Book picks similar to
A Search for What Makes Sense: Finding Faith by Brian D. McLaren
religion
christianity
christian
nonfiction
Our Covenant God: Living in the Security of His Unfailing Love
Kay Arthur - 1999
UNCONDITIONALLY. UNSHAKABLE, UNFAILINGLY. That Someone is God Himself. But how can that be possible? Why would God love you so? Because He has fashioned an unbreakable covenant between Himself and you. And He always keeps His promises. “Everything God does,” says Kay Arthur, “is based on His covenant.” And when you understand how thoroughly the dynamic concept of covenant permeates everything God says in His Word, and everything He does in our lives, you’ll come to experience one of the most stabilizing, most freeing truths you’ll ever know.In a culture in which unfaithfulness is rampant, God’s “fierce, ferocious loyalty” toward us is difficult to imagine. And yet, through her characteristically warm and wise exploration of the Scripture, Kay Arthur will lead you into discovering the stunning truth of God’s covenant–and help you experience its revolutionary truth in your life.The Bible reveals the covenant bond to be the highest personal relationship possible. In ancient times, covenants were solemn, binding agreements supremely honored above all others. Making a covenant represented an unqualified, total commitment of one person to another–unconditionally, totally, eternally.As you follow the thread of God’s covenant woven throughout the Bible, you’ll discover the awesome privilege of getting to know the Lord as your Covenant God.From the Hardcover edition.
Starting Point Conversation Guide
Andy Stanley - 2008
Whether you are new to the Christian faith, simply curious about it, or reexamining it after time away from church, you’ll appreciate the accepting, conversational, small group environment. Come as you are, be who you are, and build enriching connections with fellow travelers as you explore who God is and what Christianity is really about.Starting Point is a natural, enjoyable, and potentially life-changing experience.Each of the ten sessions consists of three important parts:First, selecting one of the five CDs that come with this Conversation Guide, you’ll listen to a teaching by Andy Stanley.Second, you’ll use this guidebook to help you reflect, and to journal your thoughts on how what you’re discovering connects with your life—with who you are, how you think, what you believe…with the things that matter most to you.Finally, in your weekly group meeting, you’ll have the opportunity to share your thoughts and experiences with fellow travelers in a supportive environment that is designed to enhance sharing and connection.From Creation across history and into the future—from the book of Genesis to the book of Revelation—God’s story is a story of relationship, and your name is in it. Welcome to the journey of finding out how the story started…where it ends…and how God’s story and your story unite.
Own Your Life: How to Grow a Legacy of Faith, Love, and Spiritual Influence
Sally Clarkson - 2015
So now is the time to make each moment of your ordinary, everyday, beautiful existence count. It’s time to own your life.Sally Clarkson’s Own Your Life is a breath of fresh air into the life and soul of a busy woman. Like a faithful friend, Sally journeys with you to explore what it means to live meaningfully, follow God truly, and bring much-needed order to your chaos. Each page offers deeply personal, authentic, and practical guidance to help you build an intentional life. Discover what it means to own your life, and dare to trust God’s hands as He richly shapes your character, family, work, and soul.
Choosing Your Faith: In a World of Spiritual Options
Mark Mittelberg - 2008
Yet, while we hear these pleas, we're already functioning with existing beliefs—even if they are beliefs by default. So how do we choose what to believe—especially in the area of faith? Do we need to choose? In "Choosing Your Faith, " Mark Mittelberg encourages us, as Socrates does, not to lead an unexamined life. He invites us to examine why we believe what we believe. This examination will resonate with Christians and seekers alike.
Outlaw Christian: Finding Authentic Faith by Breaking the 'Rules'
Jacqueline A. Bussie - 2016
Through captivating stories and with disarming honesty, Bussie gives concrete, practical strategies to help readers cultivate hope, seek joy, practice accompaniment, compost their pain, and rediscover the spiritual practice of lament. Tackling difficult questions without political divisiveness, Bussie speaks to both progressive and conservative Christians in ways that unite rather than divide. And in doing so, she provides a new way to handle the most difficult and troubling questions of life in a broken world that God will never abandon.
Interior Castle
Teresa de Jesús
Using everyday language to explain difficult theological concepts, Teresa of Avila compares the contemplative life to a castle with seven chambers. Tracing the passage of the soul through each successive chamber, she draws a powerful picture of the path toward spiritual perfection. It is the most sublime and mature of Teresa's works, offering profound and inspiring reflections on such subjects as self-knowledge, humility, detachment, and suffering.One of the most celebrated works on mystical theology in existence, as timely today as when St. Teresa of Avila wrote it centuries ago, this is a treasury of unforgettable maxims on self-knowledge and fulfillment.
The Cost of Discipleship
Dietrich Bonhoeffer - 1937
One of the most important theologians of the twentieth century illuminates the relationship between ourselves and the teachings of Jesus in this classic text on ethics, humanism, and civic duty.What can the call to discipleship, the adherence to the word of Jesus, mean today to the businessman, the soldier, the laborer, or the aristocrat? What did Jesus mean to say to us? What is his will for us today? Drawing on the Sermon on the Mount, Dietrich Bonhoeffer answers these timeless questions by providing a seminal reading of the dichotomy between "cheap grace" and "costly grace." "Cheap grace," Bonhoeffer wrote, "is the grace we bestow on ourselves...grace without discipleship....Costly grace is the gospel which must be sought again and again, the girl which must be asked for, the door at which a man must know....It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life."The Cost of Discipleship is a compelling statement of the demands of sacrifice and ethical consistency from a man whose life and thought were exemplary articulations of a new type of leadership inspired by the Gospel, and imbued with the spirit of Christian humanism and a creative sense of civic duty.
Heaven is for Real: A Little Boy's Astounding Story of His Trip to Heaven and Back
Todd Burpo - 2010
What they weren't expecting, though, was the story that emerged in the months that followed--a story as beautiful as it was extraordinary, detailing their little boy's trip to heaven and back.Colton, not yet four years old, told his parents he left his body during the surgery--and authenticated that claim by describing exactly what his parents were doing in another part of the hospital while he was being operated on. He talked of visiting heaven and relayed stories told to him by people he met there whom he had never met in life, sharing events that happened even before he was born. He also astonished his parents with descriptions and obscure details about heaven that matched the Bible exactly, though he had not yet learned to read.With disarming innocence and the plainspoken boldness of a child, Colton tells of meeting long-departed family members. He describes Jesus, the angels, how "really, really big" God is, and how much God loves us. Retold by his father, but using Colton's uniquely simple words, "Heaven is for Real" offers a glimpse of the world that awaits us, where as Colton says, "Nobody is old and nobody wears glasses.""Heaven is for Real" will forever change the way you think of eternity, offering you the chance to see, and believe, like a child.