The life of a woman today isn't really all that different from that of Mary and Martha in the New Testament. Like Mary, you long to sit at the Lord's feet...but the daily demands of a busy world just won't leave you alone. Like Martha, you love Jesus and really want to serve him...yet you struggle with weariness, resentment, and feelings of inadequacy. Then comes Jesus, right into the midst of your busy Mary/Martha life-and he extends the same invitation he issued long ago to the two sisters of Bethany. Tenderly he invites you to choose "the better part"-a joyful life of "living-room" intimacy with him that flows naturally into "kitchen service" for him. How can you make that choice? With her fresh approach to the familiar Bible story and its creative, practical strategies, Joanna shows how all of us -Marys and Marthas alike- can draw closer to our Lord, deepening our devotion, strengthening our service, and doing both with less stress and greater joy. This book includes a twelve-week Bible study. Also look for the ten-week DVD study pack companion product to this book, which includes three DVDs and a separate, revised and expanded study guide.

    To truly see the dynamics of this love, we must take a close look at Jesus's relationships while he was here on earth. How he loved then is how he loves now, and how he loves now is how we as believers are to love. No Greater Love is a study of Jesus's interactions with people throughout the book of John, including Nicodemus, the woman at the well, and even the Pharisees. What did this love look like in action, especially with those who are hard to love? As it turns out, he didn't love people because they deserved it; he loved them because he is love.With the great tragedies in our culture today there is a need for this "Jesus love" that's available to all believers. May this book help you better know his love for you--which, in the end, will lead you to becoming more like him.

    The result of Murray's passionate exploration of the issue of surrender: why it's seemingly impossible and yet completely necessary.

    And in her new book, Help, Thanks, Wow, she has coalesced everything she knows about prayer to these fundamentals.It is these three prayers – asking for assistance from a higher power, appreciating what we have that is good, and feeling awe at the world around us – that can get us through the day and can show us the way forward. In Help, Thanks, Wow, Lamott recounts how she came to these insights, explains what they mean to her and how they have helped, and explores how others have embraced these same ideas.

    In this volume, popular author Walter Brueggemann writes that the Sabbath is not simply about keeping rules but rather about becoming a whole person and restoring a whole society. Importantly, Brueggemann speaks to a 24/7 society of consumption, a society in which we live to achieve, accomplish, perform, and possess. We want more, own more, use more, eat more, and drink more. Keeping the Sabbath allows us to break this restless cycle and focus on what is truly important: God, other people, all life. Brueggemann offers a transformative vision of the wholeness God intends, giving world-weary Christians a glimpse of a more fulfilling and simpler life through Sabbath observance.

    And the answer to that question is at once less and more than what you are hoping for.Christians love the idea that self-expression is the essence of a beautiful person, but that's a lie, too. With trademark humor and no nonsense practicality, Rachel Jankovic explains the fake story of the Self, starting with the inventions of a supremely ugly man named Sartre (rhymes with "blart"). And we--men and women, young and old--have bought his lie of the Best Self, with terrible results.Thankfully, that's not the end of our story, You Who: Why You Matter and How to Deal with It takes the identity question into the nitty gritty details of everyday life. Here's the first clue: Stop looking inside, and start planting flags of everyday faithfulness. In Christianity, the self is always a tool and never a destination.

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    Wesley's story is our story. It defines our faith and it challenges us to rediscover our spiritual passion. This is a gracious gift that we will benefit from reading. The commentary is written by a superb preacher who has a pastor's heart and knows how to make the past come alive to strengthen our own experience. Prepare to be transformed. Richard P. Heitzenrater, William Kellon Quick Professor Emeritus of Church History and Wesley Studies at Duke Divinity School Adam Hamilton connects John Wesley's contribution in 18th-century England with his legacy for 21st-century America, bringing lessons from Wesley's life and ministry to bear on discipleship today. This is an excellent resource for personal and denominational revival. Scott Jones, Resident Bishop of the Great Plains area of The United Methodist Church and author of The Wesleyan Way

    In The Supper of the Lamb, Capon talks about festal and ferial cooking, emerging as an inspirational voice extolling the benefits and wonders of old-fashioned home cooking in a world of fast food and prepackaged cuisine. This edition includes the original recipes and a new Introduction by Deborah Madison, the founder of Greens Restaurant in San Francisco and author of several cookbooks.

    John Sherrill, a young reporter for Guideposts magazine, set out to gather information about a strange new occurrence happening all over the country. A skeptic when it came to speaking in tongues and the baptism with the Holy Spirit, Sherrill was determined to retain his objectivity while digging out the facts. What he found would change his life. As John Sherrill relates the biblical and historical background for speaking in tongues, examines contemporary events, and shares his personal experience, he gives life-changing insight into this still-for-today gift of the Holy Spirit. This book is textbook reading for any Christian seeking to better understand the Holy Spirit or walk in the power of the Spirit day by day.

    Follow the faith journey of author and fellow disciplemaker Jen Hatmaker and rediscover Jesus among the least of us.

    You are part of a larger Story. And the One who began the Story is at work today, in your life, in the midst of your meetings and bills and family activities that make the days rush by and blur together. In these pages Bobby Gross opens to you--and opens you to--the liturgical year, helping you inhabit God's Story every day.Remembering God's work, Christ's death and resurrection, and the Spirit's coming will change you, drawing you into deeper intimacy with God and pointing your attention to the work of the Father, Son and Spirit right now, in and around you. You'll be reminded daily that your life is bigger than just you, that you are part of God's huge plan that started before time and will continue into eternity. Whether you're familiar or unfamiliar with following the liturgical year, this book makes it easy to do, offering here the significance and history of each season, ideas for living out God's Story in your own life, and devotions that follow the church calendar for each day of the year. The power that overshadowed Mary and raised Jesus from the dead also guarantees the final redemption of all things in him; that same power is at work in us now, Gross writes. Keeping liturgical time, making it sacred, opens us further to this power as, year after year, we rehearse the Story of God--remembering with gratitude, anticipating with hope--and over time live more deeply the Story of our lives.

    . . . Sooner or later Christians tire of public meetings that are profoundly inauthentic, regardless of how well (or poorly) arranged, directed, performed. We long to meet, corporately, with the living and majestic God and to offer him the praise that is his due.'---D. A. Carson Worship is a hot topic, but the ways that Christians from different traditions view it vary greatly. What is worship? More important, what does it look like in action, both in our corporate gatherings and in our daily lives? These concerns---the blending of principle and practice---are what Worship by the Book addresses. Cutting through cultural cliches, D. A. Carson, Mark Ashton, Kent Hughes, and Timothy Keller explore, respectively: -Worship Under the Word -Following in Cranmer's Footsteps -Free Church Worship: The Challenge of Freedom -Reformed Worship in the Global City 'This is not a comprehensive theology of worship, ' writes Carson. 'Still less is it a sociological analysis of current trends or a minister's manual chockfull of 'how to' instructions.' Rather, this book offers pastors, other congregational leaders, and seminary students a thought-provoking biblical theology of worship, followed by a look at how three very different traditions of churchmanship might move from this theological base to a better understanding of corporate worship. Running the gamut from biblical theology to historical assessment all the way to sample service sheets, Worship by the Book shows how local churches in diverse traditions can foster corporate worship that is God-honoring, Word-revering, heartfelt, and historically and culturally informed

    Now, for the first time, he puts his life's work into a response to the question everybody ultimately asks: how do I pray?This down-to-earth introduction to life's greatest adventure will guide you deeper in your relationship with God, helping you to become more centred and still, clearer in discerning God's voice, more able to make sense of your disappointments and more expectant for miraculous breakthroughs too. It's full of honest, hard-won wisdom interspersed with real-life stories - some humorous, others moving - to equip and inspire your prayer life. Journeying through the Lord's Prayer, and accompanied by online videos from The Prayer Course, which has been used by more than a million people, it unpacks nine essential aspects of prayer: stillness, adoration, petition, intercession, perseverance, contemplation, listening, confession and spiritual authority.From one of today's most visionary communicators, for those who've been praying for years as well as those who want to pray but don't know where to begin, How to Pray is the simple, life-changing guide you've been waiting for.

    The Bible contains a radically different way of understanding our identity. The path that God has chosen for us to discover who we really are is the path of holiness. The most exciting thing is that this path is not for otherworldy saints, rather it is a path of earthy, gutsy holiness. It's a path that is not about basing your life on this world or of shunning your desires. Instead, it is about bringing your hopes, your dreams, your brokenness, your desires, your humanness under the Lordship of Christ. By doing this we don’t just discover a new way of living out our faith, we discover a liberating, revolutionary, life-embracing way of being truly human.