Do you know him that closely in this moment? Truly experiencing the love of God gives us a taste of his goodness and his love for us, but often those moments are fleeting. We get distracted by life. Our awareness and understanding fade while our longing to experience him that way again increases. In these pages you can begin to fill that longing by developing your capacity to receive and respond to God's love. Spiritual formation is the process through which one's inner self is opened to the work of the Holy Spirit, who forms us into the image of the Son. Here Richard Foster and Gayle Beebe, both experienced leaders in spiritual formation, introduce you to people from the past who have known God deeply. Each person helps you to grasp one of the seven primary paths to intimacy with God that have been developed throughout Christian history. Chapters are divided into sections, each segment surrounding a key figure and concluding with a reflection and prayer. This rich resource can guide you into the same deep intimacy with God, opening you to the Spirit's work of transformation.

    It’s a horrible feeling that you don’t quite match up, that you’re forever falling short, that you’ll never live up to others’ expectations. We’ve all faced it, whether it’s being last-pick for the softball team at school, being overlooked for a promotion at work, or being excluded from a group of friends. Sometimes the rejection runs even deeper. Feelings of loneliness and inadequacy are hard to handle. The good news is there’s a remedy. It’s in Jesus Christ, who faced the ultimate rejection and therefore knows how it feels. In bearing our sins, He was rejected by the Father and by us, His own creation, as well. He knows how it hurts. Because He faced that pain, we no longer need to. He’s planned another life for us, a life of acceptance in His family and freedom from rejection. Let go of the shame and enjoy the Father’s embrace today.

    Whether you feel restless or satisfied right now, Jim Cymbala believes that God has more for you. In this new book, he'll help you find out how to access the 'more' God intends---more peace, real joy, and a deeper sense of purpose. As you open yourself up to the 'more' of God, you will also discover your unique work assignment---the one thing God is calling you--and no one else--to accomplish for the sake of his work in the world.

    Mere Hope offers the core, Christ-centered perspective that all Christians share, and that Christians alone have to offer a world filled with frustration, pain, and disappointment. For those in darkness, despair, and discouragement, for those in the midst of trials, suffering, and injustice, mere hope lives. The spirit of the age is cynicism. When our leaders, our families, and our friends let us down at every turn, this isn't surprising. But we need another perspective; we need hope. Rather than reflecting resigned despair or distracted indifference, author Jason Duesing argues, our lives ought to be shaped by the gospel of Jesus—a gospel of hope.

    You recognize his walk, the thunder of his voice.He taunts you with bills you can't pay, people you can't please, habits you can't break, failures you can't forget, and a future you can't face. But just like David, you can face your giant, even if you aren't the strongest, the smartest, the best equipped, of the holiest.David. You could read his story and wonder what God saw in him. His life has little to offer the unstained, straight-A saint. He fell as often as he stood, stumbled as often as he conquered. But for those who know the sound of Goliath, David gives this reminder:Focus on giants -- you stumble; focus on God -- your giants tumble.If you're ready to face your giants, let his story inspire you. The same God who helped him will help you.

    But they never expected that, five days before Christmas, their five-year-old daughter would suddenly go to heaven after an asthma attack. How do you walk out of the ER without your daughter?Through the Eyes of a Lion will help you turn your journey into a “roar story” by guiding you to look past what you can see with the naked eye. Whether you’re currently facing adversity or want to prepare yourself for inevitable hardship, it’s time to look at the adventure of your life through Jesus’ eyes—the eyes of a Lion.

    But what exactly does this practice offer to Christians?In Mindfulness and Christian Spirituality, Tim Stead explores how practicing mindfulness can help Christians better live out their faith. Stead explains what mindfulness is and what is beneficial about it. He also reflects on how it can impact what and how we believe and seeks to find how mindfulness enables our Christian faith to work for us. Mindfulness practices that are designed to help readers make space for God in their everyday lives are included.

    Most people who hold these beliefs are Christian and assume they are the age-old teachings of the Bible. But eternal rewards and punishments are found nowhere in the Old Testament and are not what Jesus or his disciples taught. So where did the ideas come from? In clear and compelling terms, Bart Ehrman recounts the long history of the afterlife, ranging from The Epic of Gilgamesh up to the writings of Augustine, focusing especially on the teachings of Jesus and his early followers. He discusses ancient guided tours of heaven and hell, in which a living person observes the sublime blessings of heaven for those who are saved and the horrifying torments of hell for the damned. Some of these accounts take the form of near death experiences, the oldest on record, with intriguing similarities to those reported today. One of Ehrman’s startling conclusions is that there never was a single Greek, Jewish, or Christian understanding of the afterlife, but numerous competing views. Moreover, these views did not come from nowhere; they were intimately connected with the social, cultural, and historical worlds out of which they emerged. Only later, in the early Christian centuries, did they develop into the notions of eternal bliss or damnation widely accepted today. As a historian, Ehrman obviously cannot provide a definitive answer to the question of what happens after death. In Heaven and Hell, he does the next best thing: by helping us reflect on where our ideas of the afterlife come from, he assures us that even if there may be something to hope for when we die, there is certainly nothing to fear.

    In the tradition of unsolved historical mysteries like David Grann's Killers of the Flower Moon and Douglas Preston's The Lost City of the Monkey God, Brian Muraresku’s 10-year investigation takes the reader through Greece, Germany, Spain, France and Italy, offering unprecedented access to the hidden archives of the Louvre and the Vatican along the way.In The Immortality Key, Muraresku explores a little-known connection between the best-kept secret in Ancient Greece and Christianity. This is the real story of the most famous human being who ever lived (Jesus) and the biggest religion the world has ever known. Today, 2.4 billion people are Christian. That's one third of the planet. But do any of them really know how it all started?Before Jerusalem, before Rome, before Mecca—there was Eleusis: the spiritual capital of the ancient world. It promised immortality to Plato and the rest of Athens's greatest minds with a very simple formula: drink this potion, see God. Shrouded in secrecy for millennia, the Ancient Greek sacrament was buried when the newly Christianized Roman Empire obliterated Eleusis in the fourth century AD.Renegade scholars in the 1970s claimed the Greek potion was psychedelic, just like the original Christian Eucharist that replaced it. In recent years, vindication for the disgraced theory has been quietly mounting in the laboratory. The rapidly growing field of archaeological chemistry has proven the ancient use of visionary drugs. And with a single dose of psilocybin, the psycho-pharmacologists at Johns Hopkins and NYU are now turning self-proclaimed atheists into instant believers. No one has ever found hard, scientific evidence of drugs connected to Eleusis, let alone early Christianity. Until now.Armed with key documents never before translated into English, convincing analysis, and a captivating spirit of quest, Muraresku mines science, classical literature, biblical scholarship and art to deliver the hidden key to eternal life, bringing us to what clinical psychologist William Richards calls "the edge of an awesomely vast frontier."Featuring a Foreword by Graham Hancock, the New York Times bestselling author of America Before: The Key to Earth's Lost Civilization.

    and it's so pretty!" The secret was the discovery that life is helixical, two strands wound around a single axis--what most of us know today as the model for DNA.Over the course of his ministry, author Leonard Sweet has discovered that this divine design also informs God's blueprint for the church. In this seminal work, he shares the woven strands that form the church: missional, relational, and incarnational. Sweet declares that this secret is not just pretty, but beautiful. In fact, "So Beautiful"!Using the poignant life of John Newton as a touchstone, Sweet calls for the re-union of these three essential, complementary strands of the Christian life. Far from a novel idea, Sweet shows how this structure is God's original intent, and shares the simply beautiful design for His church.

    In a unique style that seamlessly moves between analysis, biblical interpretation, and memoir, Forgiving Our Fathers and Mothers offers portraits of authentic forgiveness that model ways to repair those relationships.The authors share their own experiences with forgiveness, providing comfort and hope to those wrestling with questions like these:What does the Bible say about forgiveness? Why must we forgive at all?How do we honor those who act dishonorably toward us, especially when they are as influential as our parents? Can we ever break free from the “sins of our fathers”?What does forgiveness look like in real life? Do I have to let an estranged parent back into my life? How do I forgive a parent who has passed away? Fields connects true stories with scriptural support for encouragement, while Hubbard’s chapter-ending commentaries add a clinical perspective. Their hope is that we gain a greater understanding of ourselves, our parents, and our God, arriving at “a place of freedom that we cannot even imagine now, a freedom that promises to begin to heal the brokenness of the world itself.”

    It extends beyond what you can conceive or imagine. Just as you cannot measure the universe, you cannot fathom the limits of His love for you. Grace is how God’s love appears. God’s grace is extreme, super-abundant, and over-the-top. His hyper-grace exceeds your wildest dreams. In this book, Paul Ellis draws a line between the muddled messages of manmade religion and the hyper-grace gospel of Jesus Christ. Drawing on insights gleaned from more than 40 grace preachers, he addresses common misperceptions and accusations some have made against the modern grace message. The Hyper-Grace Gospel will leave you marveling at the relentless love of your Father. It will show you how to walk in His amazing grace and help you rediscover the joy that is found in Jesus.

    Fabrycky, an American guide of the Bonhoeffer-Haus in Berlin, takes readers on a tour of Dietrich Bonhoeffer's home, city, and world. She shares the keys she has discovered there--the many sources of Bonhoeffer's identity, his practices of Scripture meditation and prayer, his willingness to cross boundaries and befriend people all around the world--that have unlocked her understanding of her own life and responsibilities in light of Bonhoeffer's wisdom. Keys to Bonhoeffer's Haus tells his story in new ways and invites us to think beyond him into our own lives and civic responsibilities. Fabrycky shows readers how to consider what befriending Bonhoeffer might mean for us and the ways we live our lives today. Ultimately, through her transformative tour of Bonhoeffer's Berlin, she inspires readers to discover and embrace responsible forms of civic agency and loving, sacrificial action on behalf of our neighbors.

    Yet in our medically advanced, technological age, many of us see death as a distant reality--something that happens only at the end of a long life or to other people.In The End of the Christian Life, Todd Billings urges Christians to resist that view. Instead, he calls us to embrace our mortality in our daily life and faith. This is the journey of genuine discipleship, Billings says: following the crucified and resurrected Lord in a world of distraction and false hopes.Drawing on his experience as a professor and father living with incurable cancer, Billings offers a personal yet deeply theological account of the gospel's expansive hope for small, mortal creatures. Artfully weaving rich theology with powerful narrative, Billings writes for church leaders and laypeople alike. Whether we are young or old, reeling from loss or clinging to our own prosperity, this book challenges us to walk a strange but wondrous path: in the midst of joy and lament, to receive mortal limits as a gift, an opportunity to give ourselves over to the Lord of life.

    Join Dr. Bryan Litfin as he guides you through Scripture and other ancient literature to sift fact from fiction, real-life from legend. Skillfully researched and clearly written, After Acts is as accurate as it is engaging. Gain a window into the religious milieu of the ancient and medieval church. Unearth artifacts and burial sites. Learn what really happened to your favorite characters and what you should truly remember them for.Did Paul ever make it to Spain' Was he beheaded in Rome'Is it true that Peter was crucified upside down'Was the Virgin Mary really bodily assumed into heaven'The book of Acts ends at chapter 28. But its characters lived on.