"Resistible Revolution"

I've been told by some people that I just have to read certain books. My life will be utterly changed. I got a text about a book that said, "read it, it will change your life and everything you believe in." Guess what? I'm not going to read that book. "You haven't watched 'The Passion'? How can you not watch 'The Passion'!!!" Guess what? I won't watch that movie. Stop hassling me, people, I'll read and watch what I want to read and watch. Also, I don't want to have some random book change my life and everything I believe in. If one book that is not the Bible can shatter all your beliefs, then you have some very weak beliefs. If some book that some guy wrote about why you should live more like he does is enough to make your world turn upside down, then your thoughts have no depth and your beliefs are like a house in the sand. Yes, books can shape and add and chip away at what we think and believe--and rightly so--but we should accept as doctrine no text but scripture, even one man's use of scripture. If I'm to believe Irresistible Revolution is powerful because it uses scripture and personal experience, then I submit to you Health and Wealth, a book about how God wants you to have a lot of money and things. That we should sell our possessions and live as spiritual transients is a very "college" idea. We're people with no responsibilities, who haven't lived, who are willing and eager to emulate those with glamourous lives, even if that glamor is in the spirituality of one's poverty and celibacy. There's a reason that for centuries many of the world's most effective ministers have lived in homes with families and with at least modest personal wealth, and that reason is not greed. God is a God os sacrificial love, and He's a God that understands the way things are and need to be. The Lord asks that we be willing to forsake all to follow Him wherever He may call, but His calling does not always necessitate the liquidation of our assets. We should not presume that some man who wrote a book can interpret the call of God in our lives, and we cannot be fooled into thinking that God's call is the same for all His children. His call is to serve, His call is to love, His call is to sacrifice, His call is to give. Sometimes this may lead to a call to poverty, but it may also result in a call to hospitality within His blessing of a home. 

Don't let those who do not know you tell you the explicit call of Christ in your life. Be convicted by the Holy Spirit alone, not words that seem good when propped up by hard-cover books. Filter teaching through scripture. Love.