Sunday, August 22, 2010

Summer of 2010 Reading List

The whole crew of CU students will be on campus in just a few days...and the next few weeks of my life are ones with just about every minute filled with activity and conversation and people...and the moments to read beyond emails and ESPN scores are few and far between...but I did grab a few moments to read during the summer season...and here's some of what I read in a top 10 list of the books and articles and words...

Africa United: Soccer, Passion, Politics, and the First World Cup in Africa by Steve Bloomfield

The Slow Fade: Why You Matter in the Story of Twentysomethings by Reggie Joiner, Chuck Bomar, and Abbie Smith

Crazy Love: Overwhelmed by a Relentless God by Francis Chan

Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, a Man Who Would Cure the World by Tracy Kidder

A Million Miles in a Thousand Years: What I Learned While Editing My Life by Donald Miller

Cultural Intelligence: Improving Your CQ to Engage Our Multicultural World by David Livermore

Playing the enemy : Nelson Mandela and the game that made a nation by John Carlin

Warrior Princess: Fighting for Life With Courage and Hope by Princess Kasune Zulu

Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace . . . One School at a Time by Greg Mortenson

The New Shape of World Christianity: How American Experience Reflects Global Faith by Mark Noll

*And way, way too many online and magazine articles about every dimension of the 2010 World Cup Experience...although, I never tired of reading them all, to be honest...

Saturday, August 7, 2010

MONTANA TALK #3 Notes

Notes and Quotes below...

DON’T WASTE YOUR LIFE ON PURSUING ANYTHING BUT JESUS…

To Know One Thing:
“You don’t have to know a lot of things for your life to make a lasting difference in the world. But you do have to know the few great things that matter, perhaps just one, and then be willing to live for them and die for them. The people that make a durable difference in the world are not the people who have mastered many things, but who have been mastered by one great thing. If you want your life to count, if you want the ripple effect of the pebbles you drop to become waves that reach the ends of the earth and roll on into eternity, you don’t need to have a high IQ. You don’t have to have good looks or riches or come from a fine family or a fine school. Instead, you have to know a few great, majestic, unchanging, obvious, simple, glorious things—or one great all-embracing thing—and be set on fire by them.”
John Piper, Don’t Waste Your Life

Are you listening to the call of Christ on your life?

THE CALL OF THE SAVIOR: The voice of Jesus has become a sure beacon ahead of me and a blazing fir within me as I have tried to figure out my way and negotiate the challenges of the extraordinary times in which we live. It allows us to find and fulfill the central purpose of your life. OS GUINNESS

Jesus invites you to do these things and live this life:
*EMBRACE HIS CHARACTER
*SACRIFICE YOUR LIFE
*FOLLOW THE HOLY SPIRIT’S LEADINGS
*IMPACT THE WORLD
*SPREAD THE GOOD NEWS

I JOHN 5:4-5…Every God-begotten person conquers the world's ways. The conquering power that brings the world to its knees is our faith. The person who wins out over the world's ways is simply the one who believes Jesus is the Son of God.

There is nothing more compelling, more satisfying, more demanding, more overwhelming, more significant than a life lived following, loving, and serving the Lord Jesus. CHIP HUBER…after 4 decades of life

MONTANA TALK #2 Notes

Notes and Quotes Below...

Spend Your Life Chasing the Things That are Eternal

What do you think you will care about 50 years from now? What things in your life today will still be important to you?

4 Things That are the Stuff of Eternity…and of Ultimate Worth…

The Kingdom of God—A FUTURE EVENT AND PRESENT REALITY
Luke 17:21; Matthew 6:10; Hebrews 12:28

People—DO WE TRULY PUT OTHERS FIRST?
John 13:34-35

The Body of Christ—WE ARE LIFETIME MEMBERS…
Matthew 16:18

Our Souls—THE VERY HEART OF WHO YOU AND I ARE…
Matthew 16:26; I John 3:2

Most people are not satisfied with the permanent output of their lives. Nothing can wholly satisfy the life of Christ within His followers except the adoption of Christ’s purpose toward the world He came to redeem. Fame, pleasure, and riches are but husks and ashes in contrast with the boundless and abiding joy of working with God for the fulfillment of His eternal plans. The men and women who are putting everything into Christ’s undertaking are getting out of life its sweetest and most priceless rewards. J. CAMPBELL WHITE

Only one life, twill soon be past; Only what’s done for Christ will last…

A PRAYER FOR THE COOL GENERATION…from the book Don't Waste Your Life:

O God, who will get in their face and give them something to live for? They waste their days in a trance of insignificance, trying to look cool or talk cool or walk cool. They don’t have a clue what cool is. Of course we cannot use the word cool to describe true greatness. It is a small word. That’s the point. It’s cheap. And it’s what millions of young people live for. Who confronts them with urgency and tears? Who pleads with them not to waste their lives? Who takes them by the collar, so to speak, and loves them enough to show them a life radical and so real and so costly and Christ-saturated that they feel the emptiness and triviality of their CD collection and their pointless conversations about passing celebrities? Who will waken what lies latent in their souls, untapped—a longing not to waste their lives? O that young and old would turn off the television, take a long walk, and dream about feats of courage for a cause more precious than anything else in their world. If we would dream and if we would pray, would not God answer? Would He withhold from us a life of joyful love and mercy and sacrifice that magnifies God and makes people glad in God?

RESOLUTIONS OF JONATHAN EDAWRDS…
RESOLUTION #5: Resolved, never to lose one moment of time; but improve it the most profitable way I possibly can…
RESOLUTION #6: Resolved, to live with all my might, while I do live…
RESOLUTION #17: Resolved, that I will live so, as I shall wish I had done when I come to die…
RESOLUTION #22: Resolved, to endeavor for myself as much happiness, in the other world, as I possibly can, with all the power, might, vigor, and vehemence I am capable of, or can bring myself to exert, in any way that can be thought of…

Risk is right. And the reason is not because God promises success to all our ventures in His cause. There is no promise that every effort for the cause of Christ will succeed, at least not in the short run. John the Baptist risked calling King Herod an adulterer when he divorced his own wife in order to take his brother’s wife. For this John got his head chopped off. And he had done right to risk his life for the cause of God and truth. Jesus had no criticism for him, only the highest praise (Matthew 11:11). Paul risked going up to Jerusalem to complete his ministry to the poor. He was beaten and thrown in prison for two years and then shipped off to Rome and was executed there two years later. And he did right to risk his life for the cause of Christ. How many graves are there in Africa and Asia because thousands of young missionaries were freed by the power of the Holy Spirit from the enchantment of security and then risked their lives to make much of Christ among the unreached peoples of the world! And now what about you? Are you caught in the enchantment of security, paralyzed from taking any risks for the cause of God? Or have you been freed by the power of the Holy Spirit from the mirage of Egyptian safety and comfort? Do you men ever say with Joab, “For the sake of the name, I’ll try it! And may the Lord do what seems good to Him?” Do you women ever say with Esther, “For the sake of Christ I’ll try it! And if I perish, I perish”? JOHN PIPER

What will be the legacy left by you on our campus at the end of this school year? Your college career? Your days on this earth?

MONTANA TALK #1 notes

SOME NOTES AND QUOTES BELOW...

Don’t Waste Your Life on the Things that Don’t Matter

A HUGE QUESTION FOR THE WEEK:
What does it mean to waste my life? That is a burning question. Or, more positively, what does it mean to live well—not to waste life, but to…? How to finish that sentence was the question. I was not even sure how to put the question into words, let alone what the answer might be. What is the opposite of not wasting my life? “To be successful in a career”? Or “to find the deepest meaning and significance”? Or “to help as many people as possible”? Or “to serve Christ to the full”? Or “to glorify God in all I do”? Or is there a point, a purpose, a focus, an essence to life that would fulfill every one of those dreams? JOHN PIPER

I JOHN 2:15-17…Do not love this world nor the things it offers you, for when you love the world, you do not have the love of the Father in you. For the world offers only a craving for physical pleasure, a craving for everything we see, and pride in our achievements and possessions. These are not from the Father, but are from this world. And this world is fading away, along with everything that people crave. But anyone who does what pleases God will live forever.


Popularity and Status—ISAIAH 40:6-8
We all know if we are in or out, don’t we?


Achievements for Reward’s Sake—LUKE 6:12-16; I COR 3:11-13
How much of your life is trying to prove yourself worthy?


Our Bodies and our Looks—I TIMOTHY 4:8
We all need an extreme makeover, don’t we?


Possessions and Money—MATTHEW 6:19-24; 25:14-30
“Every time we give we remind ourselves of several things: God is on the throne; All that I have is from Him; I do, in fact, trust God; I’ve been given an awful lot—JOHN ORTBERG


The overwhelming needs of our world issue a call to us for strategic living…we must realize that when we spend our resources on our own private wants and concerns, it leaves fewer resources for the Kingdom’s crucial and central concerns of great importance…and God has given each of us the chance of a lifetime in His appointment of us as His Kingdom resource managers…


“At these moments, when the trifling fog of life clears and I see what I am really on earth to do, I groan over the petty pursuits that waste so many lives—and so much of mine. Just think of the magnitude of sports—a whole section of the daily newspaper. But there is no section on God. Think of the endless resources for making your home and garden more comfortable and impressive. Think of how many tens of thousands of dollars you can spend to buy more car than you need. Think of the time and energy and conversation and leisure and what we call “fun stuff.” Or think about how we view our clothes. What a tragedy to see so many people obsessed with what they wear and how they look. And add to that now the computer that artificially recreates the very games that are already so distant from reality; it is like a multi-layered dream world of insignificance expanding into nothingness.” JOHN PIPER



Let us consider this final advice as a manager of God’s Trust He’s given in your one life: choose your investments carefully; compare their rates of interest; consider their ultimate trustworthiness; and especially compare how they will be working for you a few million years from now…RANDY ALCORN