Spirituality

Dr. Antonio Maurice Daniels Celebrates 40 Years of Life: Ruminations and Revelations

Yesterday, March 27, 2021, was my 40th birthday. To live this long, I am grateful, grateful for God’s grace. Without God’s grace, I wouldn’t have made it to see my 40th birthday. This pandemic has reaffirmed how important it is to value your life, to see how precious it is, to see how much of a blessing it is.

We have a responsibility to God to steward the time He has bestowed. For 40 years, I tried to make the most of my time. Unfortunately, I haven’t been flawless in this endeavor. Why? Because I permitted other people, people unworthy of holding space with, unworthy of occupying my time, to rob me of the power of maximizing each minute, each moment. I want to acknowledge the missteps and the poor choices I’ve made regarding using my time. Why? To make change happen, one must first recognize and then analyze his or her past mistakes, mistakes that prevented optimal progress.

After ruminating about past mistakes, imprudent decisions, one must focus on life ahead of him or her. That’s what I’m determined to do. Too many of us choose to be consumed by regret and to wallow in past misfortunes. To be frank, though, if we’re going to live in the past, then we don’t really have any use for the present. By dwelling in and on the past, we’re making the same deleterious mistake of the past that haunts our present: we’re wasting our time.

Don’t waste your time. Your time is sacred; God has given it to you.

I will not waste another minute, another moment, on people and things that shouldn’t occupy my time and space. I promise myself and God that, from this day forward, I will use every minute on living, loving, learning, growing, and doing the work.

For so many of my past 40 years, I couldn’t distinguish between helping people and self-mutilation. How did I finally recognize that my “helping” of some unworthy people was self-mutilation? I finally realized and admitted that my scars and wounds bear their names.  

Scars don’t magically disappear; wounds don’t magically heal. What can change immediately, however, is your relationship to those scars and wounds. You can refuse to be defined by those scars and wounds, and you can refuse to remain in those dark places where they originated.

The scars and wounds have strengthened me, and I am ready to live in the power of the possibilities available to me.

Live. Love. Learn. Laugh. Grow. Conquer.

Dr. Antonio Maurice Daniels

University of Wisconsin-Madison

Don’t Let Disappointment Defeat You
Overcoming Disappointment
Photo Credit: Everyday Feminism

Disappointment is a natural part of the human experience; take time to learn from it—never hide from what it invites you to confront. One grows stronger when he or she learns to discover what disappointment offers, but fear causes people to attempt to bury the initial pain and restlessness it materializes. The pain indicates an undesirable, yet necessary pressing against love residing in you; the restlessness, love striving toward healing. Given a chance to run their natural course, pain and restlessness buttress your interior life: they engender resiliency, crucial to surviving and thriving in an often callous world.

Resisting the perception of vulnerability as weakness, a chink in your spiritual armor, inadequate emotional intelligence necessitates courage. To be fearless in the face of adversity, fill yourself up on faith and hope, joy and thanksgiving, rest and gratitude. Doubt, failing to develop a critical reflective praxis, denying vulnerability time and space to speak—all stifle your progress. Extracting value from disappointment requires one to use her or his organic processing tools—reading, writing, and meditating—leading to a higher, more enlightened self.

After reading yourself through disappointment, after writing yourself through heartache, and after meditating yourself through the unpleasant experience, you birth essential knowledge about resistance, resistance to malevolent forces aiming to destroy you. This knowledge of resistance grants you power to shine light into darkness, power to bring tranquility to tottering people and places—and regimes on the brink of ruin.

When you offer peace to chaotic people and places, two guiding principles are important to maintain: stay focused on the mission and understand that you will face opposition—often formidable opposition. Recognize that your opponents, those trying to thwart your continuous progress, suffer from brokenness, requiring someone like you, someone committed to truth, love, and justice, to move them from a barren place to a fecund place.

Misunderstood by many, disappointment torments people. Frightened, they become docile bodies held captive by it. At some point, however, these docile bodies must shatter the manacles of oppression and depression disappointment imposes.

Bondage, it’s dreadful. The more one surrenders to subjugation, the more she or he will accept it. What subjugated people fail to resist, they fail to comprehend.

Mentally and spiritually enslaved people, blinded by ignorance, face inevitable destruction—unless liberators come to their rescue. Resistance can crush bondage. But how? By unseating the false authority granted to bondage.

You have the power to dethrone disappointment’s reign of terror in your life.

What’s holding you back, though?

Dr. Antonio Maurice Daniels

University of Wisconsin-Madison    

Emily P. Freeman’s The Next Right Thing: A Summary

The Next Right Thing by Emily P. Freeman

Photo Credit: Amazon

Emily P. Freeman’s The Next Right Thing (2019) offers readers important insights about how to make successful decisions. The book strives to help readers see decision making as an opportunity for spiritual growth. For Freeman, one can find peace even when it does not seem possible. The author contends that doing the next right thing is about moving one’s focus from outcomes to the present moment.

When a person removes distractions, Freeman argues that he or she can better understand inner experiences.

If an individual is not being real with himself or herself, the author asserts that God is not able to reveal what He desires to communicate to him or her in the present moment.

The Next Right Thing challenges the reader to question his or her desires and motivations. Freeman believes that questioning one’s desires and motivations allows him or her to find clarity on their spiritual paths. This does, however, require one to be candid with himself or herself.

Freeman recommends that one invest more time in listening to his or her believers rather than critics. She asserts that keeping yourself uplifted with positive words of others empowers you to arrive at the heart of the person you really are.

The writer values surprises, for they, she argues, more often permit one to resolve decision making chaos than perceived clarity does. The book emphasizes that it is not wise to expect clarity about every detail of the future, considering life unfolds in complex and unpredictable ways.

Dr. Antonio Maurice Daniels

University of Wisconsin-Madison  

NIV, The Maxwell Leadership Bible, 3rd Edition: A Brief Review

The Maxwell Leadership Bible

Courtesy of Thomas Nelson

John Maxwell’s NIV, The Maxwell Leadership Bible, 3rd Edition, is a wonderful bible with an excellent, reader-friendly print. With the New International Version being a popular translation of holy Scripture, many will appreciate how John Maxwell helps readers to gain critical insights about it through illuminating leadership principles throughout the text. Maxwell does a brilliant job of evincing how the bible is truly a book that has much to teach about effective leadership. A well-established authority on leadership, Maxwell brings his years of leadership experience and expertise to profile biblical leaders and what can be learned from their leadership.

This bible contains an introduction to each book and many short articles related to leadership. The hardback edition is a soft, comfort hardback, which makes it pleasant to hold and carry. Maxwell does a thorough job of ensuring that the reader understands the bible through a leadership lens and that he or she is able to engage constantly with Scripture’s powerful revelations about leadership.

Without question, leaders (and not just spiritual leaders) should purchase a copy of this this bible. Also, all individuals serious about the study of the Word of God need a copy of this bible. When one reads this bible, he or she comes away from the text a more empowered person ready to address challenges and problems with biblical courage and wisdom.

To aid the drafting of this honest review, the publisher, Thomas Nelson, provided a copy of The Maxwell Leadership Bible through BookLook Bloggers.

Dr. Antonio Maurice Daniels

University of Wisconsin-Madison

NKJV Ancient-Modern Bible: A Brief Review

Thomas Nelson’s New King James Version Ancient-Modern Bible is an excellent bible that aids the reader in gaining a solid understanding of Scripture. Throughout the text, the reader has an opportunity to engage with commentary offered by some of the leading Christian thinkers about much of the text. For those readers who struggle to understand verses after they have read them, this text will give them great confidence in their reading and study of Scripture. One should not, however, consider this a study bible; it’s not. At the beginning of each book of the bible, an introduction is provided that will assist in establishing an overview and context for each book.

The bible is well-designed, fusing a traditional style with a contemporary style. It has a nice, readable typeface and print in general that invites the reader to spend hours reading, studying, and meditating on God’s Word. This hardcover edition of the bible is durable, attractive, and easy to carry around. Even though it is a hardcover book, I love how it feels; it has a really soft, comfortable feel to it.

This bible could offer more significant study aids for the reader, but it does not present itself as a study bible.

Although I generally like bibles that offer far more study aids than this bible does, I do recommend the Ancient-Modern Bible. Even without the study aids I typically appreciate, the commentary of ancient and modern leading Christian thinkers throughout the text makes this a resourceful bible to read.

To assist in composing this honest review, BookLook Bloggers supplied a complimentary copy of the Ancient-Modern Bible.

Dr. Antonio Maurice Daniels

University of Wisconsin-Madison

Thomas Nelson’s NKJV Vines Expository Bible by Jerry Vines: A Brief Review

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Thomas Nelson’s New King James Version Vine’s Expository Bible: A Guided Journey Through the Scriptures with Pastor Jerry Vines is an excellent comprehensive study bible that provides readers with significant study aids throughout that enable them to gain a greater understanding of the Word of God. This bible assists readers with useful introductions to all 66 books. Throughout the text, one has the opportunity to engage with unpacked key vocabulary words/concepts that permit a stronger understanding of Scripture.

Jerry Vines leads readers through the bible with 200 “Presenting the Messages,” which are detailed outlines that allow them to gain a rich understanding of often complex and/or misunderstood portions of the Scripture. Also, he includes 200 “Applying the Message” entries that aid readers in seeing how Scripture is relevant to their spiritual walk with Jesus.

Many will appreciate the 100 “Living the Message” articles included in this expository bible that present vivid illustrations of true Christian living.

For those looking for a bible to serve all of their needs, this bible is sure to satisfy most (if not all) needs. This hardcover edition of the bible is durable, attractive, and comfortable to carry.  The typeface and print are inviting, making you want to spend hours in serious study of God’s Word. The commentary Jerry Vine offers throughout this text is grounded in biblical truths; therefore, it supports an accurate understanding of Scripture rather than impeding it.

I highly recommend purchasing this bible, even if you already have a bible, considering the aforementioned features of this text will assist you in achieving deeper comprehension and analyses of the most important book ever written: the bible.

To  compose an honest review of this bible, BookLook Bloggers gave me a complimentary copy.

Dr. Antonio Maurice Daniels

University of Wisconsin-Madison  

  

Christ’s Perfect Example of Love

Jesus Love on the Cross

(Photo Credit: CNN)

Christ is the highest expression and embodiment of love.

Suffering the most barbarous and mortifying sacrificial death one can ever witness or imagine—all to proffer an invitation for eternal union and fellowship with Him—Christ loved everyone even before anyone ever loved Him.

Giving those willing to believe in Him and His redemptive work on Calvary’s Cross as the final atonement for all sins, Jesus offers an everlasting love, a love that never leaves, never forsakes, never separates.  

Faithful to us when we’re unfaithful to Him, Jesus loves unconditionally because He is love.

To know love, therefore, is to know Him.

Dr. Antonio Maurice Daniels

University of Wisconsin-Madison

Words of Grace by Scott Patty: A Book Review

Words of Grace by Scott Patty

                                            (Photo Courtesy of LifeWay)

Written prayerfully and from the heart, Words of Grace: A 100-Day Devotional, penned by Scott Patty, pastor of Grace Community Church in Nashville, Tennessee and a graduate of Belmont University and Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, is a powerful spiritual devotional that illuminates the most essential message of the Bible: grace. Through the devotional pieces in this book, Patty strives to “open up the meaning, relevance, and application of God’s Word of grace to people” (xi). The author hopes readers “hear God’s Word, see the grace of Christ in it [the Bible], respond to him [Christ] in faith, and come to know him [Christ] personally” (xi).  

As a minister and theologian whose teaching praxis and theology centers on grace, this book is a welcome addition to my library. Each devotional piece begins with one or two scriptural verses, and then Patty starts teaching the reader critical truths and principles based on the verse(s), triggering valuable spiritual reflections and personal calls-to-action. When reading Words of Grace: A 100-Day Devotional, therefore, don’t think you’re about to pick a book that’s not about to challenge you to experience spiritual renewal and transformation. This book has the power to produce a truly new you; a new you in virtually every area of your life.

One of my favorite devotional pieces in the book is “God, the Just and Justifier,” based on Romans 3:21-26, which is arguably “the most important paragraph on salvation in the Bible” (9). This portion of the book is a beautiful (and brief, of course) explanation and reflection on how God’s grace has liberated those who believe His grace is sufficient to forgive and cleanse their sins forever. Patty writes, “As such, when Jesus died on the cross he took our sins to himself, bore the punishment of God against our sin in his body, and thereby freed us from condemnation for our sin. God sent Jesus to be our substitute. This is the definition of grace” (9).    

In short, I highly recommend that you purchase and read this book. As you read this work, you will grow deeper in your comprehension and appreciation of grace. To help facilitate a critical review of Patty’s work, B&H Publishing Group/LifeWay supplied me with a copy of Words of Grace: A 100-Day Devotional.

Dr. Antonio Maurice Daniels

University of Wisconsin-Madison

Say Goodbye to Regret by Bob Santos: A Book Review

Say Goodbye to Regret Bob Santos

(Photo Credit: Amazon)

In Say Goodbye to Regret: Discovering the Secret to a Blessed Life, Bob Santos offers readers powerful advice and inspiration to help them liberate themselves from the prison of their past and poor decisions. Emphasizing that making mistakes is a part of what makes us human, Santos advocates for people to use their past and poor decisions as tools for learning and progress. The book is a reminder of the bible’s practical relevance and significance to our everyday lives. For Santos, a stronger investment in God’s Word, reading it, studying it, and meditating on it, yields better decision-making, decision-making informed by the wisdom of the Word.

Say Goodbye to Regret: Discovering the Secret to a Blessed Life aids readers in understanding how aligning their lives, their ways and thoughts with God’s ways and thoughts empowers them to experience victory over regret. A spirit of regret seeks to incarcerate you, dominate you—inevitably enslaving you to the darkness of depression and despondency. To defeat the spirit of regret, Bob Santos recommends accessing and using God’s love to conquer this deflating spirit.

The author asks readers to answer two valuable questions: “Think back to a regretful decision. What factors led to your poor choice? How might you have done things differently?” (p. 29). Too often we fail to think critically about why we made the decisions we did—whether favorable or unfavorable decisions. Without serious reflection on the decisions we make, we will never grow, never advance to the type of humans we long to be. Critical reflection, therefore, is crucial to breaking free from the bondage of regret and the frustrating web of deception that accompanies it.

In short, I highly recommend this book. As a minister and life coach, I deeply understand the the importance of spiritual health. When a person is not well spiritually, it affects every dimension of his or her being. The spirit of regret is so enslaving that it can completely overtake an individual. This work, however, enables a person struggling with regret to comprehend how to employ the Word of God to defeat the vise-grip and stranglehold of regret. The Word of God is always the answer but one needs to know how to use it triumph over the pain regret inflicts and desires to continue to inflict.

To facilitate the penning of this honest review, Book Crash supplied a copy of this work.

Dr. Antonio Maurice Daniels

University of Wisconsin-Madison

The Way to God by Dwight L. Moody: A Book Review

The Way to God Dwight L. Moody

(Photo Credit: Amazon)

Dwight L. Moody’s The Way to God offers a strong understanding of God’s agapic love and how that agapic love can transform the lives of all people willing to receive Him into their hearts. Recognizing that Christ is soon to return, Moody challenges people to answer His call to salvation, allowing them to enter into the joy of the Lord. The book primarily centers on several sermons he delivered across England and the United States, although he added more material in this work. His chief desire is for the reader to “be strengthened, established, and settled in the faith of Christ” (vii).

One of the most important elements of the book is Moody’s emphasis on sharing the message of God’s love with everyone, especially with the unsaved. For Moody, those sharing the message of God’s love need to have a deep knowledge and understanding of this love. The author is convinced that the more we help people know and experience God’s love, the many more souls that will be rescued from a burning Hell. Salvation, though, isn’t simply a “fire insurance plan”; it’s about possessing an intimate relationship with God and experiencing a victorious life in Christ.

Moody contends that Christ’s greatest and most vivid example of His love for all is the work He did at Calvary for us: dying on the Cross to give all who believe in and receive Him in their hearts eternal victory over sin. Without Jesus dying on the Cross, humanity faced eternal damnation in Hell. Christ demonstrated His divine love for us by suffering the most brutal beating and death ever at Calvary. Therefore, as the writer asserts, if one longs to see what divine love looks like in public, simply see the Cross and observe our Savior’s blood shed for us “while we were yet sinners.”

The author divulges that when a person receives Christ’s salvation, the Holy Spirit comes into his or her life and aids him or her in living a life that pleases Him, a life empowered to escape the temptations Satan will attempt to present him or her daily. Satan’s agenda is “to steal, kill, and destroy,” but the power of the Holy Spirit working in us enables us to conquer everything Satan tries to throw at us.

This is an important book, especially for unbelievers. I encourage every true believer to purchase at least two copies of this book: one for himself or herself to read and one for an unbeliever to read. Although passing out tracts is okay, we need to modernize our evangelistic efforts; giving a book like this one to a lost soul is a more modern evangelistic effort.

Again, read this book and share a copy with an unbeliever.

I received a copy of this book from Aneko Press to compose this honest review.

Dr. Antonio Maurice Daniels

University of Wisconsin-Madison