Book Spotlight: Success is Your Birthright God's Success - R. Stanton Tucker

 

 

Synopsis: Success is Your Birthright God's Success - R. Stanton Tucker - January 2014

Success Is Your Birthright: God’s Success takes us on a spiritual, emotional, and inspirational expedition, prodding and challenging us to think, feel, and explore. This expedition forces us to appraise or reappraise our views, values, and traditions as well as misinformation shaped as truth.

The biblical Joseph Story is the basis for this expedition. Never before has this story been told with such passion and conviction. Those familiar and unfamiliar with this story come away with a profound perspective. Joseph becomes more than a biblical personality. The author cleverly brings him to life by paralleling our experiences with Joseph’s personal roller coaster. We, then, associate him with ourselves.

As Joseph’s biography unfolds, his difficult moments become very apparent. His character stands up and out, during those moments, instilling uncompromising hope. Within the storyline, there are several, simultaneous threads weaving this tapestry - success, coping with life’s roller coaster, God, humanity, and religion.

Society focuses on success’ smallest facet, materialism. Tucker broadens our concept of success. Success, here, is an inclusive, selfless attitude that celebrates common everyday feats of courage, love, common kindness, respect, and perseverance. Its linchpin is God.
God’s desire for relationship with us is profound. Relationship is measured by His standard of morality, right, and responsibility. Relationship with God hinges on loving Him, and “love thy neighbor as thyself.” To love yourself is to love and serve others. There lies our humanity.

God’s success is central to relationship, not religion. Tucker offers a compelling revelation on this sensitive topic. This text lays that foundation by distinguishing between the Christian and believer. “The Christian focuses on the religion; the believer focuses on relationship. Simply, the difference is, the former is a concept; the latter is a commitment.”

Success Is Your Birthright: God’s Success is a captivating appraisal, making it hard to put down. We discover life’s beauty and the confidence to bounce back from life’s unpredictable moments.

Goodreads Link: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/20696910-success-is-your-birthright-god-s-success?from_search=true

 

Is There Idolatry in Christianity?

Idolatry is associated with the worship and reverence of statutes and pictures of gods and goddesses. To the "Christian" minds, there is no idolatry association with the numerous Jesus, Mary, Moses, Paul, Peter, David, and others as idols. The truth is, this taboo adaptation to God’s [Yahweh] standard and Jesus’ teachings is the accepted norm. Ignored is Exodus 20:4-5 and Acts 17:29-30. Deuteronomy 4:15-19 is the most compelling. “Take ye therefore good heed unto yourselves; for ye saw no manner of similitude on the day that the Lord spake unto you in Horeb out of the midst of the fire: Lest ye corrupt yourselves, and make you a graven image, the similitude of any figure, the likeness of male or female, The likeness of any beast that is on the earth, the likeness of any winged fowl that flieth in the air, The likeness of any thing that creepth on the ground, the likeness of any fish that is in the waters beneath the earth: And lest thou lift up thine eyes unto heaven, and when thou seeth the sun, and the moon, and the stars, even all the host of heaven, shouldest be driven to worship them, and serve them, which the Lord thy God hath divided unto all nations under the whole heaven.”

 

“Lest ye corrupt yourselves” pierces the soul and conscious. God warns against idolatry. He is talking about assigning significance to objects, especially those to personify Him. That assigned significance gives an object(s) larger meaning and relevancy to one’s existence. This misplaced relevancy corrupts relationship with Him. Second place or a first place tie is not acceptable. God wants total allegiance, trust, and loyalty. He alone is to be served and worshiped. God knew we would have tendencies to reverence and worship our heroes, things in general, and symbols. The attraction to memorialize them is too irresistible. That is why He was adamantly opposed to the expression of the aforementioned images.

 

Historically, the biblical Hebrews and early believers rejected any all forms. Today is the day to reappraise ourselves and align ourselves with the Will of God.