Book Review: Primal by Mark Batterson

March 26, 2010 in Blog,Book Reviews with 2 Comments

I first heard of Mark Batterson when someone recommended reading his blog. After reading a few posts, I was really inspired by everything God is doing through his life and everything God’s revealed to him through the Word. Then I heard him speak at Catalyst West Coast, where he taught a lesson called “Out of Nowhere” that I’ll never forget.

Someone blessed me with a gift card to a book store and I got 2 of Mark’s books. Primal was my first read of the two and I absolutely loved it.

I loved it because the book has ONE focus: Getting you back to the place where ALL THAT MATTERS is loving God with all of your heart, all of your soul, all of your mind, and all of your strength.

This book was so refreshing and I know I’m going to go back to it often throughout my spiritual journey. If you feel like you’re in a spiritual lull or want to strengthen your pursuit of God – you need to pick up this book.

Final Grade: 9.5 out of 10

Here are a few highlights:

One of the turning points of my life came the day I stopped setting income goals and started setting giving goals.

Any Christian worth their salt reads through the Bible every year

Most of us are educated way beyond our obedience. We learn more and do less, thinking the whole while we’re growing spiritually

Eternity won’t be long enogh to discover all that God is or praise Him for all He has done

If you want to think new thoughts then read new things, meet new people, and go new places.

One God idea has the potential to make more of a difference than a thousand good ideas

You’ll never be ready, you’ll never be set, sometimes you have to just go for it

As Christ followers we need to take a why not approach to life. It dares to dream. It’s bent toward action, and not looking for excuses not to do something

You can do nothing wrong and still do nothing right

Vision is the cure to sin

The moment you put your faith in Christ, the best you can do is no longer the best you can do. The best you can do is the best God can do.

It’s not about what you can do for God, it’s about what God has done for you

The universe is still expanding which means the original “Let their be light” it still expanding at the outer edge of our universe!

If God gives you a dream, and the dream comes to life and God shows up in it, and then the dream died, it may be that God wants to see what is more important to you – the dream of Him.

The impact God has planned for us doesn’t occur when we’re pursuing impact. It occurs when we’re pursuing God. At last after a lifetime of striving, God was enough. Not God and impact or God and ministry. Just Got.”

At the end of the day – all that matters is God.

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Dale McClellan

Batterson has a short hagiography of the founder of World Vision, Bob Pierce. What he leaves out is that Bob Pierce died in a cheap San Francisco hotel. He was a broken man. He had been let go by World Vision and he was estranged from friends and family. He was destroyed, according to his daughter, by the phrase he had coined, "I want my heart to be broken by the things that break the heart of God." His heart wasn't big enough and neither is the heart of anyone. It isn't something that God requires of us. He just requires us to be faithful to his calling on our lives.
http://intensedebate.com/people/bubbasmith bubbasmith

Dale,

Thanks for sharing. Where are you from?

Bubs