Beth Moore is that girl you chat with over coffee and because there's so much to share your coffee ends up getting cold. She's that teacher you can relate to and the one you wish you could call in the middle of the night. It seems wisdom just flows from her spirit.
Audacious and verve just may be your new {fave} words once you finish this book. This book wasn't what I expected. Maybe with this one I expected a bit more. Something different. But blessings still flowed from Beth's penned words. Her audacious heart touched mine.
Here's a few of my faves from this penned work:
"WE don't have to half Him. Have all of Him. Have the audacity to take Him up on everything He is., And, if you do, I dare you not to live an adventure."
"If we stomp out every bit of spontaneity and edge out every inch of risk in our divine romance with Jesus, we are going to flatten what was meant to be the greatest thrill of our lives into the roadkill of religious routine. When you are head over heels in love, you make a fool of yourself sometimes."
"Participating with Him in something that is humanly impossible or naturally unexplainable. Knowing full-well that He just enabled you to do something you were utterly incapable of doing."
"To audaciously love Jesus Christ is not the only best thing you could ever do for yourself. It's the best thing you could do for those around you even if, at first, they beg to differ. Every relationship in your life stands to benefit from your bold, adventurous affection for Jesus Christ, not because you will run them down with the gospel eighteen-wheeler, but because you will walk the gospel out right in front of them. Audacious is not obnoxious. If our spiritual fire burns people instead of warming them, we have zeal without knowledge. When time affords us the luxury-and it doesn't always-the most effective gospel is show and tell. You share Jesus with your heart by the way you love, with your hands by the things you do, and, yes, of course, you share Jesus with your mouth. Sooner or later, you won't be able to keep from it. Audacious love unties the shiest tongue."
"We set people free to love us in a way they never otherwise could have done when we no longer hold them responsible for giving us the lives we were born to live."
"We are called by Jesus to jeopardize everything we are on this one supreme love, counting all else as loss for the surpassing value of knowing Christ. Only after the risk do we discover the reward: with Him came everything else of ultimate value."
"Boldness says that we don't see every little obstacle as some big hindrance. We're not too fragile to adapt and too finicky to accept. Boldness says that each circumstance is up for rent as opportunity. What we're willing to do with the room we've been given is up to us. Boldness makes the best of it."
"Those willing to give up their insatiable self-preoccupation to identify with Jesus and follow Him furiously will find an ever-unfolding life and love that they couldn't have scripted if they'd tried. God knew better than to lay it all out there at once. With brilliant mastery, He insisted on mystery. We do't get an advance bio of the precise life we're trading our self-absorption for. Even that is a gift from the giver. God authored a masterpiece of a story by setting into motion a process that would require a journey of faith. It was meant to be a nail-biter. It was intended all along to be a process that would require the naked exposure of our most sacred, carefully-guarded human possession: our trust."
Beth uses scripture, stories from those who lived the Bible, personal stories of her own and from the lives of those she knows well, to highlight the audacity we should be living in Christ.
This may not be quite what I expected, but Beth still gave me wisdom to ponder and set before me this new way of looking at my journey with Christ and how I can best share Him through this life He has so graciously given me.
This book was a gift by B&H Publishing Group for sharing my review with you.
Beth Moore is a writer and teacher of the best-selling books and Bible studies whose public speaking engagements carry her all over the United States. A dedicated wife and mother of two adult daughters, Moore lives in Houston, Texas, where she is president and founder of Living Proof Ministries.
