Discipleship

Titles from the JPC Discipleship Shelf, these are books that, if Jesus delays His return, will still be read and wrestled with 100 years from now.  

Discipline – Elisabeth Elliot

The Glad Surrender

From the Publisher: Discipline . . . Commitment . . . Obedience. What do these words mean to you? If you know they me more than going to church and prayer meetings and doing God’s will wherever possible – but aren’t sure about all that these words represent – then Discipline: The Glad Surrender can help you understand their true meaning. Here Elisabeth Elliot shows you how to:

. . . Discipline your mind, body, possessions, time, and feelings;

. . . Overcome anxiety;

. . . Change poor work habits and attitudes toward your job;

. . . Trust God in times of trial and hardship;

. . . Let Christ have control in all areas of your life.

Through personal anecdotes and biblical illustrations, Elisabeth Elliot reveals the fulfillment experienced by those who trust and obey God. This book will equip you to do God’s will joyfully, whatever it may be.

The JPC 60-Second Review: C.S. Lewis wrote that he made it a habit to always follow the reading of a new book with the reading of a classic book. “Discipline” is a classic book that needs to be on any such list of repeat reads. With her usual insight and captivating writing style, Elliot does not write for the easy believers or the self-focused, but for disciples, helping us learn the joy of being disciples – called, under orders, and ever in grace under a Sovereign God. A Sovereign God . . . when was the last time you read about not just the sovereignty of God, but the blending of God’s sovereignty and man’s free will? You may not agree with all of her conclusions, but you’ll have to think, consider, reflect – mentally work toward your own conclusions, all too rare in most “Christian” books today. Elliot then devotes individual chapters to seven disciplines: body, mind (this chapter alone is worth the price of the book), place, time, possessions, work and feelings. So many books on discipline are either too mechanical or so “monastic” as to be impractical. Elliot hits it on center and hard, giving the disciple material that is not only thoughtful but useful. This is real world discipleship. Pastors, this would be a great study to teaching series for your congregation. Highly recommended.

The Remnant: Larry Stockstill

Restoring the Call to Personal Integrity

From the Publisher: God is issuing a call to bring integrity back to American Christianity. The foundational truths in this book will show the way. In this book Larry Stockstill challenges readers with principles for turning our nation around to integrity and commitment and precluding the judgment of God. There is a new breed of pastors and laypeople who are asking the tough questions: * Where has the glory of God gone in the American church? * When did the simple, pure gospel of the Savior become about “me,” “my,” and “mine”? * What happened to the transparency and integrity that marked the church for centuries? To each reader God is saying, “I want to start with you.” Allow this book to shake you to the core and reorganize your family, your ministry, and your future.

JPC 60-Second Review: Long-time pastor Larry Stockstill speaks to the present cultural free-fall by calling to the leaders of the church of Jesus. The solution for America’s situation, he writes, is not pointing fingers at the world, but at ourselves: the world is broken because pastors are broken, we are not men and women of wholeness – integrity. In the first five chapters, Stockstill writes that the church is broken – unfathered, uncorrected, unfruitful, unhealed and untaught. Leaders should respond to this brokenness, i.e., absence of integrity, by restoring the five-fold gifts, not the positions, but the heart and action of those gift: apostles to father/mentor believers, prophets to correct believers, evangelists to lead in multiplication of believers, pastors to heal believers, and teachers to instruct them. In this way, a broken church can find integrity, wholeness, and so be able to model wholeness to the world. The second and larger portion of the book presents what Stock-still calls The Ten Commandments of Ministry, giving church leaders markers for their personal life that will produce effectiveness (in God’s terms) in ministry. Highly recommended. A great book for mentoring, teaching, coaching young leaders.

THE IMITATION OF CHRIST – THOMAS A KEMPIS

From the Publisher:

The Imitation of Christ by Thomas à Kempis is a Christian devotional book. It was first composed in Latin ca.1418-1427. It is a handbook for spiritual life arising from the Devotio Moderna movement, of which Kempis was a member.

The Imitation is perhaps the most widely read devotional work next to the Bible, and is regarded as a devotional and religious classic. Its popularity was immediate, and it was printed 745 times before 1650.

Apart from the Bible, no book has been translated into more languages than the Imitation of Christ.

JPC 60-Second Review:  Read as a book of proverbs on everything from solitude to Scripture, humility to holiness, The Imitation of Christ is a great devotional help.  This is not a book to be read quickly, but line by line with meditation and prayer.  It’s greatest virtue and effect may be in its ability to help quiet the soul and make room for the Holy Spirit to speak to the reader.  Put this by your Bible and read a section every day after your Bible reading.

Most of Scripture’s teachings can be vitally related to Christ’s global cause and to the theme of world Christian discipleship. David Bryant

STAND IN THE GAP – DAVID BRYANT

From the book:

A Christian is a person who confesses that, amidst the manifold and confusing voices heard in the world, there is one Voice which supremely winds his full assent, uniting all his powers, intellectual and emotional, into a single pattern of self-giving. That voice is Jesus Christ . . .

We need a new context for praying, Bible study, employing spiritual gifts and even for our thinking about missions involvement. That context is the Gap. We need its world dimension for our discipleship . . .

The Christian movement is the story of thousands of World Christians burning with a world vision, disciples who have lived and died standing in the Gap . . .

Who wouldn’t like to end each day, putting our heads on our pillows confidently, saying: “I know this day my life has counted strategically for Christ’s global cause, especially for those currently beyond the reach of the Gospel.” Wouldn’t you?

JPC 60-Second Review:  Too often the church separates discipleship and missions as different aspects of the Christian life.  Bryant debunks this as he demonstrates that true biblical discipleship is focused on the Christ who so loved the world that He not only died to save it, but that He then sent us out into the world to announce that salvation.  On a personal note, God used this book more than any other, outside of the Bible, to call me to Europe.  Highly recommended for those who reject private-personal-therapeutic “Christianity.”  Read this book to grab some serious, biblical discipleship.

Christianity without discipleship is always Christianity without Christ.                   Dietrich Bonhoeffer

LIVING THE CROSS-CENTERED LIFE – C.J. MAHANEY

From the Publisher:

Have the extremities taken over and left the core of your faith forgotten? Do you get confused by what you feel versus what is real? Let dynamic pastor C. J. Mahaney strip away the nonessentials and bring you back to the simplest, most fundamental reason for your faith: Jesus Christ. This book is packed with powerful truth that will grip your heart, clear your mind, and invigorate your soul. Chapters include “Breaking the Rules of Legalism,” “The Cross Centered Day,” and “Assurance and Joy.” Get ready to behold a breathtaking view of what God intends to accomplish in and through you every day. You’ll discover how embracing this cross centered life is both our highest privilege and greatest responsibility.

Do you desire more passion for Jesus Christ? Return to the very essence of your faith—the cross of Christ. Here, the deepest truths of Calvary will stir your passion for Him into an unquenchable fire.

“Never lay it aside. Never move on,” says C. J. Mahaney, who shows you how to center every day around the life-giving reality of the gospel and how to escape the pitfalls of legalism, condemnation, and feelings-driven faith.

JPC 60-Second Review:  Mahoney brings the Cross of Jesus into the every day, teaching us how the Cross can define all of life and all of our life.  He focuses the reader’s attention on the salvation given us in the Cross, but not the insufficient salvation that only deals with sin or only gets us to heaven.  Mahaney shows us how the Cross of Christ gave each of us an open door to the full salvation God intends, a salvation that not only destroys death, but gives us life, a salvation that not only gives us heaven, but gives us life every day now.  He even lists practical helps in understanding and living the Cross in just this way.  This is discipleship as drawing on Christ and then living in devotion to him. An easy read theologically; a challenging one spiritually!   Take the Cross out of the box and get it into your daily life!  Here’s a great help on just how to do so.

We have left out substance, it is no longer the holy of holies, but vanity of vanities . . . we worship the god of the gut, no deeper than our last experience. Os Guinness

THE MYSTERY OF THE CROSS – JUDITH COUCHMAN

From the Publisher:

“Christianity is a religion founded on the mystery of the cross of Christ.” –Leo the Great

At the center of Christianity sits the cross of Christ. From the beginning, Christ’s followers celebrated the cross as a symbol of their faith. It was honored in church worship, carved into rough tombstones, pressed onto loaves of bread and set out as a sign of sanctuary. The cross represented what Christians believed, who they hoped for and how they approached life.

In this thoughtful book Judith Couchman takes up forty images of the cross from early Christianity. As we discover the meaning and significance of each of these uses, we learn a little more about the early church. More than that, she helps us focus on the meaning of the cross and the Savior’s sacrifice.

Ideal for Lenten devotional reading and appropriate for any season of the church calendar, this book includes original illustrations of each cross image. The Mystery of the Cross will enrich your understanding of Christian tradition and draw you into Christ’s presence.

JPC 60-Second Review:  Couchman blends the devotional and the academic beautifully in this collection of “visits” to the Cross of Christ as portrayed in church history.  This is one of my top five favorite books for just this.  The author brings her extensive research of the Cross, church history and art to the table and blends them in concise but rich chapters that leave the reader wanting to know more.  After reading a chapter I would often look for more information on what I had just read, so engaging is Couchman’s content and style.  Highest recommendation on this one mind – and heart – study of the Cross of Christ.  This is one of my top five favorite books.  Since purchasing it, I have set it on my desk shelf, literally within reach at all times.  Prepare to marvel at our Savior and His Cross!

No man would find it difficult to die who has died every day. Charles Spurgeon

SIX HOURS ONE FRIDAY – MAX LUCADO

From the Publisher:

Does life feel futile? Doesn’t have to.

Do some of your failures seem fatal? They aren’t.

And your death. Does the grave appear to be the final stop? According to Christ, your death is just the start of the something great.

There is a truth greater than all the losses and sorrows of life. And it can be discovered in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

In Six Hours One Friday, Max Lucado delves into the meaning of Jesus’ last hours on the cross. Through his death, your life has purpose and meaning. You are forgiven and loved by a Savior who died for you. And an empty tomb proclaims that death does not have the final word.

JPC 60-Second Review:  This was the first Lucado book I ever read.  A friend recommended the book, telling me it was unlike he had ever read before.  His assessment became mine.  Lucado allows the reader to look at the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus through the heart.  A powerful devotional read, Six Hours One Friday, has the capacity to translate the Cross into and through life experiences we have all shared, and so, understand.  Writing as a pastor, husband, father, friend and child of God, Lucado pours the death and resurrection of Jesus into the real life experiences we all face.  His writing is almost poetry; reading it, one loses a sense of time as the Cross and Empty Tomb come alive in the real fears, failures, hopes and dreams we all face.  If life is especially hard right now, this is a book for you.  Read it and pray for the power of the Cross and Empty Tomb to overwhelm you.

What our Lord said about cross-bearing and obedience is not in fine type. It is in bold print on the face of the contract. Vance Havner

SIMPLIFY – BILL HYBELS

From the Publisher:

Exhausted. Overwhelmed. Overscheduled. Sound familiar? Today’s velocity of life can consume and control us . . . until our breakneck pace begins to feel normal and expected. That’s where the danger lies: When we spend our lives doing things that keep us busy but don’t really matter, we sacrifice the things that do.

What if your life could be different? What if you could be certain you were living the life God called you to live―and building a legacy for those you love? If you crave a simpler life anchored by the priorities that matter most, roll up your sleeves: Simplified living requires more than just cleaning out your closets or reorganizing your desk drawer. It requires uncluttering your soul. By eradicating the stuff that leaves your spirit drained, you can stop doing what doesn’t matter―and start doing what does.

In Simplify, bestselling author Bill Hybels identifies the core issues that lure us into frenetic living―and offers practical steps for sweeping the clutter from our souls.

JPC 60-Second Review:  Practical.  Practical.  Practical.  This is a book that lives up to its title and its claim to offer “ten practices to uncluttered the soul.”  How often have you heard the lament, “My life is so complicated right now.  I’ve got work, marriage, and the kids. Then there’s A, B, and C. And you know, just when I think I’ve got a handle on it, D, E, and F spin out of control!”  Or maybe this lament is yours.  Hybels offers ten very practical things you can do beginning today to simplify your life, and more importantly, your soul.  His chapters on Time Management, Relationships and the Seasons of Life are worth TWICE THE PRICE of the book by themselves.  Imagine wielding your agenda as simplifying tool.  Imagine understanding the different kinds of relationships and how to enjoy them in healthy ways.  Imagine being free to live of guilt because you understand the seasons of life and the season you are in.  This is THE most practical read you will find on the real issues of your life.  Be prepared to see a real difference not only in your days, but in your soul.

Every command of Jesus is a call to die, with all our affections and lusts.  But we do not want to. Dietrich Bonhoeffer

THE DIVINE CONSPIRACY – DALLAS WILLARD

From the Publisher:

The Divine Conspiracy has revolutionized how we think about the true meaning of discipleship.

In this classic, one of the most brilliant Christian thinkers of our times and author of the acclaimed The Spirit of Disciplines, Dallas Willard, skillfully weaves together biblical teaching, popular culture, science, scholarship, and spiritual practice, revealing what it means to “apprentice” ourselves to Jesus.

Using Jesus’s Sermon of the Mount as his foundation, Willard masterfully explores life-changing ways to experience and be guided by God on a daily basis, resulting in a more authentic and dynamic faith.

JPC 60-Second Review:  Willard is the master theologian-in-the-real-world.  He exegetes the Bible, exegetes culture and then demonstrates how to walk the Word in culture.  This is at once a deep and yet easy read.  Willard puts Jesus in the reader’s here-and-now life, showing how Christ is ultimately relevant to every aspect of life, not just Sunday, salvation and eternity.  Jesus Christ, the eternal and transcendent God of all is also the personal and present Savior who has come to give us life.  Willard shows us that walking with Christ in relationship is not only possible, but essential.  Those who believe on Christ in the hope of eternity in heaven alone are missing the point: eternal life begins the moment we believe, and so does living in relationship with the One who gives us life.  This one is a book for grazing in: read, meditate, live, read, meditate, live . . .

When Christ calls a man, He bids him come and die. Dietrich Bonhoeffer

DRIVEN BY ETERNITY – JOHN BEVERE

From the Publisher:

Most people would be left destitute if they planned their futures as carelessly as theyve prepared for eternity.

Drawing on the principles in 2 Corinthians 5:911, John Bevere reminds us that all believers will stand before God and receive what they have earned in life. In building their lives to be ready for that day, and maintaining an eternal frame of reference, readers will develop significant lives. In keeping sight of the goal, readers will learn to labor for rewards that endurefor timeless eternity.

JPC 60-Second Review:  Ecclesiastes 4.11 tells us that God has written eternity in the heart of every human being.  And yet, John Bevere writes, many people live without eternity on their minds.  Severe reminds us that this life is lived in preparation for eternity, not only where we will spend it, but how we will spend it.  His chosen tool for doing this is his allegorical story of King Jalyn and his imaginary kingdom of Affable.  Highly reminiscent of  Bunyan’s “Pilgrim’s Progress,” Bevere introduces the reader to characters with names like Charity, Deceived and Double Life. He is amazingly effective in drawing the reader into his new world, AND in making the reader feel the weight of eternity in this life.    You will not be able to put down this book, and having read it, you will not soon forget it.

Christianity in America, including evangelicalism, is less interested in truth than in therapy and more focused on consumers than on making disciples. Michael Horton

DISCIPLE – JUAN CARLOS ORTIZ

From the cover:

Jesus didn’t say, “How would you like to go?”  No.  He commanded, and they did it.  That is how disciples are made.

JPC 60-Second Review:  This is a book that could be said to represent the Jesus Movement of almost fifty years ago, that time when young adults who had found the peace and free love message of Woodstock to be empty, and so, unfulfilling, came to faith in Christ.  They came not only in massive numbers, but in massive, raw, tell-me-the-truth-so-I-can-do-it discipleship. This is the tone of Disciple by Juan Carlos Ortiz.  Imagine sitting down on the beach or in a park with a small group of the disciples I’ve just described, and listening as the leader of that group simply talks to you on how to go deeper and stronger in what you are knowing and experiencing of Christ.  The speaker teaches the group, encourages the groups, chastises and challenges the group, and the more he speaks, the more you want to hear.  By the time the teaching is over, you are both energized and exhausted with the content and fire of this person.  That person is Ortiz; what he taught that day is in this book.  Warning:  you won’t agree with all of his theology or all he has to say, but even this is helpful as he drives you to not just disagree, but to answer why not.  This book helped form me as a young disciple with its all-for-Jesus, lay it all down passion and mission.  I can’t recommend this classic more highly.

Discipleship is more than getting to know what the teacher knows. It is getting to be what he is. Juan Carlos Ortiz

THE COST OF DISCIPLESHIP – DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

From the Publisher:

One of the most important theologians of the twentieth century illuminates the relationship between ourselves and the teachings of Jesus.
What can the call to discipleship, the adherence to the word of Jesus, mean today to the businessman, the soldier, the laborer, or the aristocrat? What did Jesus mean to say to us? What is his will for us today?

Drawing on the Sermon on the Mount, Dietrich Bonhoeffer answers these timeless questions by providing a seminal reading of the dichotomy between “cheap grace” and “costly grace.” “Cheap grace,” Bonhoeffer wrote, “is the grace we bestow on ourselves…grace without discipleship….Costly grace is the gospel which must be sought again and again, the girl which must be asked for, the door at which a man must know….It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life.”

The Cost of Discipleship is a compelling statement of the demands of sacrifice and ethical consistency from a man whose life and thought were exemplary articulations of a new type of leadership inspired by the Gospel, and imbued with the spirit of Christian humanism and a creative sense of civic duty.

JPC 60-Second Review:  It was in these pages that Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote, “When Christ calls a man to follow Him, He bids him come and die.” For many, “The Cost of Discipleship” ranks, after the Bible, as the most significant book they have ever read.  This is most certainly our opinion.  Bonhoeffer opens up grace to the reader, writing on the source of grace, the need for grace, the offer of grace, the power of grace, and the cost of grace.  By the time the reader finishes the first one hundred pages of TCD, he is overwhelmed with God’s provision of grace.  But Bonhoeffer does not stop with God’s gracious provision; he continues on to hammer what he calls “cheap grace,” telling the reader that even though God’s grace is free, it is not cheap: it cost Jesus His life in dying for us, and so, it will cost us our life in living for Him.  The Cost of Discipleship.  If you enjoy cozy, comfortable and convenient Christianity, you aren’t following Christ, and so, you won’t enjoy this call to die to self that you might live fully in Christ.  Pastor, this might be just the book you need to read to get seriously committed not to your ministry or your church, but to Christ.

When we are called to follow Christ, we are summoned to an exclusive attachment to His person. Dietrich Bonhoeffer

A Mind for God – James Emery White

From the Publisher:

To be fully human is to think. The apostle Paul calls us to “take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ” (2 Cor 10:5). But James Emery White fears that Western Christians are failing in this task. Because we have not developed good intellectual habits, our minds instead have been captured by our culture. A Mind for God is written to help us break free from this cultural captivity through the spiritual and intellectual disciplines of reading, study and reflection. This inspirational and practical “rule for the mind” encourages and enables us to develop our minds for God. Includes book lists and resources so you can “grow your brain.”

JPC 60-Second Review: This 100-page work is a primer on how to think Christianly, especially in this present culture. White succinctly defines The Christian Mind, what it means to think in a Christian way. The answer will surprise some. This chapter is outstanding, but where this book really shines is in its equally succinct descriptions of the four characteristics of The Cultural Mind: Moral Relativism, Autonomous Individualism, Narcissistic Hedonism and Reductive Naturalism. White defines each of these while also offering instructions in how to approach them from the Christian mind, a great apologetic tool for preaching to this generation and for witnessing to this generation. The remainder of the book is then concerned with how to develop a Christian mind, touching on the discipline of reading, the pastor’s library as his armory, and developing healthy mental routines. White is a joy to read. He cites history’s best minds, inserts great stories and draws the reader in with his complex-made-simple style. This is a top shelf book for anyone who wants to obey Jesus in His command to love God with all of our heart, soul, … mind … and strength.

The greatest challenge the church faces today is to be authentic disciples of Jesus.   Dallas Willard

THE DREAM GIVER – BRUCE WILKINSON

From the Publisher:  Bestselling author Bruce Wilkinson shows how to identify and overcome the obstacles that keep millions from living the life they were created for. He begins with a compelling modern-day parable about Ordinary, who dares to leave the Land of Familiar to pursue his Big Dream. With the help of the Dream Giver, Ordinary begins the hardest and most rewarding journey of his life. Wilkinson gives readers practical, biblical keys to fulfilling their own dream, revealing that there’s no limit to what God can accomplish when we choose to pursue the dreams He gives us for His honor.

JPC 60-Second Review: Essential read. Essential. Especially for youthful or young adults. Wilkinson has given us a great gift in this look at who God is, who God created-called each of us to be, and how to live in that Creation-Call with certainty and confidence. He writes a parable about a person named Ordinary and a larger-than-life figure named Dream Giver. Ordinary discovers his dream by coming to know the Dream Giver. Wilkinson then walks the parable into the reader’s life – applying, prodding and asking questions designed to call us into our Creator and Lord. You can read this book in an afternoon, but you’ll want to take your time, meditating on the questions Wilkinson asks, contemplating THE Dream Giver and whether or not you are living in His dream for you come true.

I may no longer depend on pleasant impulses to bring me before the Lord. I must rather respond to principles I know to be right, whether I feel them to be enjoyable or not.  Jim Elliot

A Godward Life:  Seeing the Supremacy of God in All of Life – John Piper

From the Publisher:  A Godward Life is the first of three devotional volumes by John Piper, each feature 120 vignettes that focus on the radical difference it makes when we choose to live with God at the center of all that we do. Scripture-soaked and touching on the issues which most affect our lives today, A Godward Life is a passionate, moving, and articulate call for all believers to live their lives in conscious and glad submission to the sovereignty and glory of God.

The JPC 60-Second Review:  Often listed as a devotional work, A Godward Life is much more in that it focuses the reader on one issue and only one issue: how to live complete surrender to (and satisfaction in) the sovereignty of God. Where many devotionals are focused on us – our happiness, our contentment, our hope, our peace, AGW focuses first on God and invites the reader to come into who God is AS the goal. With entry into the all-satisfying Sovereignty of God then comes happiness, contentment, hope, peace, etc. Any book by Piper is a God-focused work and well worth your investment. Add Desiring God, God is the Gospel, and The Supremacy of God in Preaching and you’re set.