Imagine if our lives were marked by contentment rather than coveting. Imagine if we gravitated towards generosity rather than grasping for more. Imagine if we felt peace about our finances, rather than anxiety.

That’s how Graham Beynon begins his new book, Money Counts. Instinctively it’s an appealing vision, but, as Graham acknowledges, that perspective on money often seems so far from the reality.

Of course, it doesn’t help that we’ve somehow made money a taboo subject in our churches. Early on in the book, Graham tells of an experienced pastor who shared that though he’d had people come and ask for help with almost every pastoral situation imaginable, he’d never had someone come and ask for help with how they handled their money.

Similarly, in my experience you struggle to find decent, simple Christian books looking at the matter of money. We don’t like talking about money, and so there’s not much writing or reading about it. And yet evidently our experiences would suggest we could do with some light on the subject.

That’s why Money Counts is such an important addition to The Good Book Company’s Live Different series. And rather than just filling a gap, it’s a brilliant read. It’s straight-forward and utterly readable, yet a thoroughly rich guide to getting our heads round money from a Christian perspective.

In fact the book’s strapline is a fair summary of the strengths of the book: ‘How to handle money in your heart and with your hands’:-

Firstly Graham recognises that ultimately money is a heart issue. He seeks to open up the Bible and illuminate the gospel, rather than simply give a few budgeting tips, money-saving tricks, or a prescriptive set of financial rules. And as he does so it becomes clear that the danger with money is that it can act as a wannabe god in our lives, holding out to us false promises of security and satisfaction.

Of course the problem isn’t that money is inherently bad, but that we let it sit comfortably on the throne of our lives, calling the shots on our desires and worries and ambitions. Yet Graham writes in a way that gently exposes the tug of war in our hearts and takes us back to the gospel and the goodness of letting God be our joy and comfort and King. He shows how the Bible engages with the allure of greed, as well as growing generosity in our hearts.

And yet, secondly, the book is practical too. Graham wants us to envisage how this issue ‘cashes out’ (boom boom), and so he gives personal examples, and at the end of each chapter asks practical, yet heart-engaging, questions. Likewise he doesn’t make assumptions about the financial situation of the reader, and the book ends with some useful appendices on debts, loans, mortgages and insurance, as well as a helpful list of ‘go to’ resources.

Along the way Graham unpicks much of the wrong thinking about money that can be associated with Christianity, whether it’s the untruth that Jesus promises financial prosperity, or the untruth that God is against money and simply favours poverty.

What I found particularly helpful is that the book prods those of us who have never really questioned our own approach to money. If that’s you, this is the perfect book. Likewise, if you’re finding yourself subtly consumed by wanting more, or constantly anxious about not having enough, this is a simple, solid and searching read.

Money Counts would also make for a great accompanying resource to a teaching series on money, or a book club, or even for a newly-married couple to read together. Likewise, why not chew it over as you begin a new year?

You can pre-order the book from its publisher here, ahead of its release in early Jan 2016.

Full disclosure: The publisher sent me a copy of the book for free, but I hope this is still a fair and honest review!

The evenings are drawing in, X-Factor’s on the telly, and you already feel ready for a holiday. Yup, September is well and truly here.

Of course with a new term comes new opportunities, but there’s also all the life-admin, calendar-coordinating, and general sense of busyness that comes with these. New rotas, new to-do lists, new courses.

And so as Christians called to be part of local churches, whether we’re in a ‘formal’ position of responsibility or not, we can soon start to feel the ‘burden’ of service:

“Man, why do I put myself through this…?”

“Ok, here we go again then…”

“You know, I really think it’s time I took a step back from all this…”

Just over a year ago I was feeling something of the ‘burden’ of all this when someone put into my hands a book that made me do a 180. In essence, it asked me a question that I was not expecting. Rather than asking me, ‘what are you doing to serve?, instead it wanted to know, ‘are you being served?’.

The book was John Hindley’s brilliant Serving without sinking: How to serve Christ and keep your joy, and it’s essentially a reflection on the stunning truth encapsulated in Jesus’ mission statement in Mark 10:45: [Jesus] “came not to be served, but to serve.” It is essential for our spiritual health that we are resting in the reality that we are served by Jesus. As Hindley puts it:

Jesus doesn’t call you to come and serve Him. He calls you to see that He came to serve you. It’s only if we see that, first and foremost, we are not servants, we are served, that we can know the joyful freedom of the Christian life. And as we do that, we’ll find that we serve like we never served before.

As such Serving without sinking is a brilliant book to get your hands on this September. Hindley understands the everyday tensions and struggles of the Christian life, particularly concerning the different motivations we have for serving others, and he pastorally applies truths about Jesus into them. Each chapter is also fairly brief, and you’ll be able to devour two or three in a short sitting, whether that be on a wet Thursday evening or whilst the kids are napping after lunch.

Here’s the icing on the cake. Not only is it a great book, but its publisher, The Good Book Company, are currently giving the eBook version away for free throughout this month. Just ‘like‘ their Facebook page here and you’ll see a discount code to enter at their online store. There’s no sane reason not to try it.

To whet your appetite, here’s another snippet:

Jesus is saying: “Follow me and I will serve you.”

Or, in His actual words:

“For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve.”

He did not come so that you would serve Him. He came to serve you. Christianity is about Jesus, the God who serves His people.

Jesus comes into our lives to serve us. There is no catch, no small-print, no strings attached—there is just loving, humble, kind service by the Creator of the cosmos for His creatures, for us. Jesus’ greatness is not that He can command the service of millions; it is that He serves millions.

If you follow Jesus, then your relationship with Him, your status before God the Father, and your having His Spirit with you, will never depend on how you serve Him. It is all about His service of you.”

Go and download it for free while you can!

Water of the Word is a collection of nearly 250 prayers, weaved from Scripture, put together to be prayed specifically by a husband concerning his wife. And if you’re someone who has been given the particular privilege and responsibility of being a husband, then I don’t know why you wouldn’t want it by your side. It’s a gem.

Reviewing a book like this is, on the one hand, a little strange. That’s because essentially it’s a book rammed-full of Scripture. As the author (or should that be editor) Andrew Case says, “if you like the Bible, you’ll like this book”. Fill it with the word of God and you can’t really go wrong!

On the other hand, I still want to publicly ‘review’ this book because it’s so excellent and so helpful. Case knows that it is easy to be a sleepy and lazy pray-er, and thus a sleepy and lazy pray-er for one’s wife. But he was inspired by George Mueller’s commendation to “pray Scripture” and so began to read the Bible seeking to pray it back to his heavenly Father about his wife. As a result, each page consists of one prayer, perhaps six or seven sentences long, and each rooted in a passage of the Bible. Case’s wording is deep and fresh, but the result is simple and brilliant.

Case writes in his preface that husbands have a model for such prayer in Jesus’ constant intercession for his bride, his people. So for husbands to love their wives “as Christ loved the church” (Ephesians 5:25) will involve praying for them. The title then comes from Ephesians 5:26, where Jesus is described as making his bride holy by “the washing of water with the Word”. Scripture is part of our God-given means by which we seek our wives’ spiritual well-being. And Scripture + Prayer = this book.

I’ve by no means used every page yet, but I’ve found Water of the Word to be a great aid to my own faltering prayer. Like the popular book, Valley of Vision, it’s just very helpful to be given good words to pray. And in this case all these ‘good’ words are essentially lifted straight from Scripture. So, very good! In particular, I’ve appreciated both the call of this book to not neglect praying for my own wife, but also its support in actually giving those prayers some substance.

As a husband learns to pray for his wife, he is acknowledging that ultimately his wife’s needs are bigger than anything he can meet, and vice-versa. What every person needs most is God, and so what better thing is there than to pray to God for someone. As such I’ll finish off with these words from Case:

Of what good is it to do everything for your wife but the best thing? To bring all kinds of earthly goods before her for substance and honour is commendable, but to what end if you do not bring her before God? Will lifting up her by words of kindness and compliment suffice if you fail to lift her up before her Creator with supplications and thanksgivings? Why should you praise her for her beauty when you omit to exalt her Father for such matchless handiwork? You are not enough for her. Your strength is not strong enough for her. You are powerless to change her heart. Therefore pray.

You can pick up a copy of Water of the Word from its publisher 10ofthose, here, for only £6.99, with free postage. And before you ask, yes, there is a wife’s version now available too.

Full disclosure: The publisher sent me a copy of the book for free, but I hope this is still a fair and honest review!