I know lists are usually top 10 or 3, but 7 is a biblical number so here's my top 7. Broker Bryant Tutas and I are commenting back and forth about our preferred books on his MLK Tribute blog and I thought a "top list" was in order. Please comment and add your favorites!

•1.       What's so Amazing About Grace by Philip Yancey - I've read this book at least 4 times as it grounds me in the reality that there is "nothing I can do to make God love me any more and nothing I can do to make God love me any less".

•2.       The Case for Christ by Lee Strobel - an investigative reporter and jew, Lee Strobel is shocked when his wife becomes a Christian and relates his own path to believing in Christ using the investigative approach he used as a crime reporter.

•3.       Your God is Too Safe by Mark Buchanan - This book challenges a mature Christian to question if they have possibly marginalized God into being a "pet" God who is there just to answer our prayers like some kind of magic genie. Don't think this is you? I didn't either until I read the book.

•4.       More Than Meets the Eye by Dr. Richard Swenson - Both a Physicist and Medical Doctor, this book uses both disciplines of science to prove the existence of God. Heavy reading but awesome proof.

•5.       Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller - told in a journal format, this is a folksy, modern-era view of Chrisitianity. Mr. Miller strips suburbian pretense and gives a real-world view of Christian discipleship

•6.       Living on the Ragged Edge by Dr. Charles Swindoll - This study of Ecclesiastes reveals the myths in believing we need more...more money, better jobs, etc. Solomon had more of every worldly item then any other human ever to live and wrote Ecclesiastes as his summation of all he learned.

•7.       The Bible by God, through his people - Divinely inspired, the bible is the most important book in a Christian's bookcase. Most people are bothered by those passages of Scripture they do not understand, but the passages that bother me are those I do understand. --Mark Twain

Like I said, please comment and add your favorites.

Ken