What Matters Most

How would you feel if God told you to kill your only child? Would you ignore God? Would you continue to follow God? Would you actually do it? Would you call God crazy? Would you turn your back on God? Just what would you do?

This book will help you decide who or what is first in your life. It will also show you that God has a much deeper understanding of who we are than we do of ourselves. I found that it helped me to answer a lot of questions that I had about God and myself and how I should be following Him, not doing the me me me thing.

I will read this book over and over again, it is that good and God reveals something new in it every time you read it. I hope you will try it and enjoy it as much as I did.

I got this book free from the publisher, WaterBrook Multnomah, all I had to do was read the book and give an honest opinion. This is what I have done.

I enjoyed this book a great deal. Sweet askes inisightful and deep questions particularly as they relate to Abraham, God and us. There is more to Jesus that just knowing stuff. It also involves knowing people. In a world of Christianity that often cites our faith is about relationship, Sweet seeks to provide an outline of what that relationship should entail. I received this book for free from WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing group for my review. All opinions are my own.

When I first picked up this book I wanted to use it as a tool to bring me closer to Christ. And that is exactly what I got.

I am new in my faith and am eager to get my hands on everything that I can to help me learn more about the bible. I am taking classes on the bible to get a better understanding. But I seem to be getting a wealth of knowledge but am no closer to my God then I was when I started.

This is just the book I needed. My church teaches that we need to be more Christ-like but what does that mean. Did Christ have an overwhelming understanding of the events of the Bible? Did he know all the history behind it before and after his death? Or did he simply understand His Father and preach the truth?

This book helped me to understand that my relationship with God is not just about facts and understanding His word but rather understanding myself in order to grow with Him. This book guided me in how I interact with my fellow believers and non-believers as a way to grow in my relationship. While quoting scripture is good it is not everything.

My 5 year old sprain his ankle at the playground and he immediately (after he was done crying) began to pray. As he took his first steps on that ankle he shouted that the trusted in God. He knew exactly where to place his faith and where to look for guidance. This book taught me that I didn't exactly need to know the Bible but more importantly I need to know my God and trust Him.

I recently received the book One Big Thing by Phil Cooke. The whole purpose of this book is to help others discover what they were meant to do.

One Big Thing

Phil Cooke mentions, "One Big Thing will help you discover what you were born to do and allow it to revolutionize your business, your ministry, and your life. In today's distracted, digital culture, it's harder than ever to identify your calling, get your voice heard, and achieve your dreams. To stand out and communicate your ideas and message, you need to cut through the clutter and get noticed. Making that happen means focusing on the one thing that drives you, inspires your passion, and separates you from the pack."

I love Leonard Sweet's book 'What Matters Most.' I would rank it along with the works of Dallas Willard, Richard Foster, Mark Buchanan, and Eugene Peterson as being among the top writing on what it means to follow Jesus that is available today. Of the many works by Sweet I have read, this is among the best.

I think the real strength is in Sweet's emphasis on relationship and his emphasis on the person of Jesus (as opposed to the religious concept, see p. 21). This is seen in a simple but thoroughly true statement: "Faith in God is a relationship involving all of who you are and all that is around you" (p.14). That obviously has far-reaching implications.

One of those implications is the center of life for one who would be a disciple of Jesus. Just as John Ortberg makes the point that Jesus is looking for followers not admirers in his book 'The Life You've Always Wanted,' here Sweet says, "Faith is the willing acceptance of Jesus' invitation: follow me'" (p.24). Sweet rejects faith as a proposition or as an asserted belief. Faith is not something declared and the defended in a debate, formal or informal. Faith is something lived in a dynamic relationship.

As Sweet does in all his books, he illustrates faith as life following Jesus through a variety of helpful metaphors. He also helps his presentation with several comparisons that are quite illustrative. One being the faith as life verses faith as proposition that I mentioned previously.

A final thought and one I find both challenging and convicting; he challenges the modern American's church's presentation of Jesus. "Sadly, the church is too busy connecting people to the memory of Jesus, the Jesus who 'once was' or the promise of the returning Christ who 'is to come.' Meanwhile, the church is neglecting the Jesus who 'is right now,' the Jesus who lives all around us in the lives of the poor, the sick, the disabled, the persecuted, and the dying" (p. 137).

Is he right? Is the church guilty of neglecting the present Jesus? Is the church failing to lead people to the Jesus who works in the world right now? I don't know. I suppose it varies from church to church. But as a pastor, I love that authors like Leonard Sweet hold this convicting question before me because it keeps me on the needed edge in how I prepare to work in ministry.

I recommend 'What Matters Most' as a must-read for who would follow Jesus in the United States in the 21st century.