On Biographies of Great Christians

Now these stories inspire us to trust God more. As we see how God proved Himself in their lives, our faith is strengthened. One thing about a good Christian biography that’s also of great value is that it exalts Christ. You don’t exalt the person. These people who are the truly greats were humble people who always kept saying, “It’s not me; it’s Jesus.”

If you read a book . . . . Some of you can see that I’m holding in my hand a thick, heavy book, 737 pages I think to be exact, that’s an autobiography of George Mueller. But you read through this and you don’t come away really saying how great a man George Mueller was as much as you come away saying, “God is an incredible God.” That’s what makes a good Christian biography.

Another thing that is a blessing to me about some of these biographies is that you see how people who were really pretty ordinary, and some of them even had great limitations in terms of natural gifting or abilities, how when they trusted in an extraordinary God, God used them in extraordinary ways. But as you look at George Mueller, you know apart from the Lord this man would have never amounted to anything of any worth. But God made all the difference in this man’s life.
-Nancy Leigh DeMoss on the life of George Mueller