But it's easy to feel paralyzed, worried that we might say or do the wrong thing. Nancy Guthrie has personal experience dealing with pain and knows what words of encouragement are helpful and what words are harmful. Drawing from her own life experiences--including the loss of two young children--Guthrie has written this helpful resource for Christians who want to be better friends to those who are suffering. Practical and down-to-earth, this book includes examples and helpful tips from real grieving people who have been helped (and hurt) by friends who meant well, equipping readers to come alongside and comfort loved ones who are hurting.

    Burge details a comprehensive picture of an increasingly significant group--Americans who say they have no religious affiliation.The growth of the nones in American society has been dramatic. In 1972, just 5 percent of Americans claimed "no religion" on the General Social Survey. In 2018, that number rose to 23.7 percent, making the nones as numerous as both evangelical Protestants and Roman Catholics. Every indication is that the nones will be the largest religious group in the United States in the next decade.Burge illustrates his precise but accessible descriptions with charts and graphs drawn from over a dozen carefully curated datasets, some tracking changes in American religion over a long period of time, others large enough to allow a statistical deep dive on subgroups such as atheists and agnostics. Burge also draws on data that tracks how individuals move in and out of religion over time, helping readers understand what type of people become nones and what factors lead an individual to return to religion.The Nones gives readers a nuanced, accurate, and meaningful picture of the growing number of Americans who say they have no religious affiliation. Burge explains how this rise happened, who the nones are, and what they mean for the future of American religion.

    Thousands are looking to Christian psychology to help them attain victory over modern dysfunctions.Does that mean the Bible alone is no longer adequate for the problems faced by Christians today?Some say we need the Bible plus psychology. Others say the Bible alone is sufficient.With deep insight and candor, pastoral counselor Ed Bulkley presents the opposing sides of this issue—and offers trustworthy, biblical answers for those who long to break away from pain and guilt and know true freedom…genuine inner peace…and a fresh beginning.The pressures to find the solutions to human hurt and suffering have never been greater. Clear answers are urgently needed for the hurting—today.

    It doesn't reduce nicely to simple solutions and happy outcomes. So instead, too often we reduce people who are mentally ill to caricatures and ghosts, and simply pretend they don't exist. They do exist, however -- statistics suggest that one in four people suffer from some kind of mental illness. And then there's their friends and family members, who bear their own scars and anxious thoughts, and who see no safe place to talk about the impact of mental illness on their lives and their loved ones. Many of these people are sitting in churches week after week, suffering in stigmatized silence. In Troubled Minds Amy Simpson, whose family knows the trauma and bewilderment of mental illness, reminds us that people with mental illness are our neighbors and our brothers and sisters in Christ, and she shows us the path to loving them well and becoming a church that loves God with whole hearts and whole souls, with the strength we have and with minds that are whole as well as minds that are troubled.

    In a breakthrough book first published in 1991, the authors address the dynamics in churches that can ensnare people in legalism, guilt, and begrudging service, keeping them from the grace and joy of God's kingdom.Written for both those who feel abused and those who may be causing it, The Subtle Power of Spiritual Abuse shows how people get hooked into abusive systems, the impact of controlling leadership on a congregation, and how the abused believer can find rest and recovery.

    Humans are susceptible to codependency because of our sinful tendency to use defense mechanisms to fool ourselves. In codependent relationships, deceitful games are played, and important Christian principles are often taken out of context and abused. God wants us to have healthy relationships with a balance between being dependent and independent. The doctors describe how the most effective means of overcoming codependent relationships is to establish or deepen a relationship with Christ Himself. They describe the causes of codependency, pointing out the factors that perpetuate it, and lead readers through their ten stages of recovery.

    M. Scott Peck brilliantly probes into the essence of human evil.People who are evil attack others instead of facing their own failures. Peck demonstrates the havoc these people of the lie work in the lives of those around them. He presents, from vivid incidents encountered in his psychiatric practice, examples of evil in everyday life.This book is by turns disturbing, fascinating, and altogether impossible to put down as it offers a strikingly original approach to the age-old problem of human evil.

    Now Neil Anderson has revised and expanded Victory over the Darkness for a new generation of readers, outlining practical and more productive ways to Christian growth based on Christ's promise, You will know the truth, and the truth will make you free. Victory Over the Darkness emphasizes the importance of believing and internalizing the cardinal truths of Scripture as a base from which to renew the mind and fend off the attempts of Satan to convince us that we are less than Christ empowers us to be.

    That's the conviction of Tim Chester as he seeks to help everyday Christians connect the truth about God with our Monday-morning struggles. This interactive book, laid out in workbook fashion, is for newer Christians struggling with sin and for more mature Christians who have plateaued in their faith as they seek to find victory over sin in their lives.With a conviction that sanctification is God's work and the journey to holiness is joyful, Chester guides readers through a change project-beginning with the selection of one area of life they would like to modify. Each chapter includes a question (e.g., Why would you like to change? What truths do you need to turn to?) to guide readers as they deal with a specific sin or struggle, truths from God's word, and a reflection guide to help readers through their change project.

    It describes how we feel about some of the things we do. We don't wake up in the morning looking forward to giving our evening over to pornography. We don't leave the house each day eagerly anticipating our next one-night stand. These are unwanted behaviors on our part, no matter how compulsively we pursue them.But "unwanted" also can describe how we feel about ourselves--both as a consequence of our broken behavior and as a driver of it. If we have the courage to study our sexual brokenness--to look beyond the shame of it to its roots--we will find that there's a deeper brokenness there waiting to be healed, and a God there waiting to be our healer.

    But let’s face it: the biggest enemy is usually the one staring back at us from the mirror every morning.We lack self-control.Self-control isn’t very popular these days. We tend to think of it as boring, confining, the cop that shows up and shuts down the party. But the truth is that people who cultivate this vital virtue lead freer, happier, and more meaningful lives. After all, our bad habits—from the slight to the serious—bring a host of painful consequences. Ultimately, they keep us from becoming the people God created us to be.Your Future Self Will Thank You is a compassionate and humorous guide to breaking bad habits and growing your willpower. It explores Scripture’s teachings on how to live a disciplined life while offering practical strategies for growth based on the science of self-control. Whether you want to deepen your spiritual life, conquer an addiction, or kick your nail-biting habit, this book will help you get motivated, stay on track, and achieve your goals.Sure, self-control is hard, but it doesn’t have to be that hard. Get the help you need to be freer, happier, and more productive. Your future self will thank you!

    But real freedom isn’t found by trying harder to change. Nor is it found in a particular method or program. Only Jesus Christ has the power to free people from the enslaving power of pornography.In Finally Free, Dr. Heath Lambert, a leader in the biblical counseling movement, lays out eight gospel-centered strategies for overcoming the deceitful lure of pornography. Each chapter clearly demonstrates how the gospel applies to this particular battle and how Jesus can move readers from a life of struggle to a life of purity.If you or someone you care about is fighting this battle, there is good news: No matter how intense or long-standing the struggle, Jesus Christ can, will, and does set people free from the power of pornography.“I’ve read just about every Christian book on the topic of pornography. Finally Free is now the number one book I will recommend to pastors, counselors, strugglers, and those who love them.- Bob Kellemen, Ph.D., Executive Director, The Biblical Counseling Coalition; Author, Sexual Abuse: Beauty for Ashes“This book is richly biblical, soundly Christian, and centered in the gospel. Christians should read it and quickly pass it to others. It will be of enormous help to pastors, youth ministers, college ministers, and the Christians of all ages struggling against the tide of our pornographic age.”- R. Albert Mohler Jr., president Southern Baptist Theological Seminary

    R.C. Sproul employs his unique perspective as a highly experienced pastor-theologian and a trained philosopher to provide well-considered and compassionate answers to the difficult questions that attend termination of pregnancy. Dr. Sproul strives for a factual, well-reasoned approach informed by careful biblical scholarship. He considers both sides of this issue in terms of biblical teaching, civil law, and natural law. This edition includes a new foreword by Dr. George Grant and has been updated to reflect developments in the issue of abortion. Appendixes provide further background on the issue of when life begins and list sources for pro-life resources.

    "God did not make us," he says. "We made God." He explains the ways in which religion is immoral: We damage our children by indoctrinating them. It is a cause of sexual repression, violence, and ignorance. It is a distortion of our origins and the cosmos. In the place of religion, Hitchens offers the promise of a new enlightenment through science and reason, a realm in which hope and wonder can be found through a strand of DNA or a gaze through the Hubble Telescope. As Hitchens sees it, you needn't get the blues once you discover the heavens are empty.

     Happiness and Healing are yours for the choosing. We've all been hurt by other people, we've hurt ourselves, and we've hurt others. And as a result, every single one of us ends up with some sort of hurt, hang-up, or habit. But the question we all face is, Where do we go from here? Life's Healing Choices offers freedom from our hurts, hang-ups, and habits through eight healing choices that promise true happiness and life transformation. Using the Beatitudes of Jesus as a foundation, Senior Pastor Rick Warren of Saddleback Church and John Baker, who is also a pastor at Saddleback, developed the eight choices shared in this book. In addition to practical, encouraging biblical teaching, each chapter includes two real-life stories of men and women whose lives have been transformed by living out the eight choices in this book. Through making each of these choices, you too will find God's pathway to wholeness, growth, spiritual maturity, happiness, and healing. You'll find real answers, real hope, and a real future -- one healing choice at a time.