I just finished reading The Fruitful Life by Jerry Bridges. And I have to say that I am pretty impressed.

In The Fruitful Life, Bridges addresses the nine Fruit of the Spirit from Galatians 5:22-23: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. To these, he adds the characteristics of humility and devotion.

In my opinion, this is an excellent resource that can help a person really start to dig into a practical understanding and application of these attributes. While each of these spiritual qualities aren’t dealt with in close detail; they are addressed in such a way that one can easily grasp and begin to apply some direction for each characteristic into daily life.

At the end of each chapter is a fairly well-written series of questions and Scripture passages for further study or memorization. These are great discussion starters or thought provoking ideas, but there isn’t quite enough there to really facilitate an extended discussion within a small group setting. That being said, it would be easy to deepen these to the level needed for a small group to easily use this book.

The only drawback is that the qualities of kindness and goodness were lumped together into one chapter. I realize their similarity; however, it would have been nice to hear a bit more of a distinction between the two.

All in all, I felt like The Fruitful Life was a great help to me in continuing to understand the Fruit of the Spirit. And we may just give this book a deeper look in my small group in the near future.

If you are interested in reading The Fruitful Life, you can purchase it at Amazon.com.

Disclosure of Material Connection:
I received this book free from NavPress Publishers as part of their Blogger Review Program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. Also, some of the links in the post above are “affiliate links.” This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will add value to my readers. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

I’ve always enjoyed history; particularly American history. One of my goals has always been to read more of the documents written by and referred to by our Founding Fathers.

I’ve had access to several resources over the years that allowed me the opportunity to peruse many of these early American documents. But those resources have been many and varied.

Not so, any longer. Thanks to Joel Miller and Kristen Parrish, an enormous selection of crucial founding documents has been compiled together in The Portable Patriot.

The Portable Patriot includes the obvious, such as The Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, and the Bill of Rights and the Amendments. But it also includes selections from The Federalist Papers; many sources of personal correspondence from people like John and Abigail Adams, Thomas Jefferson and George Washington; the Mayflower Compact and much more.

The editors have broken these early documents into sub-era categories: Beginnings, Pre-Revolution, Revolution, Founding, and Republic. This small volume is of inestimable value, reminding us of our roots, not only as a nation beginning on the shores of a new continent, but of our roots as a nation founded upon the principles of God himself, and based upon his Word.

My copy is already beginning to look dog-eared. The Portable Patriot is a convenient tool and resource for any American, whether you are a student of history or not. Grab one today!

If you are interested in reading The Portable Patriot, you can purchase it at Amazon.com.

Disclosure of Material Connection:
I received this book free from Thomas Nelson Publishers as part of their BookSneeze blogger review program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. Also, some of the links in the post above are “affiliate links.” This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will add value to my readers. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

Today’s post is from Denise Willbanks. Denise is a recently graduated high school student in our teen ministry, The Journey, at Mountain View Christian Church. Denise has decided that her life needs to be dedicated to missions. She has a huge heart for Rapha House, a ministry that rescues girls from the sex-slave trade in Cambodia. Denise will travel to Cambodia in October with several other people from Rapha House to learn more about this ministry and how she can best fit into it.

This is her review of the book Crazy Love, by Francis Chan. This book has totally transformed her life. I’ll let her tell you all about it…

Crazy Love, by Francis Chan

Wow what can I say… Crazy Love has completely changed my life. I was not a disciple of God at all. I was fooling myself and everyone around me into thinking that I was a Christian. I thought I was a Christian and living how God wanted me to but in reality I was just looking and listening to what I wanted to hear and see. I have grown up in the church; my dad is an elder of my church and my mom teaches Junior Church, and pretty much my whole family goes to my church, or should I say our church.

I was baptized at a young age and I was living my life for God, or so I thought. I read my Bible every day, prayed and was always at church and I had an okay relationship with God. However, this book made me look at my life and come to terms with what it means to become a Christian. I was making God follow my life and I was leading him on my journey instead of the other way around. Crazy Love made me think about how I was living for me and how I was thinking about my life and all the troubles that I had. After reading this book I realized that it’s not about me or my troubles but about God and serving him. God loves us so much; we can’t even comprehend how much and all we give him is maybe an hour of our day. We live our lives without thinking about Him; all we do is go about our day with our to-do lists and appointments. I did not love God until I read Crazy Love. This book made me grasp that I was just doing what I had to do in order to get to heaven; I really didn’t love God.

Since I have finished this book I have actually listened to the Holy Spirit and to what God wants instead of what I want to do with my life. All my life I knew I was going to be a Kindergarten teacher when I grew up, but listening to God, and his plans for my life instead of mine, I am now going to go overseas to Cambodia and help with the sex slave trade. God has been telling me for some time now but I was not listening, just going about my life, ignoring him.

I encourage everyone to read Crazy Love but only if you are ready to change your life. Crazy Love will make you reevaluate your life and how much you give God. This book will take you on a journey that is amazing and bring you closer to God than you have ever been before. Francis Chan is an amazing writer and tells you how it is instead of beating around the bush.

I pray that after reading Crazy Love you have the courage to listen and do God’s will, whatever that may be, and give him everything instead of giving him only half of what he deserves.

If you are interested in reading Crazy Love, by Francis Chan, and seeing what impacted Denise so deeply, you can purchase it at Amazon.com.

Disclosure of Material Connection:
Some of the links in the post above are “affiliate links.” This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will add value to my readers. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

Congratulations to Jenny Dunivan who is the winner of our contest to give away a copy of Andy Andrew’s The Heart Mender: A Story Of Second Chances.

This was the first contest giveaway for The Randleman Review, and it seemed to go well, so I’m thinking of doing more of this in the future, with a few adjustments to the rules. In fact, I have already been given a few other books for this purpose. Any thoughts about this?

Note: The winner was determined by using Random.org’s generator. I entered the total number of legitimate comments and it gave me a random number to determine the winner.

John Day has created an easy to read, yet profound, examination of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, found in Matthew 5, 6, and 7. It’s called Truth Standing on Its Head: Insight for an Extraordinary Christian Walk from the Sermon on the Mount.

Breaking these chapters down into more manageable segments for closer scrutiny, Day has written twenty-two separate studies of Jesus’ largest public discourse.

Each of the twenty-two chapters is fairly brief and to the point. And yet each chapter contains some significant thoughts and ideas pertaining to the passage at hand.

Keeping his comments concise, Day has still managed to communicate the depths of the Sermon on the Mount effectively. While at times his writing style isn’t as engaging or captivating as other chapters within the same book, Truth Standing On Its Head is difficult to put down.

The Sermon on the Mount has seeming been viewed as Christianity simplified. Day draws out the deep meanings of Jesus’ teachings and creates something fresh and new from a topic that is covered frequently in the realm of Christian publishing.

Truth Standing On Its Head is a helpful resource to have on the shelf when studying the Sermon on the Mount. This book easily deserves four stars.

If you are interested in reading Truth Standing On Its Head, you can purchase it at Amazon.com.

Disclosure of Material Connection:
I received this book free from Nordskog Publishing in order to read and review on my blog. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. Also, some of the links in the post above are “affiliate links.” This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will add value to my readers. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

I recently reviewed Andy Andrew’s new book The Heart Mender: A Story of Second Chances.

I really loved the story. In fact, I’ve enjoyed every book by Andy Andrews that I’ve ever read. I encourage you to read my original review for my overall impressions, but I assure you: it is highly positive.

I received an extra review copy for free from BookSneeze.com, and so I thought it might be fun to give it away through my blog.

And so, over the next week, The Randleman Review will conduct a contest to determine a recipient for The Heart Mender.

Here are the rules:

The winner will be selected at random from the comments section of this post using an automated generator, such as Random.org. Therefore, the more you comment, the better your chances of winning the book.

The comments must appear on this post at The Randleman Review, and not on the copy of this post that is posted on my FaceBook account. Comments on the FaceBook note are appreciated, but will not be considered as entries into the contest.

The contest will end at midnight on Thursday, May 27th. The winner will be announced on Friday, May 28th.

Comment away!

If you are interested in reading The Heart Mender, by Andy Andrews, you can purchase it at Amazon.com.

Disclosure of Material Connection:
Some of the links in the post above are “affiliate links.” This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will add value to my readers. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”