Bo Giertz is best known for his classic novel, The Hammer of God, which has been translated into eleven languages. Dr. Robert Kolb calls it “The best treatment of Law and Gospel in the history of Lutheran theology.” Incredibly, Giertz wrote his classic in six weeks, but it is considered one of the most influential and important theological books in Swedish history. It was with this backdrop that I began reading To Live with Christ, a daily devotional translated by Bror Erickson. The devotional is fairly long (more than 800 pages) and is organized by the Church Year, starting with the season of Advent. Each devotional begins with a verse from the pericope text, a devotional, and a short prayer.
God at Work
If you ever struggle with the “ordinariness” of life, if you ever struggle with having to do the “mundane” things, if you are ever disappointed because your great hopes and plans and dreams seemingly have not materialized in the necessities of living, then you are encouraged to read Gene Veith’s book on vocation. Dr. Veith clearly and with refreshing simplicity explains Luther’s understanding of the biblical doctrine of vocation, and Veith explains how this doctrine impacts our everyday life.
Little Visits with God
Wiggling, talking, whining, disobeying, the struggle is real. What struggle? The difficult task of sitting everyone down for family devotions. Maybe it’s just me, but sometimes the effort doesn’t seem worth the payoff. My husband and I are always on a quest to find engaging ways to interact with our daughters about spiritual things. Usually we can incorporate these conversations into everyday life, but we also like to strive for some semblance of a family devotional time. Enter Little Visits with God. No devotional is perfect, but this one comes close.
Effective Bible Teaching
As a young basketball coach, I worked with fifth grade to eighth grade students, focusing on the basics of the game and drilling the fundamentals. As I taught more advanced students, I built on those fundamentals and instructed at a higher level. One joy for many coaches is the acquisition of more knowledge to teach their players. I harvested basketball knowledge everywhere I could find it, even to the point of traveling with a box of three-ring binders full of sketched offenses, defenses, drills, and game plan elements.
Bible Discovery Devotions
Teaching children God’s Word is one of the most rewarding yet challenging privileges God has entrusted to us. The home is the primary place where this teaching should occur. The Lord doesn’t require us to be a seminary-trained theologian to teach our children. Thankfully when God gives us children, He also gives us what we need to bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. Helpful resources abound and make wonderful gifts. One of those helps is bound up in a devotional book called Bible Discovery Devotions by Martha Larchar.
The Knowledge of the Holy
“The decline of the knowledge of the Holy has brought on our troubles.” This is just one reason that A. W. Tozer states as to why this topic is important. If we think about it in our own lives, how often do you think about the nature of God? Or meditate on who He is and what His attributes are? Many of our beliefs as well as our worldview depend on these answers. How we view God influences how we respond to Him. We can see this every day in our current culture where many of the issues and controversies we deal with as Christians stem from what people think about who God is.
Up to Jerusalem
John A. Braun has provided to us a devotional book entitled Up to Jerusalem: Devotions for Lent and Easter. This book includes 55 devotional readings with each one being made up of a short passage of Scripture, lasting about three pages, and ending with a short prayer. The back cover of the book suggests that it will take around ten minutes to go through each reading. In these pages, the author takes us through the last days of Jesus’ life beginning with the raising of Lazarus from the dead and ending with the Resurrection and Christ’s appearances after Easter.
Family Vocation: God’s Calling in Marriage, Parenting, and Childhood
In Family Vocation: God’s Calling in Marriage, Parenting, and Childhood, Gene Veith teams up with his daughter, Mary Moerbe, to add another book to the list of books Dr. Veith has written on the topic of vocation. His book God at Work is a good introduction to vocation, the idea that God calls us to various callings in life and works in us
A Faithful Guide to Peace with God
A Faithful Guide to Peace with God is identified on the title page as, “Being the excerpts of the writings of C. O. Rosenius arranged as daily meditations to cover a period of two months with the assistance of N. J. Laache reproduced by George Taylor Rygh.”