I’m reviewing a new book by Sergio De La Mora, pastor of the third fastest growing church in North America, according to Outreach Magazine.
He tells a painful story about how his father–who he dedicates the book to with deep love–did something that was the most painful thing he’d experienced to that point in his life as a teenager. An aspiring semi-pro skateboarder, young Sergio had skipped Sunday afternoon mass to practice at the “bowl,” and when he returned home late after the family had been to mass, his father asked him to come outside with his skateboard. Sergio’s father tried to break the skateboard. “Dad, that’s oak wood. It won’t break,” Sergio said. So De La Mora’s father took the board inside and threw it in the fireplace and burned it while he and his brothers and sisters watched, speechless. His father said, “Sergio, nothing in your life will ever come before God again. Put Him first and you can have anything. Put Him second and you’ll have nothing.”
God’s goal, he says is to change our hearts in a revolutionary way. Only God can do that and he starts in the deepest places of our lives. “God’s goal for our lives isn’t to simply make us happy. His desire is to make us holy–more like Him.”
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