Why did I write this book?
Finally, I have published my book, How to Read the Bible with Feelings, and I feel happy and relieved. I have no intention of writing a book since I am not the kind of person who could write something with all the details and passage after passage. However, I do enjoy writing and expressing my feelings towards certain issues. When I first started to write this book, I only wanted to share how I felt about a few selected passages of Genesis. I believe the Lord wanted me to keep on writing, and as I wrote, more inspiration popped up in my mind, and I've been flushed with feelings, meditation, insights, and reflections from heaven. Otherwise, I won't be able to finish writing this book from Genesis to Revelation. Thus, I want to give all the glory to God, and I pray that God can use this book to reach more people and bless all the readers of this book as well.
What have I learned during this process?
There are times when I just feel like giving up on writing a book that needs a lot of attention and focus. But the Lord kept on encouraging me by saying that "you can do it and you are doing fine." Thus, I finished the first manuscript of this book within 6 months. That was so amazing to me.
By the time I had finished the first manuscript, I needed to face the editorial issue, and it took me a whole year to find two different editors to deal with it. Since everyone was busy, and I had to double check everything after the editorial work was done, it took me another few months to do it. The process was slow, and sometimes I fell into a deep sleep while checking the manuscript again and again. Since I am not a computer, I always screw up all the positions in the word file and sometimes the font as well. Then all the 123 images were supposed to be copyrighted images, but I had to delete all the images because I didn't want to deal with all the copyright issues for each image. As a consequence, I had to design all the 123 images in Powerpoint by myself again, and it wasn't that easy for me. I thank God for giving me creativity with my limited design skills to finish this task. The next step is to deal with the book cover issue again, and I thank God for once again assisting me in resolving this issue with a beautiful book cover.
Finally, uploading the file to the publishing website still needs to go through a lot of difficulties, but thank God that all these problems have been solved again. In the whole process, I have learned perseverance, patience, and focus to finish the process and accomplish what God has placed on my heart in the beginning. Above all else, I have learned that apart from God, we can do nothing. Thus, again, I want to give all the glory to God for this book.
What will this book do to you?
It will lead you to:
. Reflect on selected passages from Genesis to Revelation with new
insight.
. Re-examine your relationship with God through 123 colorful images.
. Restore your interactive communication with God.
. Review your life through reflective questions on God's word.
. Refresh your vision through the personal sharing of the author.
. Return to your feelings and allow emotions to flow out according to
God's way.
. Revive your passion with a fresh fire for God's kingdom.
Whenever you finish reading this book, you may get to know God and yourself in a new way. With this transformation, you will impact the world with a new anointing by the Holy Spirit. At the same time, you will be a blessing to others with this new outpouring of love from Jesus, according to God’s word.
Insights from this book
When Eve started to blame Satan for her sin, Adam did the same. He first blamed God, who made the woman, and then started to blame Eve for causing him to sin. You can immediately see the terrible result of sin and the consequence of disobedience to God’s word. Everything spiraled down very quickly.
So, we are responsible for our own choices, not the ones that gave us the freedom to choose. How often do you blame others when something bad happens? I must admit that I sometimes do it too. That is why we need God to help us see ourselves in the mirror as the people we truly are. For without God’s help, we will keep on blaming God or others around us. Never would we self-willingly view ourselves as being the problem, even though it’s the result of our own free will.
(Quote from the chapter of Genesis 3:1-3 of this book)
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Review
Must read
I have thoroughly enjoyed my spiritual and emotional journey with this book. It is presented in well-chosen Bible sections, with the author's explanations and thoughts. Each segment concludes with questions for the reader to ponder and suggestions for meaningful prayer. The beauty of this book was that its effect was not just through the words but also in the time spent with God as a result.
I appreciated the author's honesty in recalling his own faith journey. This helped build a rapport with the reader.
I particularly liked the author's analogy of God's plan as a picture, requiring the uniqueness of all of us to make it a masterpiece.
The section regarding Angels and Demons interested me. The fact that there are 300 verses regarding the former and 80 regarding the latter was new to me. This was nicely linked to Hebrews 1:13-14. ' Angels are powerful beings created by God in order to carry out God's plans.
'Satan doesn't shy away from finding his own way to destroy babies or cause premature deaths to make sure fewer people fulfil God's plan in their lives,'
This gave me something to think about, as I always equated miscarriage/stillbirth with there being a reason- that the mother's life would be at risk from the pregnancy or the child would have a life of pain and suffering due to a disability. This book would be a great book- club read, as there were many topics I felt merited discussion- not just with God but also with fellow believers.
These were some of the questions posed by the author:
Are we ready for the return of Jesus?
Are you an old-fashioned Christian, or are you willing to be changed by the Holy Spirit into something new?
Are you on fire for Jesus, as cold as ice, or somewhere in between?
I liked the thought-provoking section about Communion. So often it becomes a ritual, rather than the celebration it should be. Similarly, the idea of 'relax, wait and yield to the Holy Spirit with both hands open. Prayer/conversation with God should be a two-way process, yet many people forget to listen and receive his response.
