Faith, Growth & Good Books

I have always believed that the books we read shape the way we see, and more importantly, the way we live. Not every book I have encountered has been theologically tidy. Some have challenged me. Some have undone thinking I did not realize was limiting me. And some have simply named what I had already been experiencing but had not yet found words for.

Among these books these three are stand outs although I cannot endorse every theological position in each one. Each of these books however, moved something in me, and may do the same for you.

18 Days in Heaven — Gabe Poirot

Forewords by Rick Renner and Randy Kay

Near-death experience accounts are a crowded genre, and not all of them are tethered to Scripture. This one is different.

Gabe Poirot's account of the eighteen days he spent clinically close to death, and what he encountered on the other side, is not sensational for the sake of it. It is measured, Biblically grounded, and deeply personal. What struck me most was not the descriptions of heaven itself, but the unwavering, steadfast love with which Jesus welcomed him. That is the part that stayed with me the most.

There is something clarifying about a book that reminds you that eternity is real. Not as a theological proposition you assent to on Sundays, but as a fact that reorganizes your priorities on a Tuesday morning. That is what this book did for me.

Who it is for:

Anyone wrestling with grief, fear of death, or questions about what waits beyond this life. Also for anyone whose faith has become abstract, this book makes it solid as you see Jesus and His love.

Destined to Reign — Joseph Prince

(Devotional edition)

This book found me at a point in my life when I had been working very hard to be acceptable to God, to others, to myself. The performance was exhausting, and I did not fully realize how exhausting until Joseph Prince named it.

The central thesis of Destined to Reign is grace, not as a license for sin, but as the actual foundation of the Christian life. Prince argues, persistently and from Scripture, that the believer's right standing before God is not earned through effort but received through Christ. That our position in Him is settled. That the striving is not what moves God toward us because He is already for us in Christ Jesus.

I know this book is sometimes received with theological caution, and I hold those conversations with respect. But I also know what it felt like to read something that gave me the peace to rest in what Christ has already done. That is not nothing. That is, in fact, everything.

Who it is for:

Anyone caught in a cycle of performance-based faith. Anyone who secretly suspects that God is mostly disappointed in them. Anyone who needs to encounter grace as a living reality rather than a theological category.

Daring Greatly — Brené Brown

Brené Brown is not writing from a Christian framework however the principles that underpin her writing and work run in parallel. What she has done, through years of qualitative research, is map the interior life of shame with extraordinary precision.

Daring Greatly is about vulnerability, specifically, the courage it requires to be seen. Brown's research found that wholehearted living is only possible for those who are willing to enter the arena without guarantees. She calls this daring greatly, borrowing from Theodore Roosevelt's famous speech about the man in the arena.

What I found, reading this as a person of faith, is that Brown is describing in psychological language something the Gospel has always been pointing toward. We are loved not because we have managed to be loveable, but before and beneath all of that. The capacity to receive love without earning it, to be seen without hiding, is, I would argue, one of the fruits of really understanding grace. Brown gives you the research. Scripture gives you the foundation. Together, they are formidable.

Who it is for:

Anyone who has spent years being competent in public and exhausted in private. Anyone who struggles to ask for help, admit weakness, or be known. Anyone who wants to understand shame to ultimately dismantle it.

A Final Word: The Bible

These are some of the books that have shaped my thinking most however the Bible has by far transformed my life and understanding of my purpose. The Bible ultimately has been the physical source that has required reflection, intersection and change in my life for the better.

I hope you find something that inspires, motivates and comforts you in my recommendations.

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