Whole: How One Book Can Transform Your Whole Life

By Coppelia Marie

If one book could transform your whole life, would you read it? This book, Whole, introduces you to that book, The Bible. Whether you are familiar with God's word, or even if you feel like it is not for you, the simple truths shared here can transform your life for the better. What you do with the truth at the end is up to you.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Jun 11, 2016
• ISBN: 9781365186530

Book preview

Whole: How One Book Can Transform Your Whole Life

WHOLE: How One Book Can Transform Your Whole Life

By Coppelia Marie

COPYRIGHT

Copyright © 2016 by Coppelia Marie Acevedo

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review or scholarly journal.

First Printing: 2016

ISBN 978-1-365-18653-0

www.CoppeliaMarie.com

DEDICATION

This book is dedicated to the one person in this world who was sent to me by God to help me achieve and accomplish everything I have been called to do. To my husband Adam, I could never in a million years have done this without you. Thank you. I love you. And I can’t wait to see what God has in store for us next!

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I thank God because He gave us the one book which can transform our whole lives: The Bible. He’s the reason for this book. All thanks to Him.

I also thank my husband Adam Acevedo. He has encouraged and prayed hard for me every step of the way. He designed the amazing book cover and pushed me to keep dreaming, while he made sure we did everything with excellence.

I thank my kids, Christopher and Allyson for doing homework, playing football video games and coloring with the 96 crayons that Abuela got for them while Mommy worked on the book.

Thank you to my parents, Emilio and Camille, for teaching my sister Emille, brother Emilio and me how to live a life that is whole, starting with a relationship with Jesus.

Extra special thanks go to my sister, Emille (Millilin!) for speaking life and encouraging me to trust God and JUMP!  And extra special thanks also go to my brother, Emilio (TioTat!), for his editing expertise and pats on the back (digitally, from Japan), which proved to be the fuel I needed to get this project finished.

Finally, the words of encouragement and blessing I received from my pastor, Dr. Alfonso Gilbert, meant the world to me as I got closer to seeing this dream come true. Thank you.

INTRODUCTION

You are holding a treasure map of sorts in your hands right now. Some people might crumple up such a map and dismiss it as child play or a myth. They might think it is a pointless waste of time to go in search of treasure. Even if they tried, they tell themselves, there’s probably nothing to find.

Then, something inside you is so curious, you decide to keep the map. You’re not really going on a Goonies movie-style quest to find treasure. But, you figure, it looks kind of cool and maybe you could frame it. Great conversation piece.

And one day, curiosity gets the best of you and you grab that map. Something tells you there might just be some truth to it. What do you have to lose? It might even be a fun adventure, taking your family or a group of friends on a treasure hunt. The more you think about it, the more fun it sounds!

My hope for you, as you read this book, is that it will be just like that treasure map. And the best thing about it is that there actually is an incredible, life-changing treasure, waiting to be found.

The treasure is the One Book That Can Transform Your Whole Life. And that book is The Bible.  Maybe you’ve dismissed the Bible as old-fashioned, and think it would be a pointless waste of time to read it. You doubt you’d find any kind of treasure in there. But what if you saw a Christian friend doing something amazing because it’s what Jesus taught in the Bible? What if you heard of a church, a group of caring people, who are taking care of refugees, orphans, human trafficking victims, because they want to live out what the Bible says?

What if, deep down, you know you’re just a little bit curious?

What if, crazy as it might sound to a lot of people around you, you actually grabbed that treasure map and, dare I say it, went on a treasure hunt?

The Bible is still the most read book in the World.¹ There is more to it than you think ... a lot more! And I’m excited to share in the next pages some nuggets of wisdom that I got, just from reading the very 1st verses of each one of the 66 books that make up The Bible.

I hope that, by the end of this book, you’ll be so excited about going on your treasure hunt, that you can hardly wait.

I hope this is just a starting point for you to fall in love with God’s word, whether it’s for the first time ever, or for the first time in a long time.  And because in the beginning was the word, and the word was with God and the word was God (John 1:1 NLT), when we fall in love with His word, we fall in love with Him.

THE BIBLE: Old Testament

In this section, you will find one page (or two) per book of the Bible, starting with Genesis. We’ll look at the first verse of each book, and find out one simple thing that helps us discover how God’s word can transform our whole lives.

GENESIS

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Genesis 1:1