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These Christian book reviews reflect only books I have personally read and books from which I have personally benefited. I know your time is valuable, which is why I don’t recommend an overabundance of books for you to sift through.
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Although I have links to the following books throughout this website, I have also compiled them on this Christian Book Reviews page along with words of encouragement.
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Dear friends, let us purify ourselves
from everything that contaminates body and spirit,
perfecting holiness
out of reverence for God.
~II Corinthians 7:1
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Each of these books will help you
in one of two ways:
To grow closer to the Lord as He speaks to you individually through His Word and through relationships and circumstances He ordains for your specific life which will release you to His love for you.
To point you to the three areas that address the growth of your whole person:
Humility, yoking with Christ (Matthew 11:29), which manifests in a willingness to
- Listen to others and to God in unceasing, moment-by-moment prayer
- Evaluate relationships and circumstances—God speaking to you individually
- Repent from known relational sin and sin such as unbelief, pride, idolatry, legalism
- Change through cooperating with the Spirit in obedience
- Forgive others and especially yourself
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HOLINESS
These three postures before our most holy triune God revive the triune heart:
- Humility (the will)/Son
- Yearning (the emotions)/Spirit
- Believing (the mind)/Father
Holiness—a setting apart—releases Christian women to love and liberty to serve others
(not license to satisfy self).
Holiness is also a manifestation of the Lordship of Christ over one’s life.
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The new life manifests itself
in conscious repentance and
unconscious holiness.
~ Oswald Chambers ~
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Yearning for depth of relationship (Psalm 42:1) through the Spirit and with others, which manifests as
- Desiring Truth Who is Christ and creating the margin in your life to hear His Truth directly from His Spirit
- Receiving Love Who is God/Christ
- Abiding in Truth and Love
- Worshiping in Spirit and Truth
- Pouring out to others what the Spirit has poured in to you
Believing God (II Timothy 1:12), which manifests in
- Rejoicing in the reality of your circumstances and relationships, even and especially the difficult ones
- Trusting that He speaks His wisdom to you each moment of the day, as you abide
- Resting in the assurance of His promises, as you obey
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I pray that these Christian book reviews
will help you select pertinent books
for your individual journey with the Lord.
Christian Book Reviews: Section I
RENEW YOUR MIND; DWELL IN REALITY
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Because I often encourage women to dwell in the reality of their circumstances and relationships, I’m always on the lookout for other authors who have lived this Biblical principle. Elizabeth George offers practical wisdom about dwelling in reality and being transformed by the renewing of your mind in her book Loving God with All Your Mind.
For those of you who are discouraged or even depressed because God seems so far away or unreachable, applying Elizabeth George’s solid Biblical counsel to your mind and heart will begin the process of releasing you from what binds and keeps you from communing with the One Who loves you.
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From YWAM Publishing:
“Why Not Women? brings light not just more heat to the church’s crucial debate with
- A detailed study of women in Old Testament writings, Jesus’ ministry, and the letters of the apostle Paul.
- Historical and current global perspectives.
- An exploration of the value and roles of women in Greek and Roman history and literature, Jewish rabbinic literature, the early church, current cultures, and the church today.
- An examination of the fruit of women in public ministry.
- A hard-hitting revelation of what’s at stake for women, men, the Body of Christ, God’s Kingdom, and the unreached.”
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Even though this book is about public ministry, I found the authors’ (two men, by the way) approach to the subject of women in the Body of Christ similar to what the Spirit had been teaching me about liberty in Christ within my marriage.
This book affirmed that
Christ is my spiritual Head, something the Spirit of God taught me through my marriage crises. I had been released to love my husband from this position in Christ but had been apprehensive to share what the Lord had done in my life because of the overwhelming yet misguided teachings advocated in homeschooling circles about headship.
The reality, my dear sister, is that Christ is your spiritual Head! May that reality release you to love!
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Christian Book Reviews: Section II
GROW IN THE GRACE AND KNOWLEDGE OF CHRIST
When I was struggling to grow closer to the Lord, these three books helped me to examine my response to the Spirit of God.
Creating margin gave me the time to order my private world. When my private world (i.e., my heart) began to step along with the Comforter Who was guiding me, my response to His grace didn’t change my circumstances; instead, my response to His grace changed me.
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Christian Book Reviews: Section III
BELIEVE AND ABIDE
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Cooperate with the Lord’s work in your heart.
Let His holiness flow through you as you
believe and abide.
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Christian Book Reviews: Section IV
WORSHIP AND PRAY MOMENT BY MOMENT
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C.H. Spurgeon gives readers some deep things to process in prayer.
I find that I re-read these books at least annually to help me discern where I have grown and where I need to go deeper.
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Prayer:
Does It Make
Any Difference?
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I found this book deeply challenging as well as practical because the author asks the same questions I have asked about prayer:
- Why does God let the world go on as it does and not intervene?
- Does prayer really help with physical healing?
- Why does God sometimes seem close and sometimes far away?
- How does God want me to pray?
- Should I question Him?
From the book jacket, author Philip Yancey wrote: “I have now written twenty books, and in some way or other most of them circle around the same two themes: why God doesn’t act the way we want God to, and why I don’t act the way God wants me to. Prayer is the precise point where those two themes converge.”
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I highly recommend this book for those who enjoy pondering the why’s of life.
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Christian Book Reviews: Section V
GROW THROUGH YOUR MARRIAGE CIRCUMSTANCES
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I also discourage doormat submission that is often advocated especially in homeschooling circles. Boundaries in Marriage by Dr. Henry Cloud and Dr. John Townsend highlights real-life examples of couples who respect each other’s boundaries and those who don’t.
If your
marriage is struggling, you will find refreshing, practical, Biblical counsel in each chapter of this book. Two chapters, “Resolving Conflict with a Boundary-Resistant Spouse” and “Misunderstanding Boundaries in Marriage,” will renew your mind about the importance of confronting hard issues in healthy ways that help you grow.
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Although my husband and I hadn’t read this book at the time we were going through our marriage crises, after reading it in the spring of 2009, we can see how the Spirit was certainly leading us because we have applied many of these principles throughout our almost 29 years of marriage.
So even if your marriage is solid, you may find this book helpful to confirm what God has done in your life. Hopefully, you will also find areas where you can improve your communication, validation, and valuing of your husband which will strengthen your marriage in deeper unity and love.
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Often when working through marriage issues, intimate life can become burdensome instead of unifying.
My husband and I read through Intimate Issues together over a period of years, tackling the personal issues that faced us.
The topics in the book gave us much food for thought and for discussion, as we allowed the Lord and each other in to the most vulnerable places of our hearts.
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Christian Book Reviews: Section VI
GROW THROUGH PARENTING
Of all the parenting books I’ve read—and I’ve read many!—I have found that applying the principles in these three books have helped me the most.
Instead of outlining behavior-management techniques, the authors of these books offer principles to help moms and dads dig deeper into their children’s hearts.
While in the throes of child-training my young children, I found myself referring to these books often to help me to understand what heart issues I needed to address. And as I addressed their heart issues, Father-God parented me and addressed my heart issues.
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Christian Book Reviews: Section VII
EXERCISE YOUR BODY
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My husband and I enjoy exercising together as much as possible in the mornings. We discuss all sorts of things while working up a healthy sweat.
We have found this Leslie Sansone DVD particularly helpful because we can choose from three different exercise routines to accommodate our day’s schedule:
- A one-mile walk (about 20 minutes)
- A two-mile walk (about 40 minutes)
- A three-mile walk (about 50 minutes)
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Christian Book Reviews: Section VIII
MANAGE YOUR HOME
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Emilie Barnes has written many helpful books for home management, and I’ve read most of them. These two books were most direct about practical homemaking help.
So I wouldn’t overwhelm myself while trying to learn to manage my home, I developed a process for using these books. I would check one of these books out from the library, find a few helpful suggestions to apply to my home, and return the book.
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Then three or four months later, I would get the book again. It was fun to see what had “stuck” and where I could improve.
After three or four years of checking out these books periodically, I had developed a routine that works for our home.
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I checked out many of these books from our inter-library loan system before purchasing them. Perhaps your library system carries these titles too. If you find yourself re-ordering them often, then you’ll know it’s time to buy them for your own home bookshelf.
I hope these Christian Book Reviews helped you discern relevant books for your personal spiritual journey.
May the Lord bless you with a release of His love
as you cooperate with Him in renewing your mind.
Be transformed
by the renewing of your mind.
~Romans 12:2
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