But it's not cheap—true grace compels us to change. That’s where holiness comes in.Beloved writer, speaker, and bestselling coauthor of Wild and Free Jess Connolly will be the first to admit that not long ago, like many women, she grasped grace but she had forgotten holiness. Dance, Stand, Run charts her discovery that holiness was never meant to be a shaming reminder of what we “should” be doing, but rather a profound privilege of becoming more like Christ. That’s when we start to change the world, rather than being changed by it.Dance, Stand, Run is an invitation to the daughters of God to step into the movements of abundant life: dancing in grace, standing firm in holiness, and running on mission. Through story and study, Jess casts a fresh vision for how to live into your identity as a holy daughter of God, how to break free of cheap grace and empty rule-keeping, and finally, how to live out your holy influence with confidence before a watching world. Spoiler alert: it’s a beautiful thing.For anyone longing to take their place in what God is doing in the world, Dance, Stand, Run will rally your strength, refresh your purpose, and energize your faith in a God who calls us to be like Him.

    Does Jesus Really Love Me?: A Gay Christian's Pilgrimage in Search of God in America is part memoir and part investigative analysis that explores the explosive and confusing intersection of faith, politics, and sexuality in Christian America.The quest to find an answer is at the heart of Does Jesus Really Love Me?—a personal journey of belief, an investigation, and a portrait of a faith and a nation at odds by award-winning reporter Jeff Chu.From Brooklyn to Nashville to California, from Westboro Baptist Church and their “God Hates Fags” protest signs, to the pioneering Episcopalian bishop Mary Glasspool—who proclaims a message of liberation and divine love, Chu captures spiritual snapshots of Christian America at a remarkable moment, when tensions between both sides in the culture wars have rarely been higher.Funny and heartbreaking, perplexing and wise, Does Jesus Really Love Me? is an intellectual, emotional, and spiritual pilgrimage that reveals a nation in crisis.

    God and men and their relation to each other. This I believe to be all that really matters in this world, and that is what I have written about here. As confirmed believer in the Man Christ Jesus as Redeemer and Lord my thoughts naturally arrange themselves around Christ, His teachings, His claims and His Church. To my fellow pilgrims on the way to Zion I offer this book for whatever good they may be able to extract from it. And to our Lord be the praise always.

    Similarly American Christianity has devolved into its own mindless, diversionary, and celebrity-driven superficiality. Because humans are created in God's image with spiritual, intellectual, creative, moral, and relational capacities, we long for more, yet the true seeker faces the lose-lose alternatives of a soul-numbing culture and a vacuous Christianity-lite. The renaissance we need in both faith and culture will originate in a deep spiritual renewal that restores God's image in us and creates a new breed of culturally savvy, thoughtful creatives who rekindle the spiritual, intellectual, and creative legacy of Christians as enrichers of culture.

    Worthy: Celebrating the Value of Women offers insights for both women and men as they more fully grasp that truth through the study of Scripture. Bestselling author Elyse Fitzpatrick and pastor Eric Schumacher explore how women fit into the storyline of the Bible, offering a transformative view of women, their Maker, and their essential role in the plan of redemption. Readers will be informed and encouraged as Worthy uncovers how God values, empowers, and works through women.Study questions and a "Digging Deeper" section will help men and women alike discover how to cherish, value, and honor one another for God's glory.

    It’s even harder without practical guidance on how to do it.From author James MacDonald:“I have written this book to actually help people change. It's for people who desperately want to change, a practical ‘How-to’ manual… The truths in this book are stained with my own tears of trying and failing and trying again to be the man God wants me to be. So I have written this with the urgency of a loving heart for you and your situation…James MacDonald is serious about the business of change according to God's Word, and he walks you through it in three phases:The Preparation for Change: choosing the right method and partnering with God to select the areas you need to see changeThe Process of Change: exploring the biblical method of saying no to sinful patterns and yes to the things God desires for youThe Power to Change: knowing how to experience the power of God personally and continuouslyIncludes study questions, exercises, and single sentence chapter summaries

    Discover the power in the blood of Jesus to protect and save.

    Where the world stresses the importance of success, Bird invites readers to embrace nine specific failures in the areas of our personal lives, our relationships, and the church. Why? Because what human wisdom deems indispensable is so often an impediment to our spiritual growth, and what it deems insignificant is so often essential to it.With compelling examples from the Bible and today, Bird paints an enticing picture of the counterintuitive, countercultural life that God wants for us. He helps readers delight in all of the ways that Jesus turned the world upside-down, allowing us to experience true freedom, not from our weaknesses but in the midst of them.

    (Multnomah)

    In the few cases where it gets any attention, economic commentary in the Gospels and other New Testament writings tend to lapse into simplistic class warfare nostrums. Liberation theologians import Marxism wholesale (but they try to sell it retail) into theology. Academic historians of 1st Century Palestine/Judea have been pushing an account of a poor peasant Jesus leading a poor peasant's revolt based on the idea of mass displaced workers in Lower Galilee. The problem is the actual archeological findings paint a picture of an industrious and entrepreneurial economy during Jesus's time there. Reading the Gospels in light of archeology and history, which are now available to us, gives us a very different picture than the one you’ve been told regarding what Jesus taught about work and money.

    In this autobiography, Hurnard recounts how God's transforming power replaced her despair and fearfulness with his joy, testifying that anyone can experience personal communion with the Lord.

    But in fact, they were central figures in numerous Biblical tales. It was Queen Esther's bravery at a vital point in history which saved her entire people. The Bible contains warriors like Jael, judges like Deborah, and prophets like Miriam. The first person to witness Jesus' resurrection was Mary Magdalene, who promptly became the first Christian evangelist, eager to share the news which would change the world forever.In The Women of the Bible Speak, Shannon Bream opens up the lives of sixteen of these Biblical women, arranging them into pairs and contrasting their journeys. In pairing their stories, Shannon helps us reflect not only on the meaning of each individual's life, but on how they relate to each other and to us.From the shepherdesses of ancient Israel who helped raise the future leaders of the people of God, to the courageous early Christians, the narrative of the Bible offers us many vivid and fascinating female characters. In their lives we can see common struggles to resist bitterness, despair, and pride, and to instead find their true selves in faith, hope, and love. In studying these heroes of the faith, we can find wisdom and warnings for how to better navigate our own faith journeys.The Women of the Bible Speak outlines the lessons we can take from the valor of Esther, the hope of Hannah, the audacity of Rahab, and the faith of Mary. In broadening each woman's individual story, Shannon offers us a deeper understanding of each, and wisdom and insights that can transform our own lives today.

    How astonishing it was, then, that people should have come to believe that one particular victim of crucifixion-an obscure provincial by the name of Jesus-was to be worshipped as a god. Dominion explores the implications of this shocking conviction as they have reverberated throughout history. Today, the West remains utterly saturated by Christian assumptions. As Tom Holland demonstrates, our morals and ethics are not universal but are instead the fruits of a very distinctive civilization. Concepts such as secularism, liberalism, science, and homosexuality are deeply rooted in a Christian seedbed. From Babylon to the Beatles, Saint Michael to #MeToo, Dominion tells the story of how Christianity transformed the modern world.

    They will help you reflect on Jesus in the run-up to Easter. Ideal to start at the beginning of Lent.

    It is called to look like a corporate Jesus, dying on the cross for those who crucified him, not a religious version of Caesar. It is called to manifest the kingdom of the cross in contrast to the kingdom of the sword. Whenever the church has succeeded in gaining what most American evangelicals are now trying to get – political power – it has been disastrous both for the church and the culture. Whenever the church picks up the sword, it lays down the cross. The present activity of the religious right is destroying the heart and soul of the evangelical church and destroying its unique witness to the world. The church is to have a political voice, but we are to have it the way Jesus had it: by manifesting an alternative to the political, “power over,” way of doing life. We are to transform the world by being willing to suffer for others – exercising “power under,” not by getting our way in society – exercising “power over.”