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Book Review for “The Shepherd’s Song” – Christian Fiction

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I was given a copy of this book by the authors in exchange for an honest review.
I can’t say enough about how refreshing this book was! “The Shepherd’s Song” takes us through the 23 Psalm, line by line and how each one touches the lives of a different person. This isn’t a cheesy, preachy book. Just stories about characters that are real and who are flawed, messed up, desperate, or despondent that learn or remember that God is the good shepherd. Great for every age, simple short stories that all tie together. No swearing, no sexual content, good inspirational reading. I actually received a hard copy of this book and have offered it to several friends to read, it is so good. I loved it and hope to have more adult reading from these two women. (They both have written children’s books before this). Well done!
I give this book 5+ stars. I loved it!

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Let My Life Count

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James 4:14 (KJB), “Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away.”

From the day that Eve birthed Cain people continue to be born. Since the day that Cain murdered his brother Abel, people continue to die. Life and death, two absolutes in this life. We are born, we live our lives, and when our bodies either break down and quite on us or a sudden tragedy strikes, our lives are over. No matter our age when we die, life is short. The bible says it is “but a vapor”.
For many people their lives amount to not much of anything. They have simply taken up space. Others have contributed in some way to their families or to society while others have left their mark in this world. Few have made great scientific and medical discoveries, intellectual achievements, and invented things that still benefit us today. Then there are those whose lives have only ushered in more evil into the world.

I am not afraid to die. I never have been. Life is what was always scary to me. Now that I live for the Lord, life is good, not perfect, but good. I am not looking for fame or notoriety. I don’t want to just exist either and I certainly don’t want my legacy to be one of pain and misery on others. I want my life to count for something. Despite popular belief, we are not some accidental evolutionary occurrence. We have been designed by a great architect. We have been created for a purposely created for a purpose.

“You are not a momentary whim of a careless creator experimenting in the laboratory of life… you were made with a purpose.” ~ Og Mandino, Author of “The Greatest Salesman”

God has a plan for every person born. Not a single plan is a bad plan. He never planned for Hitler to butcher millions of people. That was never Hitler’s purpose. Who knows what wonderful plan God had for that man…

Jeremiah 29:11 (NIV), “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

Each one of us has a reason for being here. God handpicked us for a specific time and place, there is no “accidents” in God’s planning. We can, like Hitler, choose to make our own plans and determine our own future. Hitler chose hell.

Every person born into this world has a free will. We are free to choose to follow the path God has laid out for us or to choose to make our own path. Either way there will be hard times, for we live in a fallen world and real evil does exist. But when we determine to walk on the path that he has for us, every bad situation is turned around for our good. Even when we stumble or get off the path, He extends His hand of love and helps us back up and back on the right track. Our lives are not without purpose. We can either accept that purpose and strive to be all God has created us to be, using our gifts and talents for His glory, or we can reject His purpose.

Acts 13:36 (NIV), “Now when David had served God’s purpose in his own generation, he fell asleep; he was buried with his ancestors and his body decayed.”

Luke 7:30 (NASB), “But the Pharisees and the lawyers rejected God’s purpose for themselves, not having been baptized by John.”

It encourages me to think of those imperfect, messed up, people who went on before me and fulfilled their purpose. I still have to remember those like Hitler; they remind me of the evil that is always crouching at the door looking for an opening to come in. However, remembering the Mother Theresa’s, the William Wilberforce’s, and the Mildred Cable’s of this world. Then there are the countless people who quietly live their lives and are barely noticed by anyone save their families and friends who live right, serve their community, love their families and live for God. The world may never know them or recognize what they do, but God is paying close attention. He is storing up rewards for them in heaven and He is pouring out His bounty on them now.

Some will suffer for Him and others will lose their lives, but their lives will count!

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His Good Pleasure

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Philippians 2:12-13 (NIV), “So then, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.”

Sometimes Paul seems to contradict himself doesn’t he? I have pointed out several times that Paul wasn’t schizophrenic. We do have to work out our own salvation. Mama can’t do it for us, Gramma can’t either. Each one of us is responsible for the condition of our own souls. In the same way we can’t do it for anyone else. We would love to, but we can’t. Just working out our own sound like a tough enough job. That’s why Paul goes on to say that it is God who does the work in us. We simply hear and obey, surrendering our will to His will. He changes our hearts with His perfect love so that we want to work “for His good pleasure.”

Hebrews 13:20-21 (NIV), “Now the God of peace, who brought up from the dead the great Shepherd of the sheep through the blood of the eternal covenant, even Jesus our Lord, equip you in every good thing to do His will, working in us that which is pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen.…”

I want to please God, don’t you? If you do a search on this you will be amazed how many scriptures there are about what pleases Him. I am only going to include a few.

Ephesians 1:5 (Jubilee Bible 2000) “Having marked out beforehand the way for us to be adopted as sons by Jesus Christ in himself, according to the good pleasure of his will,”

II Corinthians 5:8-10 (NAS), “we are of good courage, I say, and prefer rather to be absent from the body and to be at home with the Lord. Therefore we also have as our ambition, whether at home or absent, to be pleasing to Him. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may be recompensed for his deeds in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad.”

It pleased Him to adopt us and it pleases Him when we live holy and sanctified lives. It also pleased the Father to bruise His Son…

Isaiah 53:10 (KJB), “Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in his hand.”

Colossians 1:19-20 (NASB), “For it was the Father’s good pleasure for all the fullness to dwell in Him, and through Him to reconcile all things to Himself, having made peace through the blood of His cross; through Him, I say, whether things on earth or things in heaven.”

It was God’s pleasure to sacrifice Jesus as an offering for sin.

As a parent that just makes my head spin. How could the suffering of a child, little or full grown, ever please a parent. The only circumstance I can think of is nothing compared to Christ’s suffering. I can think of a child getting stitches, or having a broken bone set, it is painful, but for their own good. God knew the outcome of the cross, it was for our own good. Now think about taking your son or daughter in to have stitches, but instead of watching that needle go in and out of their tender skin, Jesus is sitting in that chair and taking all of the pain for them. That would please a parent. Jesus may have been His only begotten Son, but He has quite a few adopted offspring now and He was thinking of all of us. His will wasn’t forced on His Son. The bible is clear; Jesus freely laid down His life for us. He volunteered and he looked forward to the outcome. To Him it was a joy to reconcile us to the Father.

Hebrews 1:2 (NLT), “We do this by keeping our eyes on Jesus, the champion who initiates and perfects our faith. Because of the joy awaiting him, he endured the cross, disregarding its shame. Now he is seated in the place of honor beside God’s throne.” (emphasis mine)

To Jesus, it was all worth it. The shame and the pain couldn’t keep Him from pleasing the Father. He faithfully endured it all.

And He did it for me, for you, for those who are living a miserable life and don’t know that there is a Father and a Friend who can change their lives forever.

Let’s do what it takes to please God.

Let’s let others know about this glorious, wonderful sacrifice and His undying love.

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What Are You Looking For?

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I am a people watcher. I always have been. When everyone wanted to go anywhere public, I ended up watching more than doing. This wasn’t a conscious decision; it is just part of my makeup. God had a reason for me to be this way, but I didn’t figure it out until much later. In my watching, I wasn’t looking for anything particular. There was no categorizing into classes of people based on age, clothing, hairstyles, or attitudes. Well maybe sometimes the attitude. A lot was learned about human behavior. The things people will do when they think no one is watching them! Now I use the things I observe in my stories.

I am not the only people watcher. Lots of others do it. Their motive is a lot different than mine. Their whole reason for watching you is to see if they can dig up some dirt. Some of them will even pretend to find some if there isn’t any within view. There are people who get paid for doing just that. Who do you think finds all the dirt on our politicians? This behavior really bothers me most of the time. Other times I just remind myself they are behaving like their “king.” What surprises me is when brothers and sisters in Christ exhibit this behavior. Our King isn’t like theirs. He only sees the finished product when He looks at us. (He is a people watcher too.)

Psalms 11:4 (NLT), “But the LORD is in his holy Temple; the LORD still rules from heaven. He watches everyone closely, examining every person on earth.”

Andrew Carnegie, one of the wealthiest men in America in the early 1900’s employed more than forty-two millionaires. When a reporter asked him how he helped those men become so valuable that he would pay them so much money? Carnegie answered, “Men are developed the same way gold is mined. When gold is mined, several tons of dirt must be moved to get one ounce of gold, but one doesn’t go into the mine looking for dirt, one goes in looking for gold. The more he looks for the more he finds.”

When we look at others what are we looking for? Dirt or gold?

People mess up, they have character flaws, and they are not perfect-deal with it. It isn’t our job to change them, or even try to find those flaws. Even those of us that have surrendered to God still have stuff that we need to work on. After all we are still working out our own salvation with fear and trembling. But, our failures don’t define who we are. God’s word defines us! How He sees others is how they truly are. He never looks through eyes that judge or condemn, only eyes of love. How He sees them is how they truly are.

We can give up when we mess up. Or we can get up and keep going. Yes, we need to repent, but then forget about it! In the same way we can’t give up on others because they mess up. (I am not talking about willful habitual sin, that needs to dealt with by Pastors and Elders). God is God of the second chance. In fact Jesus told Peter to forgive seventy times seventy times. Which means keep on doing it. It’s funny how human nature, which comes from our sin nature tends to want everyone to forgive and forget what we have done, but we so want to point the finger at everyone else. That nature has no part in us any longer. If we have God’s nature then we have the nature of Love.

I Corinthians 13:4-7 (NASB), “Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”

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Live Your Life Worthy Of God

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I Peter 1:13-24 (ESV), “Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, since it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.” And if you call on him as Father who judges impartially according to each one’s deeds, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile, knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot. He was foreknown before the foundation of the world but was made manifest in the last times for the sake of you who through him are believers in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God. Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart, since you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God; for “All flesh is like grass and all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers, and the flower falls, but the word of the Lord remains forever.” And this word is the good news that was preached to you.”

We aren’t worthy; nothing we could have ever done would have made us so. God knew that, He still does. That’s why He sent One who was. His Son, Jesus Christ, Immanuel, God With Us, is worthy. So in His worthiness we are accepted by God the Father. After having said all of that I don’t want you to think that there isn’t anything we have to do. We can’t just accept all of that wonderful, precious sacrifice and continue on with a life in this world. It isn’t just a free ticket to heaven and a get out of hell free card. We can’t continue to be conformed to this worlds passions and lusts.

God saved us for a purpose. His desire is that all men might be saved. It wasn’t just me, even though His plan wouldn’t have changed if I had been the only one who sinned. How selfish would it be if we had the means to help every poor person in the world, but didn’t want to share our money? We have been given something so much more than finances. Shouldn’t we want every person we meet to have this same salvation?

I Timothy 2:4 (Douay-Rheims Bible), “Who will have all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth.”

Jesus said that if we loved Him, we would do what He said. Then He told us to preach the gospel, heal the sick, and to cast out demons. We are supposed to live a life that glorifies God, lives that are worthy of Him. No, there wasn’t anything we could do to earn this worthiness, but now that it has been given to us, aught we not to walk in it, to live like we are? Our verse in I Peter tells us to prepare our minds for action. It isn’t about what we aren’t supposed to do. It’s not a long list of things and activities we are never to participate in, clothes we shouldn’t wear, things not to eat and drink. It is all about what we are supposed to do. We are supposed to live a life worthy of Him. Doing what Jesus asked us to do. Help others, serve one another, pray at all times, love the brethren, encourage and exhort one another, and the list goes on. Just because it is a long list, doesn’t mean it isn’t attainable.

I Thessalonians 2:11-12 (NIV), “For you know that we dealt with each of you as a father deals with his own children, encouraging, comforting and urging you to live lives worthy of God, who calls you into his kingdom and glory.”

God is the one who sanctifies us, sets us apart. We are now blameless. It is time we stop trying to do penance, or to somehow live by a certain set of rules and guidelines to earn anything from God, or worse yet to be accepted by men. If our total concentration is on trying to clean our own mess up, how will we ever fulfill the purposes that God has planned for us?

I Thessalonians 5:23 (AMP), “And may the God of peace Himself sanctify you through and through [separate you from profane things, make you pure and wholly consecrated to God]; and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved sound and complete [and found] blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ (the Messiah).”

It’s time to be the Church and stop playing Church.

Hebrews 12:28-29 (NIV), “Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe, For our God is a consuming fire.”

Romans 14:17-18 (ESV), “For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking but of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. Whoever thus serves Christ is acceptable to God and approved by men.”

Matthew 15:8 (KJB), “This people honoureth me with their lips, but their heart is far from me.”

God gave us free will. We have a choice. Are we really going to live for Him, or live for ourselves? Are we His children or are we products of this worlds systems?

When our live here is over what do you want to hear Him say? “His master replied, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!’ (Matthew 25:21) Or, “And throw that worthless servant outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’” (Matthew 25:30)

I know that is a little extreme, that you are probably thinking to yourself, “but that man wasn’t saved.” I also know that you can accept Jesus as your savior, be guaranteed heaven, and still live a pretty carnal life. I also have to admit than when people persistently, constantly, and stubbornly continue to live this way, I can’t help but wonder if they are truly saved. Salvation is a process. We all have to work it out with fear and trembling. However, a living thing is a growing thing. Are you maturing in the things of God? Can other see changes in your life? Are you making an effort to draw closer to God? The more we know Him, the greater our love grows. The more we love Him, the greater our desire is to please Him.

Are you living a life worthy of God?

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Breaking Bread

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Matthew 26:26-28 (NASB), “While they were eating, Jesus took some bread, and after a blessing, He broke it and gave it to the disciples, and said, “Take, eat; this is My body.” And when He had taken a cup and given thanks, He gave it to them, saying, “Drink from it, all of you; for this is My blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for forgiveness of sins.”

Jesus knew He was at the end and that the cross was right around the corner, yet He longed to eat the Passover with His disciples. Breaking bread with friends and family is an intimate time. In Jesus’ day they probably ate all three meals together, not like today’s busy families. Even in my dysfunctional family, we always had our evening meals together as a family, at least until jobs and extracurricular activities began to interfere. That was the time of the day where we shared how our day went, planned for the weekends, and joked around. My normally quick tempered father calmed down with some of Mom’s good cooking in front of him. Jesus understood the importance of all of this.

He could have asked them to remember Him every time they saw a cross, or a hammer and nails; after all he was a carpenter. However, He chose to use a piece of bread and a glass of wine to remind them of all He had showed them, taught them, and how much He loved them. Something that is intimate, something that they would be doing on a daily basis, a family meal together would be the reminder. Every time they broke bread and had a drink with those they cared about. He chose simple daily activity as a reminder of who He is, what He’s done, and how important family is to God.

Acts 2:42 (NIV), “They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.” (Emphasis mine)

“Sitting down to a meal together draws a line around us,” says Miriam Weinstein, author of The Surprising Power of Family Meals, “It encloses us and strengthens the bonds that connect us with other members of our self-defined clan, shutting out the rest of the world.”

So every time you are sitting at the table with loved ones, whether at home or at Church, or even going through drive through on a busy day, remember the shed blood of Jesus and remember His body that was broken for you. It was a pretty big deal! It’s worth remembering don’t you think?