So missions is duty, right? Wrong. If you do missions purely from a sense of duty you will not honor those you are reaching out to, nor will you truly honor God. Duty is the wrong place to look, so where do we find the answer to why we do missions? We turn, according to John Piper, to worship. // In our worship of God we encounter God's glory. The overflow from our worship is a desire to share God's glory with others (the chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever), and we naturally become missional. When Jesus was asked what the kingdom of God was like, he compared it to a pearl so valuable that one would sell all they owned simply to possess it. Does that seem like duty to you? Instead, Jesus calls us to a new mindset, which flows from the mindset that worship creates in us. Thus, according to Piper, does worship become the goal of missions and the fuel which makes missions possible. // Worship as the fuel for missions makes sense to a lot of people, but worship as the goal of missions? Piper reminds us that the true reason we share God with others is to make them worshipers (and sharers) as well. He feels that the true goal of missions is "the gladness of the peoples in the greatness of God." If it is true, (as Piper states) that "God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him," then increasing the number of people who are satisfied in God will bring God more glory. And missions is the way we can do that. // Missions must be seen as more than simply saving people from sin, though that is a very important aspect. And missions is not just about getting people into heaven, although that is important as well. Instead, through missions we should always seek to make as many people as possible into true worshipers, into those fully satisfied with the greatness of God. // With that mindset, missions becomes a joyous experience, as we joyfully share the life-changing presence of God in our lives with those who don't know God. When we have made worship both the fuel and goal of all our missionary endeavors, we realize that "missions is not a recruitment project for God's labor force. It is a liberation project from the heavy burdens and hard yokes of other gods." Missions is never a burden, because it comes out of our overwhelming joy in God's grace and mercy, and we just want to share that joy. So make God the center of your missions work, and joyfully share what He has graciously given to you.

    John Clarke's acclaimed translation, first published in 1975, is now accepted as the standard throughout the English-speaking world.

    This classic work is a short treatise on peace of heart in a world where restlessness and anxiety too often take the place of the confidence and peace which ought to be ours.

    Although Riess begins with great plans for success (“Really, how hard could that be?” she asks blithely at the start of her saint-making year), she finds to her growing humiliation that she is failing—not just at some of the practices, but at every single one. What emerges is a funny yet vulnerable story of the quest for spiritual perfection and the reality of spiritual failure, which turns out to be a valuable practice in and of itself.

    

    It's not that we don't want to be disciplined physically, mentally, and spiritually. The challenge seems too hard, and the motivation more about duty than desire. When it comes to our Christian walk, we don't want to be legalistic and just follow some set of rules. That's not what it's all about, right?Barbara Hughes answers with this encouraging reality: The true heart of spiritual discipline is a relationship with God. As you grow in that relationship, embracing your heavenly Father and his ways, you discover that discipline is your lifeline to him. It is how he gives meaningful shape to all the days of your life.The "dread" of a disciplined life will be replaced with desire and anticipation as you find that there is no greater purpose than loving Him in every moment, every activity, and every thought. Using poignant stories and faithful reminders, Barbara opens her own heart to help you find the joy of full surrender. Her honest and encouraging look at the Word of God reveals the keys to living a truly godly life. And to strengthen your walk day to day, she offers hymns and praise psalms for your devotional times, a long list of recommended books that will lift your spirits, and Bible study helps to remind you that you're not alone.

    For every pained believer, for each child of God unjustly treated, for everyone who has been crucified by other Christians, comes this monumental literary work that will touch the heart as its very wellsprings. Formally titled "Crucified by Christians."

    It is therefore one of the earliest works of St. Alphonsus. The Saint entitled it: "A method of conversing continually and lovingly with God;" and to the title he added a note to say that it had been translated from the French, but that he had " augmented it with holy thoughts, affections and practices." It was surely the Saint's humility that made him thus minimise his part in the composition of the book, for as a matter of fact he entirely recast the little French treatise and made it all his own. His biographer, Father Berthe, could write of it: "In this golden little book are to be found the most familiar thoughts of the holy author." (Life Vol. I. P. 575).

    All the same, this four-week period leading up to Christmas is making a comeback as growing numbers reject shopping-mall frenzy and examine the deeper meaning of the season. Ecumenical in scope, these fifty devotions invite the reader to contemplate the great themes of Christmas and the significance that the coming of Jesus has for each of us not only during Advent, but every day. Whether dipped into at leisure or used on a daily basis, "Watch for the Light" gives the phrase holiday preparations new depth and meaning. Includes writings by Christoph Friedrich Blumhardt, Sylvia Plath, J. B. Phillips, Friedrich Wilhelm Foerster, Henri Nouwen, Bernard of Clairvaux, Kathleen Norris, Meister Eckhart, St. Thomas Aquinas, Karl Rahner, Isaac Penington, Madeleine L Engle, Alfred Delp, Loretta Ross-Gotta, William Stringfellow, J. Heinrich Arnold, Edith Stein, Philip Britts, Jane Kenyon, John Howard Yoder, Emmy Arnold, Karl Barth, Oscar Romero, William Willimon, Johann Christoph Arnold, Gail Godwin, Leonardo Boff, G. M. Hopkins, Evelyn Underhill, Dorothy Day, Brennan Manning, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Romano Guardini, Annie Dillard, Martin Luther, St. John Chrysostom, Giovanni Papini, Dorothee Soelle, C. S. Lewis, Gustavo Gutierrez, Philip Yancey, J. T. Clement, Thomas Merton, Eberhard Arnold, Ernesto Cardenal, T. S. Eliot, John Donne, Gian Carlo Menotti and Jurgen Moltmann.

    The brief introductory prayer sentences are from various sources - the Bible and traditional prayers of the church or of well-known spiritual writers. The spiritual readings come from eleven of Father Keatings books and one audiotape, with a month's worth of readings derived from each work. Each day's entry concludes with a brief selection from the Bible, or Lectio Divina.

    Most of us are clueless at praying. Why is that? And how come we've never done anything about it? In Confessions of a Prayer Slacker, author Diane Moody traces her own personal prayer journey with a touch of humor and a healthy dose of transparency. ''I want my readers to stop the merry-go-round of prayerlessness, quit acting like a bunch of spiritual babies, and get serious about this thing called prayer. Without it, we'll never experience the warm, one-on-one relationship God desires to have with each one of us.''

    For all those who are called to discern what God's will is in very concrete terms.

    Ought we to do so? What do we mean by prayer? What does the word mean in the Christian context? Almost always when we talk about prayer we refer to something we do. From that standpoint, questions problems, confusion, discouragement and illusions multiply. For Ruth Burrows it is essential to correct this view. Our Christian knowledge assures us that prayer is essentially what God does, how God addresses us, looks at us. And what God is doing for us is giving us the Divine Self in love. What then is the core of the central message of the revelation of Jesus? It is the unconditional love of God for us, for each one of us. God the unutterable, incomprehensible Mystery, the Reality of all reality, the Life of all Life. And this means that divine Love desires to communicate its Holy Self to us. This is the richness of the vision of a contemplative nun who contradicts the heresy of so much modern writing about the spiritual life--namely that we reach God by running faster. The growing fascination for the public of the contemplative and monastic life is evidence of the profound appeal of this approach. For this there is a real hunger. At its simplest we do no look for success so as to be assured that we do believe. We give ourselves over completely to divine love. Ultimately, we live for God and not for ourselves.

    Bruce Wilkinson, president of Walk Thru the Bible Ministries, takes readers to 1 Chronicles 4:10 to discover how they can release God's miraculous power and experience the blessings God longs to give each of us. The life of Jabez, one of the Bible's most overlooked heroes of the faith, bursts from unbroken pages of genealogies in an audacious, four-part prayer that brings him an extraordinary measure of divine favor, anointing, and protection. Readers who commit to offering the same prayer on a regular basis will find themselves extravagantly blessed by God, and agents of His miraculous power, in everyday life. About the Author: Dr. Bruce H. Wilkinson is the founder and president of Walk Thru the Bible Ministries, an international organization dedicated to providing the finest biblical teaching, tools, and training. His books include Experiencing Spiritual Breakthroughs, 30 Days to Experiencing Spiritual Breakthroughs, The Prayer of Jabez and many other books. Bruce and his wife, Darlene, live in Atlanta, Georgia, and have three children.

    When his existing homilies were exhausted, Knox began to write new ones for his students based on the Apostles' Creed. The homilies were so well-received that they were later published as The Creed in Slow MotionWith resurgent interest in the life and writings of Knox, as well as forthcoming changes to the English translation of the Creed, the new edition of this classic could not be more timely.