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I finished Keith Green’s biography last week, and then I decided to read “Through Gates of Splendor” by Elisabeth Elliot. It is her account of five missionaries martyred in Ecuador: Nate Saint, Ed McCully, Jim Elliot, Peter Fleming, and Roger Youderian. Two of them, Ed McCully and Jim Elliot, attended Wheaton College, where I studied this past year.
After reading those two books, I read the first chapter of “Pleasures Evermore,” which was interesting and piqued my curiosity so that I’ll hopefully read the rest of it. But, instead of delving into that one right away, I read “Taking Our Cities for God” by John Dawson, the director of Youth With A Mission (YWAM) Los Angeles. I am so very glad that I read this book! It has been the best of these so far. Dawson packed his plea for urban missions with Scripture verses, and his teaching is passionate and Spirit-led as far as I can tell. Now that I finished “Taking Our Cities for God,” I am reviewing its message and the Scripture passages cited.

Also, since my church college group is studying Colossians this summer, I have decided that I want to try to memorize the whole book! This week, I have been working on chapter one, verses one through eight.

No Compromise: The Life Story of Keith Green, by Melody Green
I started it today and I could hardly put it down.
When the guitarist Phil Keaggy performed at Wheaton College this past fall, he covered Keith Green’s song “Your Love Broke Through.” I’m not sure if I had heard that song before, but Phil’s performance really resonated with me–in fact, I jotted down a line of the lyrics during the concert so that I could look up the song afterwards. Later, I read a little bit about “Your Love Broke Through” and Keith Green’s ministry, and watched a documentary biography about it on Youtube that someone had actually recommended to me a few months earlier. During winter break, between the fall and spring semesters, I came across an easy solo piano arrangement of “Oh Lord, You’re Beautiful” in my music collection. The melody and words resonated with me again, so I looked up more of Keith Green’s music on Youtube and listened to “Asleep in the Light,” “There is a Redeemer,” “Create in me a Clean Heart,” and some other songs.

Paul exhorted the Philippians to “take note of those who live according to the pattern we gave you.” Learning about the grace that God gave to Keith and Melody Green has been a great blessing to me, and God has used some of Keith’s music to draw near to me and to move my spirit to worship. I expect that this book will be inspirational to me as well.

Another book that was recommended to me by a youth leader and one that I’d also like to read this summer is Pleasures Evermore: The Life-Changing Power of Enjoying God, by Sam Storms. I’m not sure what all’s in it yet, but I respect the guy who recommended it to me, and I respect the three leaders promoting the book on its back cover: J.I. Packer, John Piper, and Jerry Bridges.

I have been reading through many of the Psalms lately.

This month my goal is to read through the book of Proverbs.