MAKING GOD FAMOUS SUMMARY PACK By Mal Fletcher Back to main page

Chapter 1 'The End'

• For centuries, the civilizing influence of Christian teaching was the major factor in the development of European societies.
  
  
• During the so-called Enlightenment, the philosophies of Darwin, Nietzsche, Rousseau and Marx suggested the 'death of God' and his replacement with other mechanisms to explain our past and our future.
  
  
• Twentieth century existentialism (cf. Jean-Paul Sartre) says that life is meaningless and the best we can do is to enjoy it and then embrace death.
  
  
• The major reason God calls a people to himself is to make his name great.
  
  
• If we lose respect for God's nature and character, we build 'idols' to take his place, objects of worship that become the focus of our meaning, shaping our destiny.
  
  
• History has shown that if we live as if there is no God, rather than elevating human nature, we plumb its darkest depths.
  
  
• The names God gave himself in the Old Testament were his first incarnations: God used them to describe his character in terms we can understand.
  
  
• Whenever God introduced himself by a new name, there was always a 'pay off' in the lives of the people to whom he gave the name.

Chapter 2 'Bigger Than Babylon'

• Babylon tried to alienate its captives from their true identity and integrate them into a new one of its own making.
  
  
• In the Bible, Babylon is used metaphorically to represent any world system of government or thinking which seeks to usurp the place of Christ as King of Kings.
  
  
• Babylon tried to change Daniels' sense of personal worth, the way in which he built relationships and his sense of cultural and spiritual identity.
  
  
• For some people, the Christian view of marriage is summed up like this: 'Marriage is two people living together for the rest of their lives.' Actually, the Christian view of marriage is that of a three-way relationship (man, wife and God), reflecting the Tri-une nature of God.
  
  
• Sadly, our heavy reliance on drugs often robs us of the opportunity to know God as a healer, both through divine healing and through the use of natural medicines and a healthy lifestyle.

Chapter 3: 'Reinventing You'

• Our post-modern Babylon tries to strip us of our special identity under God by getting us to call ourselves by something other than God's names for us.
  
  
• After Darwin, human beings were no longer special creations made in God's image. We became descendants of apes and swamp things. Not only did God shrink in importance, so did we.
  
  
• It's not faith, but science that's become the 'opiate of the masses'. We are encouraged to rationalise away spiritual things, to deny the possibility of miracles and to ignore what we can't experience with our physical senses.
  
  
• Technology can provide solutions to practical needs, but we must make the moral choices on how, where or even if the technology should be used.
  
  
• If you were committed to education before you became a Christian, you should probably be much more committed now. Education allows us to develop to the full our God-given, natural abilities.
  
  
• More than ever, the world needs advocates for Christian truth who can communicate age-old wisdom and eternal truth in a way that relates to everyday, real-world concerns.
  
  
• The gospel is a total world-view - it's a whole way of seeing reality. It's the only world-view that lines up with the way things really are all around us.
  
  
• In the areas of morality and ethics, postmodernism says: 'There is no absolute moral right or wrong. All lifestyles are equally valid.' Postmodernism is a world-view that is aeons away from that of the Bible.
  
  
• Every one of us was born for influence. If you don't influence your world, your world will most certainly influence you!

Chapter 4: 'Revelation Man'

• As important as education is, we were never designed to learn through education alone. When God created us, he meant us to learn in more than one way, on more than one level.
  
  
• Only revelation can provide the objective bedrock on which we can base healthy debates on the moral implications of technologies like cloning or gene therapy.
  
  
• Without a constant input of truth that is based on God's character we tend to sink toward the lowest common denominator. Revelation does not work against technology; it helps us to keep technology in check.
  
  
• It was Daniel's ability to hear from God which set him apart in Babylon and gave him his longevity.
  
  
• A truly prophetic life is one that challenges the status quo and points the way to something better. It calls a generation, a people or a nation to line up with God's agenda.
  
  
• For many people, the boom in technology has also brought with it a growing sense of 'technological alienation', a sense of powerlessness and estrangement, a feeling that they are overwhelmed by change.
  
  
• In some areas, we face a kind of tyranny of technology over humanity. Technology has taken over from Christian faith as the most sacred thing in our western society.
  
  
• Science and technology can give us smart cards, smart houses and even smart cars. But none of this can feed the hunger that lies deep within each one of us - the need for the transcendent.

Chapter 5: 'To See What Isn't Seen'

• Often, we come to God looking only for objective revelation. We want a logical, sequential construct to define what is true in a certain situation. God, however, wants first to give us subjective revelation. He wants us to know and experience him.
  
  
• God is looking for people whose hearts are shalem with his heart; people who are in harmony with him, travelling in his direction and sharing his priorities or values.
  
  
• When God planted the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in Eden, he was asking human beings a question: 'Can you live with mystery?' He wanted to know if they were willing to let him be in control of the process of their development.
  
  
• When we yield control to God, we are open to revelation.
  
  
• You know that a revelation word is really from God not because it is wrapped in clever words or stagecraft but because it's accurate and brings with it encouragement, strength and comfort.
  
  
• Prophecy encourages people - literally, it gives people back their courage.
  
  
• Whenever God calls a person to a position of leadership, he gives them a platform from which to speak, a favour that causes people to open up to their influence.
  
  
• What we sometimes call 'anointing' is just ambience, or even emotion. Anointing is the manifest presence of God in response to human need. It is God saying, 'This is what I am like'.
  
  
• The manifestations of God's Holy Spirit are not given to make us look good. The supernatural, revelation gifts of God come to make God look good, which he is!

Chapter 6: 'Prove It'

• God's Word is his Internet of the spirit. It is filled with all kinds of resources, or promises, that are available to us as Christians. All we need to do is 'download' them (cf. Hebrews 11:33).
  
  
• The Lord's Prayer is an easy-to-remember, practical DIY (do it yourself) guide to putting together prayers that get results.
  
  
• God is a 'holy pragmatist'. We're not meant to end our days holding in our hands nothing more of eternal worth than when we began.
  
  
• The first sign that God is planning something fresh in any generation is that his people begin to pray with a new urgency and passion.
  
  
• My religious education taught me that prayer was mainly about God answering me. Prayer is as much about me answering God! He prophetically announces what he is about to do, then waits for me to answer him.
  
  
• The kind of prayer Jesus was teaching us lifts God's name above the commonplace; it makes people think again about God and his power. It proves what he can do.
  
  
• Prayer is not primarily about me getting what I want; it's about God getting what he wants. God wants to establish his Kingdom.
  
  
• The greatest good we can enjoy is to know that we are constantly going forward in the purposes God has for our lives. That's real prosperity.
  
  
• The kingdom of God is wherever the love and rule of Christ are transforming human hearts, relationships and institutions, and calling people of faith into community.
  
  
• Real faith is not escapist in its thinking. Real faith recognises the facts, but then looks beyond them to an even bigger 'Fact', who is God himself!

Chapter 7: 'Living As If You Already Died'

• In age where people are crippled spiritually by their reliance on rationalism and humanism, revelation cuts through all the pretensions and makes God famous.
  
  
• In heaven, the will of God is done without question, in faith.
  
  
• Faith is lining up our decisions and choices with God's decisions and choices, especially when we don't understand his ways, or when we can't control the outcome.
  
  
• Jesus' model prayer is a series of decisive statements based on what the Word of God has already promised us.
  
  
• Praying for a thing in faith is a little like being pregnant. When you start, you give up all rights to set the time limits.
  
  
• Standing on God's promises means more than having them locked in your mind. It means making room in your life so that you can accommodate the promises.
  
  
• Sin always takes you further than you wanted to go, it always keeps you longer than you wanted to stay and it always costs you more than you're willing to pay.

Chapter 8: 'Where Have All The Artists Gone?'

• Art operates on us at the level of what the Bible refers to as the soul or, in Greek, the 'psyche'.
  
  
• Art has an almost spiritual effect in us. It may be the closest we can come to a truly supernatural experience using only the emotional and psychological parts of our make-up.
  
  
• Art offers a different way of seeing and appreciating our selves and our environment, and even provides ideas on the meaning of our existence.
  
  
• What we now call 'the environment' was for centuries known as 'the Creation'. You only have to look at a landscape, or an ocean sunset, to see that the One who made it all is himself an artist.
  
  
• God would not allow the people of Israel to build idols because that would 'freeze' their concept of him, preventing them from knowing him by progressive revelation.
  
  
• When God considers a work of art, he does not pay as much attention to the work as he does to the motivation of heart that produced it.
  
  
• Art has the potential to provide a very shallow substitute for the thing we really hunger after: a spiritual encounter and relationship with God. If art tries to fill that need it is being hypocritical.

Chapter 9: 'Hallelujah'

• When artists turn to graphic portrayals of violence or to pornography, they are dishonouring the One who gave them their creative gifts.
  
  
• Art has an uncanny knack of challenging our values and traditional concepts. It can provoke us into looking for something higher and better than we presently see.
  
  
• In our own day, art produced by Christians should do more than soothe. Art's role is to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.
  
  
• You cannot be prophetically correct and politically correct at the same time! History shows us that the people we admire most are often those who have challenged us most.
  
  
• God's favourite means of communication is incarnation. He wraps the message, the truth, in human form - or in pictures we can understand.
  
  
• Art can model a truth for us, putting a message or concept in a form with which we can readily identify.
  
  
• Our creativity must avoid worn-out clichés, whether in visual form or in language. They represent laziness on our part and do nothing to arouse spiritual hunger.
  
  
• Preaching is more polemic than art. It speaks in black and white terms. Art, on the other hand, needs to challenge us to arrive at a conclusion for ourselves.
  
  
• In the end, art that does not move us, that does not fire some passion deep within our souls, can never point us to God.
  
  
• When creative people begin a daily relationship with God, they find that they begin to see things around them with a new clarity and their art takes on a new level of perception, insight and expression.