado

“Imagine Your Life Without Fear”

That’s the subtitle to Max Lucado’s new book FEARLESS that hit the streets today. Max talks about some real fears that ALL of us as humans deal with such as; Fear of not mattering, Disappointing God, violence, not having enough money, death and many more. FEARLESS is packed with truth from the Bible and scriptures that resonate with me. Max states in the book Jesus’ most common command, he states it like this: “His most common command emerges from the ‘fear not’ genre. The Gospels list some 125 Christ issued imperatives. Of these, 21 urge us to ‘not be afraid’ or ‘not fear’ or ‘have courage’ or ‘take heart’ or ‘be of good cheer’’’. Max’s choice for a subject is wonderful and Thomas Nelson did a fantastic job with the publishing.

What would our lives look like if we would fear less? This is something that I have asked a lot over the past eight months of my life. If we could grasp the consequences of fear and just how much fear affects the deepest fibers of our being and walked by the Spirit with less fear we would come closer to living the lives that God has intended for us.

With Us or Apart From Us?

Where is God? My theological background says that God is omnipresent. Jesus says in John 15:26, "When the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, {that is} the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify about Me..." So if Father is omnipresent and Father's Spirit is with us why do we always seem to refer to Him as an abstract being? We seem to always refer to Father as "the Father", "the Creator", or "God"...all of these things are true and are good ways of portraying who He is. But for me, that makes Him seem too abstract...too...far away. If Father is a part of us why do we refer to Him like He is apart from us? Why not refer to Him as if He is HERE, an active part in our lives and our conversations and all of our other relationships? After all, He is. Papa is here with me as I type the very words of this blog. He is with my wife as she gets a bowl of cereal. He is with my daughter who is still in the womb, maybe He'll convince her to come out. Haha. He is with you right now as you read this blog. I'm not saying that we don't have a good friendship with Father if we refer to Him in other ways. I'm just saying for me, I like to refer to Him like He is here, now, always. Like He is with us, not apart from us.

Please don't get me wrong...the spirit of this blog is not frustration, just things that I have noticed in my own life and in all the Christian institutions that I've been part of. I'm not trying to pick on anyone in particular, I'm just making observations and asking questions. The spirit of this blog is also NOT to suggest that this idea become instituted as part of our teachings, once again, just making observations and asking questions. By the way, feel free to be part of the discussion.

Love all,