.: candles of thought to light my way :.

These are the top ten quotes from Rick Warren's book, "The Purpose Driven Life", which it just so happens that I finished today. I am usually not given to reading the Christian pop culture materials that come out, which everyone and their mom reads, but for the sake of theology and the possibility of personal edification, I thought I would give it a go.



1) "God invites you to participate in the greatest, largest, most diverse, and most significant cause in history - his kingdom." (p. 298)



2) "Authentic fellowship is not superficial, surface chit-chat. It is genuine, heart-to-heart, sometimes gut-level, sharing. It happens when people get honest about who they are and what is happening in their lives. They share their hurts, reveal their feelings, confess their failures, disclose their doubts, admit their fears, acknowledge their weaknesses, and ask for help and prayer." (p. 139)



3) "Because God is love, he treasures relationships. His very nature is relational, and he identifies himself in family terms: Father, Son, and Spirit. The Trinity is God's relationship to himself." (p. 117)



4) "One of the most profound examples of serving from a secure self-image is Jesus' washing of the feet of his disciples. Washing feet was the equivalent of being a shoeshine boy, a job devoid of status. But Jesus knew who he was, so the task didn't threaten his self-image." (p. 269)



5) "Pain is the fuel of passion - it energizes us with an intensity to change that we don't normally possess." (p. 98)



6) "God develops the fruit of the Spirit in your life by allowing you to experience circumstances in which you're tempted to express the exact opposite quality!" (p. 202)



7) "Seeking a feeling, even the feeling of closeness to Christ, is not worship." (p. 109)



8) "People often build their identity around their defects." (p. 220)



9) "Surrendering is not repressing your personality. God wants unique your personality. Rather than its being diminished, surrendering enhances it." (p. 80)



10) "When we focus on personalities, preferences, interpretations, styles, or methods, division always happens. But if we concentrate on loving each other and fulfilling God's purposes, harmony results." (p. 162)



There is enough fodder here for my blog for the next month, but I cannot fully deal with all these outside of possibly relating to them as it seems appropriate in the near future. I just wanted to offer the nuggets of a book that I approached with some skepticism... and ended up discovering some things that really resonated within me. They were what made the book worth the price that I paid for it... though I am not sure that I would put it on my top ten list of books. Any thoughts?