Ten Books I Loved in 2023, Part I

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Hey, are you ready? I'm Dr. Lee Warren. We're going to get after it today.

It is mind change Monday, and we're almost to the end of the year and if you're

watching the video of this It's afternoon on a Sunday.

We're gonna hear this on mind change Monday, but it's a weird time of day The

sunlight is coming right in through the office window And so there's a little

bit of light on my face and try as I might I just can't get rid of that shadow

So we'll work through that together if you're watching the video,

it's gonna be okay So that's what you get when you live on the beautiful River

get a lot of sunlight You have to deal with that if you're trying to shoot a video So,

today, as we're getting close to the end of the year, I'm gonna give you a list

of books and some things to think about from several books that I read this year.

And because we're always talking about books on the podcast and in my newsletter,

because I'm always giving you links to books,

then a lot of people write in and say, hey, you mentioned a book,

I didn't get the name, it went by too fast, or I remember a couple of episodes

ago, you talked about this book or that book.

And so I get tons of email about that. But let me just remind you that in every

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So now almost Christmas getting close to the end of the year You're gonna probably

have some time I hope you have some time off and maybe you'll have time to read

a book and so I'm gonna give you a List of books I get email requests all the time Hey,

give us an episode about books that you've read and books that you recommend

and what you think about them So we're gonna do that today.

We're also going to do it another time before the end of the year.

So we're going to have two episodes about ten important books that I read this year.

And I hesitate to ever say these are the ten best books or this is one through

ten of the books that you should read or ten, nine, eight, seven, six.

I'm not going to list these as a ranking because as you'll see,

the books are so different from one another that there's really no way to say

this book is better than that book or more important than that book because

they're all so different.

There's some nerdy stuff. There's some business stuff. There's some spiritual

stuff. Most of them have some sort of spiritual or neuroscience element to them.

And I think they'll be helpful to you.

And I would just hate for you to take away that I didn't read any other books

that were as valuable as these 10 books. So I'm not gonna rank them.

But at the end of the second episode, I am gonna give you one book in particular

that I think everybody who's seeking to know more about who God is,

who wants to know Jesus, who feels like they could use some more power or some

more juice in their life,

that wonder how to pray more effectively or how to just live this life in the

midst of all of its hardships.

That book, I think I would probably go ahead and say is the best book I read all year.

And it's up there and one of the better books I've ever read in my life.

And we're gonna give you that at the end of the second episode.

So this is not a ranking, but we are gonna cover 10 books, even some honorable

mention books that I wanna make sure you're aware of.

But there's gonna be one that I would say, and maybe Lisa would agree with me,

that probably the best book I read this year.

Overall, in general, for a wide audience of anybody that read this could find

some value in it and be helped by it, help navigate life and trauma and tragedy

and massive things and all that.

So if you're gonna read one book on this list besides Hope is the First Dose,

which I hope, shameless plug for my book, I hope that you've read and if you

haven't, I really think it will help you.

I wrote it because I think it will help you. It's a prescription for what to

do when there's trauma and tragedy and massive things.

And so I please, I would implore you to read Hope is the First Dose. I think it'll help you.

I wouldn't have bothered to write it if I didn't think it would help you,

so check it out. And without further ado, we are gonna get into these 10 books.

And I'm gonna give them to you again, not in order, not in a ranking,

not because I didn't read other books that were equally valuable,

but because there's 10 books that I really want you to know about.

And if you haven't read them, I want you to be aware of them and learn something

from them. And I think it'll be valuable and important.

So let's just jump right into it, okay? We're gonna go to a slide now.

I'm gonna give you a cover image of the book and then some just five quotes

from each of these 10 books.

So today we're gonna cover five and the next episode we'll cover five.

So five lines that were really especially powerful to me out of the five books

and just something you can think about if you're Considering purchasing a book

or going to the library and checking it out You can buy these books anywhere books are sold.

You can support your local booksellers. You can go to the library You can buy them from Amazon.

You can buy them from the links and the show notes We'll get a little affiliate

commission if you buy them through us.

I love audio books almost all of these I think all of these have audio books

as well some of them, the audiobooks come with special materials and bonus chapters

that are not available in the print book. So just check them out. So here we go.

The 10 important books that I want you to know about that I read in 2023,

part one, one through five, again, 10 through six, whatever you want to say,

they're not ranked, but here we go.

The first book, this is Lee Strobel's new book called, Is God Real?

Exploring the ultimate question of life. Have you never read Lee Strobel?

He's most famous for his book, The Case for Christ.

He was an investigative journalist who was an atheist, and basically his wife

became a Christian, and he was like, I want to know what that's all about.

But instead of just accepting it blindly, he took his investigative legal skills,

he's also an attorney, and he dove into the question and he researched it just

like he would any other study.

And over the course of that investigation, he basically convinced himself that

Christianity was the only real and true worldview that you could build your

life around. So pretty amazing.

But his new book, he's written a whole bunch of other books, they're all fantastic.

His new book, and Lee's gonna be on the show soon, we actually had him scheduled

once and he had a computer crash and he rescheduled and then he got COVID and

so it's just been a strange kind of difficulty getting him on the show.

But he's rescheduled. He's coming back early next year.

And I think there's always some value in those delays. There's always something

that comes out of that conversation that makes it more valuable.

So I'm excited to bring you Lee Strobel.

And I'm even more excited almost that his publicist reached out to me.

This is one of those times as a podcaster when I was like, yeah,

big authors are starting to show up on my show. So that's pretty cool.

Lee Strobel's new book, Is God Real? Exploring the Ultimate Question of Life,

is a powerful, I think it's his magnum opus, frankly. I think it's the best

thing he's ever written.

And it's one of the most important books I've ever read.

And what he does is he takes that journalist approach again,

and he goes and interviews all kinds of people who are experts in different

areas, science, physics, math.

Philosophy, theology, all kinds of things, and looks at experts in the field

and asks them deep questions about the question, is God real?

And what's That's the reasons that a thinking person would either think that God is or is not real.

And there's some great quotes that come out of this.

God did create a world where people were free and yet there was no sin.

Indeed, that potentiality for sin was actualized not by God, but by people.

The blame ultimately lies with us. He did his part perfectly.

We're the ones who messed up. Did you get that?

That's an incredible line and Martin Lloyd Webber said something that reminded

me of that He said the terrible tragic fallacy of the last hundred years has

been to think that all man's troubles are due to his environment And that to

change the man you have nothing to do but to change his environment.

That's a tragic fallacy It overlooks the fact that it was in paradise that man

fell you get that Don't forget that God created a perfect environment.

For us to live forever and enjoy Him and enjoy each other and enjoy His creation.

And we messed it up. It wasn't God that introduced evil, it was people.

And this is a beautiful point, important point by Lee Strobel.

Criticizing God for not doing something right now is like reading half a novel

and criticizing the author for not resolving the plot, he says.

So that's the, when we get into the question of suffering, And we want to know why isn't God acting?

Even in the question of justice, why is God not doing something?

God, where are you? Why won't you show up? And by the way, that's a perfectly valid prayer.

It's all through the Old Testament. Check out Habakkuk if you don't know.

God, I will question you about your justice. Where are you? Why are you doing this?

And criticizing God, Lee Strobel says, for not doing something right now,

it's like picking up a novel and reading half of it and then calling the author

up and yelling at him for not having the book wrap up by the 50% mark.

That'd be silly, right? Because the story has to play out before you get it

resolved, and that's what God's in the middle of right now.

He's in the middle of a long story, and we're just part of it.

Pain and suffering, Strobel says, are frequently the means by which we become

motivated to finally surrender to God and seek the cure of Christ.

See, God's not the problem in suffering, God's the answer to suffering.

And pain and suffering sometimes drive us to the point where we say, I need you, Lord.

I need you. God is using pain and suffering to improve us and better us,

and if you don't understand that, the whole book, the whole Bible says it in many different places.

Perseverance comes from suffering and produces character and hope.

We consider it joy when you suffer trials of various kinds.

We know that all things work together for the good of those who love the Lord

and those who are called according to His purpose.

Listen, pain and suffering are frequently the means by which we become motivated

to finally surrender to God and seek the cure of Christ. And listen to this one.

He's talking now about atheism versus a Christian worldview.

What's particularly damning for atheism, in my view, is that it's insufficiently

supported by the evidence of science, philosophy, and history.

We're gonna come back to this again with a couple of other books.

The fact is, although you hear scientists and neuroscientists and atheists and

authors all the time, and media people state the fact that there is no God as if it were a fact.

And that religion is silly as the opium of the masses and all that,

although you hear people proclaim that, it is not supported by science.

And in fact, as Michael Gillen has said on this show and other people who've

said on this show, and you've heard me say millions, hundreds of times, dozens of times,

as we learn more about the universe, as we learn more about the body,

as we learn more about physics, as we learn more about chemistry,

as we learn more about biology, we are learning more and more that it cannot

be easily explained away without a designer and an outside influence.

So Lee Strobel says this, after spending two years investigating faith issues,

I came to realize that to continue in my spiritual skepticism,

these are the things I would need to believe.

So if you're gonna be an atheist and you're gonna be honest about it,

here's what you have to believe.

Nothing produces everything, randomness produces fine tuning,

the fine tuning of the universe he's talking about, we'll come back to that later again too.

Non-life produces life, chaos produces information, unconsciousness produces

consciousness, and non-reason produces reason.

But Strobel said the alternative was he didn't have to throw away his brain

to become a Christian. He says, I was thankful.

I didn't have to throw out my intellect to become a Christian,

but I did have to overcome my pride.

I did have to drive a stake through the egoism and arrogance that threatened to hold me back.

I did have to push back, push past the self-interest and self-adulation that

were keeping my heart shut tight from God." It's a powerful book.

It's an important book, and I would highly encourage you to read it,

and I can't wait to have Lee Strouble on the show.

The next one has the optimistic title of Making Sense Out of Suffering.

This is Peter Kreeft, and if you're watching the video, the title of the book

is weirdly cropped, but that's the way the image came from Amazon,

so I didn't crop it that way.

It's just weird. is that the top word is right at the very top of the book and

it's almost off the screen.

But Making Sense Out of Suffering by Peter Kreeft. And I'm gonna tell you a

funny story about this book.

I was listening to the audio version of this book when I ran a half marathon on December 3rd.

I had signed up for a San Antonio half marathon with my brother-in-law, Ronnie.

Ronnie told me back in May that he wanted to run this race He wanted to get

back in shape and I said I would do it with him because I wanted to do the same

thing It always wanted to run a marathon or a half And so I trained for six

months and I was ready and then right at the end of December,

We had an illness pop-up Tata got sick like the day that we were gonna leave

for San Antonio for the trip Tata got sick and we couldn't go but I had committed

to Ronnie to run this race So I went outside and I synced up my watch with him

and we texted each other and we started at the same time He ran it in San Antonio.

I ran it in Nebraska and The difference was it was 65 degrees where Ronnie was

It was 28 degrees and the wind was blowing about 30 miles an hour when I ran

it here in San Antonio So I was freezing my sweat froze to my face and my hat

froze and the water in my water bottle froze but I ran the half marathon.

Didn't run it very fast, but I did it. And what's really interesting is,

I ran the half marathon while listening to Peter Kreeft's book,

Making Sense Out of Suffering, which I think is hilarious.

But I made good use of the time, right?

I made use of the time and I was in fact suffering, but not in the same way

that Kreeft writes about. Here's some quotes from this book. It's a powerful book.

The best, hands down, best look at the Odyssey, the study of why is there evil,

why is God, and where's God when bad things happen, all that stuff.

No doubt, the best overall look at suffering that I've ever read,

it's incredibly helpful, it's incredibly insightful, it's incredibly tender

and careful to steward these big questions well. It was written way back in the 80s.

Peter Kreeft is older now. I'm gonna try to see if I can find a way to get him

on the podcast if he's still doing interviews.

And I think he is, because he was actually interviewed in Lee Strobel's new book.

Just throwing it out there that I hope to have him on the show someday.

But here's something he said, and the universality of it, there's the rub.

Your neighbor, your best friend, your doctor, your auto mechanic,

all have deep and hidden hurts that you don't know about, just as you have some

that they don't know about.

Everybody out there is hurting.

The greatest and most famous of all freedom verse happiness stories is not technically

science fiction, but fantasy.

It's the story within a story in Dostoevsky's Brothers Karamazov,

titled The Grand Inquisitor.

Jesus returns to earth again in the middle of the Spanish Inquisition.

Kreef tells this story beautifully in the audio book.

Torquemada, the Grand Inquisitor, confronts him and tells him he will burn him at the stake tomorrow.

So she's gonna tell Jesus he's gonna burn him at the stake and the people will

love him for it, just as they wanted him crucified the first time he came.

Jesus, who has the reputation for kindness, is really cruel,

says the Inquisitor, because he expects of everyone what only the strong can

endure, freedom of conscience, naked before God, freely choosing between good and evil.

And Peter Kreef says this is the most important chapter in this book.

It's the chapter about Jesus The most important chapter in the book because

it's the answer the only adequate answer to our problem Of man's suffering and god's silence.

We are finally led not to the answer But to the answerer as in joe god ends

his silence and speaks his word Christ is the word of god the answer of god.

That's that blew me away christ.

Isn't the question He's the answer, it's not where are you God?

It's God, that's the answer to suffering. It's Him.

Kreeft writes, all the words of the prophets, philosophers, and poets are echoes of His word.

In Him, all the clues converge, like many pointing fingers, all pointing from

different directions and distances to the same one.

The answer must be someone, not something.

For the problem, suffering, is about someone.

God, why does He? Why doesn't He? rather than just something.

So if the problem that you're gonna ask is why is suffering there,

God, why do you allow this?

If the problem is someone, the answer has to be someone too.

That was a new thought for me and I love it.

And he says this, this is the most important chapter, we just,

the most important chapter in the book for it's the answer, the only adequate

answer to our problem of man's suffering and God's silence, we are finally led

not to the answer, but to the answerer, I'm reading this again.

And as in Job, God ends his silence and breaks his word.

Christ is the word of God, the answer of God.

The hurt child needs not so much explanations as reassurances.

When your kid comes and they're hurt, you don't explain why it hurts, you just love on them.

And Peter Kreef says, and this is what we get, the reassurance of the Father in the person of Jesus.

He who has seen me has seen the Father, John 14, 9. And the answer is not just a word, but the Word.

Not an idea, but a person. You want to know what the answer to your suffering is, friend? It's Jesus.

It's not some big philosophical question about why is there good and evil, it's Jesus.

Jesus is the answer. Tommy Walker has a song, Jesus, you're the answer to all I'm searching for.

You're my hope, you're my strength, you're my peace in the stormy sea,

you're my light, my very source, my guiding light wherever I may go.

You're the answer. Jesus is not the question.

It's not where are you, Jesus. Jesus is the answer. That is a mind shift that

will change your mind and change your life.

In fact, I'm gonna look in the camera. I want you to see me say this,

Jesus is not the question to suffering, He's the answer, friend.

He's the answer. Peter Kreef's book, if you want a deep, heavy,

it's not hard to read, it's actually entertaining at different places,

but it deals very carefully and very thoroughly with this powerful and eternal

question of where is God when it hurts. It's powerful.

The next book also completely blew me away, And Pete Greig is going to be on the podcast as well.

We had him scheduled, I had him on the schedule for a year and I had a patient

conflict last Friday and Pete, I had to cancel on him.

And I hope it doesn't take another year to get him back on the show.

This book is the third of three books of Pete Greig's that I've read.

Easily could have put those other two on this list except I read one of them

last year and the other one I read earlier this year and I'm gonna mention it

later, but Pete Greig's books, The first one was God on mute.

Just what happens when God seems silent, when he doesn't talk, when you can't hear him?

Powerful question, important question that all of us have asked and many are

asking right now, I'm sure.

The second one was how to hear God, a simple guide for normal people.

And it was, I don't wanna be hyperbolic here, but the best book I've ever read

about how to hear God, and we're gonna talk about it with him when he comes on the show.

I've read Dallas Willard, Hearing God. I've read Greg Pruitt,

Extraordinary Hearing, great book.

I've read many books on this concept of how we hear God.

Mark Batterson wrote a good one. The best one is Pete Grieg.

Hands down. It's the best book on how to hear God But

I would also say that hands down the

best book I've ever read on prayer and I've said many times

I told you before that the best book I've ever read on prayer I've got on a

shelf and it's Richard Foster and next to him is Philippiansi and next to him

is Addison Bevere and next to him is Derwin Gray and I've got a whole shelf

full of incredible books on prayer. Timothy Keller's up there.

But when I read Pete Greig's book, it's the best one. It's the best book I've ever read on prayer.

A Simple Guide for Normal People. And here's some quotes.

Research has discovered, he talks about neuroscience. Research has discovered

that exercise can be more effective than sitting still as a way of calming the brain.

But as your blood pressure increases in the first 20 minutes of exercise,

a protein called brain-derived neurotrophic factor, BDNF, is released to repair

your memory neurons. This is solid science, by the way.

Meanwhile, the activity in your brain increases to improve concentration,

and endorphins trigger a sense of calm and even euphoria.

This is a gift of God about what happens when you exercise. You improve your neurotransmitters.

This is why exercise is better than alcohol for really making a difference in your neurochemistry.

And this is something I never thought of before. So Jesus is walking around the hills of Judea.

He's drawing on the ground when he prays. He's going climbing mountains to get

alone to pray his exercise. He's moving his body.

And Pete Greig says this, it's an extraordinary thought that as he hiked the

heights of Galilee, BDNF was sharpening the mind of Christ.

God created a physical body for Jesus to inherit, to inhabit.

And he had the same kind of brain that you and I have in his physical body.

And it had the same neurotransmitters that you and I have.

And he used his body appropriately to maximize the neurotransmitter release

in his body to help him think more clearly.

The thoughts he had in his brain and to live his life because he knew that thoughts

became things because he made them, okay?

Pete Greek, it's an extraordinary thought that as he hiked the heights of Galilee,

BDNF was sharpening the mind of Christ, endorphins were mingling with the blood

of Christ, and exercise was enhancing the communion of Christ with his Father. This is incredible.

Jesus was inviting his disciples when he taught them the Lord's Prayer.

And by the way, this book is, basically works through the Lord's Prayer in a

better way than I've ever heard anybody do it, better than Chris Hodges or anybody

that I've heard do a book on the Lord's Prayer.

All those books are extraordinary, but this one is the best.

He works through the Lord's Prayer, and he starts with our Father,

who are in heaven, Abba Father, who are in heaven.

And at the time when the disciples heard it, that would have been extraordinarily

familiar that these were people that wouldn't say His name out loud.

So for Him to teach them to pray by calling on their Father, say, Our Father, Dad.

Who are in heaven. Jesus, Pete Greig says, was inviting his disciples to step

into a level of intimacy with God that they had never imagined possible.

He talks about what the Bible is and how the Bible influences and interacts

with you in prayer when you pray through it.

The Bible is more than an inspired doctrinal textbook.

It is also living and powerful and as the writer of Hebrews says,

a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. In other words,

while we are reading the Bible, it is reading us, discerning.

In other words, it's discerning the thoughts and intents of our hearts.

We shouldn't just learn from the Bible, therefore we should listen to it.

It's a totally different way of approaching the text.

While learning about God from the Bible requires study, listening to God through

the Bible requires prayerful meditation.

That's just a handful of my favorite quotes from Pete Greig's extraordinary

book, How to Pray, A Simple Guide for Normal People.

If you're gonna buy one book on this list, make it that one,

How to Pray, A Simple Guide for Normal People.

There's another one I'll say in the other episode, the one that I'm gonna rank

first, but this is a book you ought to have, you ought to read.

You need to draw it in and chew on it and eat it and discipline yourself to learn it.

This is a powerful and potentially life-changing book if you're struggling with prayer. Let's move on.

Seth Godin is a marketing expert. He's a writer. He's not a Christian as far as I know.

And some of his books have little tangential references to Buddhism and other things.

So again, this is one of those books that if you choose to read it,

it may have some stuff in it.

I don't think it does, but it may have some stuff in it that you would write

me and say, hey, that guy's not even a Christian. And he's not, I'm telling you that.

But this book is about how you get yourself in the process of doing work that matters.

And for me as a creator as somebody who is not only a neurosurgeon but also

has this drive this Impetus to get up every morning and record and talk to you

and give you content and put things out there for you.

There's a there's some kind of passion inside Creative people and you've got

to get to where you can learn how to get it done In a way that makes sense and

ship the work push send push upload and get the work out so that it gets It's

consumed by consumers or it means nothing if it doesn't get pushed out.

And he's got some great quotes. This is a book that I will read again and again as the years go by.

Like Steven Pressfield and Anne Lamott's books, they're books that aren't necessarily,

they're not Christian or spiritual in any way, but they can be useful if you

use them in the right context.

And this book really made a difference for me in my thinking about writing and

podcasting and all of that.

He says this, ship, ship the product, ship the work, push send.

And he says this shipping because it doesn't count if you don't share it creative

because you're not a cog in the system You're a creator a problem solver a generous

leader who is making things better by producing a new way forward And all of

us have places in our life friend where we're called to that Work because it's not a hobby.

You might not get paid for it. Not today, but you approach it as a professional

The muse is not the point Excuses are avoided and the work is why you are here.

I told you yesterday, Lisa sent me a thing on Instagram that said,

planning to do the thing is not doing the thing.

And talking about writing a book, talking about starting a podcast,

talking about leading somebody in that Bible study that you've been planning

on doing for years, talking about it isn't doing it.

You gotta do the work and you gotta ship it. You gotta make it happen.

You might not get paid for it. Seth Godin says correctly, I can testify as a

podcaster and writer, but you approach it as a professional.

You keep working on your craft and trying to make it better because you love

your listener, you love your reader, you love your customer,

you love your co-worker.

The muse is not the point. You don't wait for an inspiration to start working.

You just work and the muse show, you don't wait for something to happen that

you can finally get after it.

You show up and happen so that you can get after it. That's why you're here.

Lost in all the noise around us is the proven truth about creativity.

It's the result of desire.

The desire to find a new truth, solve an old problem, or serve someone else.

That's why we do this work. Seth Godin hits that on the head.

Creativity is a choice. It's not a bolt of lightning from somewhere else.

You know where I'll be at 315 or 320 tomorrow morning?

I'll be sitting at this desk. Is it because I've got some deadline and I'm not

gonna get paid if I don't do that work? No.

I'll do some work that you'll hear a few days later and you may or may not ever

click a link that pays me any money. You may not ever become a paid subscriber.

You might not ever buy one of my books. You might be one of those people that

your aunt loaned you my book and you loaned it to your cousin and they loaned

it to their hairdresser and they loaned it to the postman and they loaned it

to somebody else and nobody ever bought it. You might be that person.

It's okay. I'm doing this work because I

love you and I'm doing it because I have a passion

inside me to figure things out and the way I figure them out is because I'm

solving a problem in my own life and I solve it by reading and studying and

worshiping and talking and writing things down and that's how I solve problems

in my life and I share that with you because that is a way that you can solve

problems and maybe you'll pass it on to, maybe.

It's not a bolt of lightning. It's a choice to set the alarm and get up and

brew the coffee and do the Bible study and do the work and then get after it every day.

It's a choice and you can do it too. The practice, that's the name of the book,

The Practice by Seth Godin.

The practice is not the means to the output. The practice is the output because

the practice is all we can control.

I can't control whether you buy my books or listen to my podcast or anybody

likes it or there's five star ratings or one star ratings. I can't control any of that.

Once I press send, I can only control the fact that I get up and I do the work.

And that's what you can do too. You can get up and do the work.

And sometimes that's how you stay, that's how you get unstuck.

Sometimes when you feel stuck and you feel depressed and you feel anxious,

the solution is to get up and do the work, to get up and do the thing and get

after it and that'll get you moving and get you unstuck and get you out of a rut.

Seth Godin says this, it acknowledges that creativity is not an event,

it's simply what we do, whether or not we're in the mood.

And this is my favorite line from the whole book. Process saves us from the

poverty of our intentions.

I've told you before, I did a whole episode about it. Systems keep you sane.

Like I have a set place where I put my keys, a place where I know where my stuff is.

I have a time that I get up, a time that I do certain things,

a time that I work out. Tata's the same way, Lisa's the same way.

If I don't have a process, I will go nuts.

I'll never get anything done. I'll talk about all kinds of things.

I'll never get them done. and I have a process and process saves us from the

poverty of our intentions.

Your intentions are lofty, but they're weak.

And if you don't set discipline and process in place, you'll never get the things

done that you want to do and you'll find yourself frustrated. It's a great book.

And then the final book today in this episode is Live No Lies by John Mark Comer.

This book changed my entire worldview.

Let me say that a little bit more carefully. I had a Christian worldview already.

This book educated me about my worldview, and it educated me about the game

that's being played in the world right now at large, and I think it's one of

the most important books I've ever read.

This book, by the way, if you've been listening to the podcast this year,

then you will have heard several times when I talked about St.

Augustine and Freud and James K.A.

Smith and worldview and the difference between a secular and a Christian worldview

and the difference between an Augustinian worldview and a Freudian worldview.

And all of that was sparked by this book, John Mark Comer's,

Live No Lies, Recognize and Resist the Three Enemies That Sabotage Your Peace.

This book is incredibly important.

The first quote, Freud got pretty much everything wrong, and yet many of his

ideas created the cultural air we now breathe.

Psychotherapy no longer practice Freudian psychotherapy because they think he was mostly wrong.

Philosophers and scientists who studied the mind don't think Freud got very

much right, but somehow his worldview persisted, because I think it gives people an easy out.

Prior to Freud, Comer writes, most people in the West, whether they knew it

or not, thought about desire through the lens of the fourth century philosopher Augustine.

St. Augustine was actually a North African, but his ideas, while developed on

African soil, gave shape to much of Western civilization for over a millennium.

By the way, let me take a time out here.

There's a lie that's in the media and in education and in the secular worldview

right now where people are claiming that Christianity was colonizing white person's

religion that was taken to Africa

and we did a wrong thing by bringing Christianity to Africa. That's a lie.

Christianity in Africa predates Christianity in Europe.

There were Christians in Ethiopia long before there were ever Christians in Italy, okay?

There were Christians in Africa before there were Christians in Europe.

That's true. It's true historically, okay?

And also, the Bible was in Ethiopia before the King James Bible, it predated that.

So Christianity is not a white man's religion.

Christianity is not a result of colonization and the spread of European ideas

to Africa. It was there first.

So according to Augustine, the basic problem of the human condition is that

of disordered desires or loves.

In his view, human beings were created in love and for love.

So we're lovers first and thinkers

second. that we live primarily from desire, not our rational minds.

In the Augustinian view, the problem with the human condition isn't that we don't love.

It's that we either love the wrong things or the right things, but in the wrong order.

Freud's ideas show up in the popular slogans and catchphrases of our day.

The heart wants what it wants. Does that sound familiar? Follow your heart. You do you.

Live your truth. Just do it. Speak your truth. And of course,

be true to yourself. That's a common secular worldview that everybody says just

do what makes you feel good, and that'll make you happy But that's from Freud okay.

It's not from some ancient wise philosopher It's from Sigmund Freud who by the

way has been largely discredited,

And this is what happens in a secular worldview. And John Mock Comer laid this

out really well in this book. It's incredible.

Theology becomes therapy. The biblical interest in righteousness is replaced

by a search for happiness.

Holiness by wholeness, truth by feeling, ethics by feeling good about oneself.

The world shrinks to the range of personal circumstances. The community of faith

shrinks to a circle of personal friends.

The past recedes, the church recedes, the world recedes. all that remains is

the self. That's called deconstruction, by the way.

There's this secular, popular idea in progressive Christianity and progressive,

just general progressivism, where you just deconstruct everything you were taught

because it probably wasn't true, it was based on some oppressor or oppression,

some kind of intersectional belief needs to get applied to how your worldview

happens, and you just deconstruct everything you were taught and you do you.

You find what makes you happy and you follow your heart and you live your truth, and that's great.

All that remains is you, so you gotta be true to yourself. That is not consistent

with a biblical worldview, my friend.

And it's not from Christ, and it's not from the Bible.

It's from the devil, it's from the enemy.

Jesus says, there is, I am the way, and I am the truth, and I am the light.

He doesn't say, I am my truth, and you're your truth.

He says, I am the truth.

There is truth, there is something that is true. And that, my friend,

is what the whole world is searching for.

We talked about that with C.S. Lewis, that quote about if you're searching for

comfort or happiness, you're gonna find yourself disappointed and in despair

because the target keeps moving.

But if you search for truth, you'll end up finding comfort too.

John Mark Comer's book, Live No Lies, laid this all out better than I've ever seen it laid out.

I'm so moved by this book. I'm gonna read it again in 2024, and I'm working

on getting him on my podcast.

He's got another book coming out, I think in January, and we turn out to have the same publisher.

I'm working on getting him, and if we get to have him, we're gonna talk a little

bit about Live No Lies and a lot about his new book.

But John Mark Comer's book, Live No Lies, highly recommend, it's one of those

books that I think will make a difference for you in your life.

And those, my friend, are the five books that I wanted to give you today.

We've got five more, plus some honorable mentions, including the one that I

think is a must-read and probably the best book I've read this year,

and maybe one of the top books I've ever read, and I think it'll be helpful.

I hope this episode was helpful to you.

We didn't talk a lot about self-brain surgery. We talked about a lot of good

ideas from other writers and

things that you can learn and reasons why you ought to read these books.

So get yourself a library card, get them on Amazon, buy them through links on

my website, go to your local bookseller, wherever, borrow them from your aunt's

hairdresser, however you get books. It's great, just read.

Read more. Reading exposes you to big ideas. Talked about Peter Kreef's book

that was written way back when I was in high school.

C.S. Lewis talked about how important it is to read old books and he made a

point to say it's not because they had more things Figured out than we did It's

because they had some things wrong and we have some things wrong and they had

some things right and we have some things, right?

But every generation gets different things, right and different things wrong

and that's why you should read some old books and not just a whole bunch of

brand new ones because You're gonna find some things that are right and it's

gonna ring a little true to you and you're gonna say wait what we're talking

about today doesn't make a lot of sense,

that this sounded more true than this does. I need to compare it to the Word.

So read some old books. I'll throw some in there for you in this list.

Peter Kreefs is by far the oldest book on the list that we talked about today.

Listen, reading changes your brain. Reading is good for your brain.

Reading helps you think better thoughts, and thoughts become things,

and you can't change your life until you change your mind. One of the best ways

to do that is to read books, my friend.

I want you to read more. And before we do any of that stuff,

I want you to remember, before you read one of these books, I want you to remember

that every day should start with a few minutes in the Word of God, okay?

It's the most important book you'll ever read. It's the only book that will

change you and examine you and question you and call you into account and make

you a better person. It won't just give you good ideas.

It will show you who you are and it'll call you to be who He wants you to be.

So in all this talk about books, Don't forget to read the book the good book the one truly good book.

Mine's pretty good. That was great So read it to you. Okay, we're gonna give

you five more books in a couple of days.

Merry Christmas It's not quite Christmas yet, but it's getting close. I hope you're ready.

We love you. We're praying for you Thank you so much for your support of the

podcast and don't forget to start today.

Music.

Hey, thanks for listening. The Dr.

Lee Warren podcast is brought to you by my brand new book, Hope is the First Dose.

It's a treatment plan for recovering from trauma, tragedy, and other massive

things. It's available everywhere books are sold.

And I narrated the audio books. Hey, the theme music for the show is Get Up

by my friend Tommy Walker, available for free at TommyWalkerMinistries.org.

They are supplying worship resources for worshipers all over the world to worship the most high God.

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If you need prayer, go to the prayer wall at WLeeWarrenMD.com slash prayer,

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Self Brain Surgery, every Sunday since 2014, helping people in all 50 states

and 60 plus countries around the world.

I'm Dr. Lee Warren and I'll talk to you soon. Remember friend you can't change

your life until you change your mind and the good news is you can start today.

Music.