I think Outlive Your Life (You Were Made to Make a Difference) is one of Max Lucado's best books. And that is saying a lot. Outlive Your Life takes the reader on a tour of the first twelve chapters of the Acts of the Apostles in a way that perhaps only Max Lucado could pull off. It takes Dr. Luke's history of the first-century church and turns it into Dr. Lucado's prescription for the twenty-first-century church. He draws rich lessons from each stage of the church's first days--applying them to our day--in chapters with titles such as, "Let God Unshell You," "See the Need; Touch the Hurt," and "Pray First; Pray Most." He tells a parable of Father Benjamin, along with real-life accounts of Jose Ferreira and Bzuneh Talema. He brings Acts 2 into modern-day Guatemala and Acts 4 into present-day Turkey. He ends every chapter with an artful prayer that helps the reader turn the reading experience into a spiritual experience. And through it all runs his theme, re-worded in a memorable phrase in his next-to-last chapter: "God has wired his world for power, but he calls on us to flip the switch."
Like all of Max's books, Outlive Your Life is an entertaining read. But it is much more than that. As the author makes clear from the very first chapter, it is a clarion call for individuals and churches:
Acts announces, "God is afoot!"And it is a prayer:
Is he still? we wonder. Would God do with us what he did with his first followers?
Do it again, Jesus. Do it again.
This book was provided for review by the publisher, Thomas Nelson.
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