![]() ![]() So, they’re portable grace-grace readily available to be used as needed. It was this book that helped me understand that the promises of God are, in essence, God’s advertisements of the good he delights in giving us through grace. ( Miller’s Letters to Servant Leaders is also a helpful book, especially for preachers.) It gave me a sense of the truth that no matter where I am in my story, God will give me grace so I can give him glory. Miller is the originator of the soul-encouraging idea that we must “preach the Gospel to ourselves every day.” This book overwhelmed me with the enormity of God’s love for me in Jesus. How was I as a Christian to think? As a Grace Focused Optimist! The book caused a Copernican revolution in my thinking by helping me see the importance of my thinking and, consequently, the necessity of thinking as a Christian. But this book taught me the importance of optimism as a core attitude toward life, the significance of my self-talk (what Seligman calls “explanatory style”), and the fact I could change my life by changing my self-talk. Seligman is a psychologist and most definitely not a Christian. The companion study guide is also recommended. ![]() The God Who is always dealing with me is always dealing with me as a loving Father. Indeed, my core identity as a grace person-indeed, what makes me a grace person-is the fact that I am God’s adopted child. There, Packer quotes Karl Barth’s wise words, “’Father’ is the Christian name for God.” I learned from this that God makes a big deal of being my Father and wants me to make a big deal of being his child. But I found Chapter 19, Sons of God, especially enriching. The entire book is a mother lode of grace gold. Out of this came the heart of Grace Focused Optimism, namely, “Through Jesus, my life is a grace G.O.O.D.” This helped me see that promotion of Christ-like character is the “good” that God is always up to in a Christian’s life. ![]() This book-his exposition of Romans 8:17-39- showed me that grace is God’s plan of exalting himself by humbling himself through Jesus to exalt a people by making them perfectly and permanently like Jesus and, consequently, perfectly and permanently happy. Lloyd-Jones is the consensus pick as the greatest preacher of the latter half of the Twentieth Century. Romans: The Final Perseverance of the Saints by David Martyn Lloyd-Jones – ( Schaeffer’s Letters, edited by Lane Dennis, were equally useful in my early thinking.) Its theme is “the meaning of the finished work of Christ for our present lives.” This book awakened in my heart the realization that grace is not only for eternal life but everyday living. And True Spirituality is his best known-book. Relatively unknown in many of today’s Christian circles, Schaeffer was arguably the most famous Christian of the 1960’s – 1980’s. The Bible is The Grace Focused Optimism Book. Read the Bible as a Grace Focused Optimist and your heart will burn within you like the Emmaus Road travelers’ did as Jesus opened the Scriptures to them. The message of the Bible from start to finish is the message of Grace Focused Optimism: God has a people whose lives he makes grace G.O.O.D.s through the Lord Jesus Christ. And the Holy Spirit of the Bible is the One whom the Father through the Son uses to make Grace Focused Optimists. The Jesus of the Bible is the insurer of that which Grace Focused Optimism is all about. The God of the Bible is the author of Grace Focused Optimism. If you find something askew in the way it’s stated, the fault is mine not the author being referenced.įirst and foremost, the book that helped me become a Grace Focused Optimist (and more than any other keeps me one) is the Bible. As I share the books I’ve found helpful, please remember that my comments on each book, unless in quotation marks, come from me not its author. Nine books have been especially influential in helping me become a Grace Focused Optimist. Handling life this way results in doxology: increasingly loving, lauding, and leaning on God, as well as living for, and being loyal to, him.īut though this label “Grace Focused Optimism” is mine, the ideas that make up this truth have come from a number of books. God makes this happens as I handle life with the disposition of optimism that whatever enters my life is his will for me. means that through Jesus my life is a God orchestrated opportunity to develop Christlike character. I believe being a Christian means being a Grace Focused Optimist.Ī Grace Focused Optimist is a Christian living with The Christian Attitude, “Through Jesus, my life is a grace G.O.O.D.” Books That Helped Me Become A Grace Focused Optimist ![]()
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