This Bible audio is unique in that you can listen to the Bible text in the order that the biblical events unfolded. Includes five expertly narrated MP3 CDs, ready to load onto your MP3 player. The New Living Translation is an authoritative Bible translation, rendered faithfully into today's English from the ancient texts by 90 leading Bible scholars. The NLT's scholarship and clarity breathe life into even the most difficult-to-understand Bible passages--but even more powerful are stories of how people's lives are changing as the words speak directly to their hearts. That's why we call it "The Truth Made Clear."

    Innovative teachers Craig Gross and Jason Harper will separate the religious from the real as they show how this simple truth is worth our undivided attention. The authors weave Jesus' narrative with their own stories of serving among the "least of these" in this inspiring summons to world-changing faith. Join them as they encounter shut-ins, drunks, inmates, porn stars, and others while striving to follow Christ in their daily lives. Christian and non-Christian readers alike will experience God's love and be challenged to take seriously the call of Jesus. Individuals, small groups, congregations, and church classes will find the companion DVD an indispensable resource for learning about the world-changing love of Jesus through captivating stories and interviews. In these four films, viewers will meet face-to-face with some of the folks they encounter in the book Jesus Loves You . . . This I Know. Each film is three to five minutes long and is followed by questions for groups that wish to use the films as discussion starters. Also ideal for use in sermons.

    Our lives are radically ordinary and unexciting. That means they're the kind of lives God gets excited about. While the world worships beauty and power and wealth, God hides his glory in the simple, the mundane, the foolish, working in unawesome people, things, and places. In our day of celebrity worship and online posturing, this is a refreshing, even transformative way of understanding God and our place in his creation. It urges us to treasure a life of simplicity, to love those whom the world passes by, to work for God's glory rather than our own. And it demonstrates that God has always been the Lord of the cross--a Savior who hides his grace in unattractive, inglorious places.Your God Is Too Glorious reminds readers that while a quiet life may look unimpressive to the world, it's the regular, everyday people that God tends to use to do his most important work.

    Too often people can get distracted by various programs and unimportant details of the faith, but in this book Wayne places the focus directly on drawing near to Jesus. And from that core focus, all other aspects of life will fall into place. Filled with encouragement, stories, and practical guidelines, this book will help believers simplify their walks with the Lord a welcome message for readers looking for simplicity and peace in their anxious, overscheduled lives. Includes a built-in study guide for individuals and small groups.

    Schwartz, Ph.D., there is compelling scientific evidence that we no longer have to accept God on faith alone. Through a multidisciplinary approach, Harvard University-educated Dr. Schwartz blends psychology, quantum physics, and mathematics to examine the science of spirit. Faith and science are not mutually exclusive, and a better understanding of their relationship can lead us to recognize how God operates in everything.Trained in the scientific method as an "open-minded skeptic," Dr. Schwartz was taught how to raise questions, turn them into hypotheses, and design experiments to test them. He was not trained to consider the nature of God. And yet, his scientific research led him directly to the discovery of God's existence in intelligent evolution and everyday life.Scientifically rigorous and spiritually reassuring, this eye-opening book is a wake-up call for anyone who wonders about life's true meaning and who longs to believe in the existence of a universal intelligence.

    Raised by a Jewish mother and abandoned by his professional poker-playing father, Antonucci found Jesus at age twenty after studying the New Testament. When he finally went to church, he was disappointed to discover a "boring, stale religion." Through provocative storytelling and raw honesty, Antonucci unearths the life Jesus lived and wants us to experience, challenging us to move past spiritual boredom into a faith that's exciting, beautiful, and powerful. Recommended for all Christians thirsty for a fresh perspective on Christianity.

    Jesus gave his members a new way to deal with offenders, with violence, with money, with leadership, with a corrupt society. He gave them a new pattern of relationships between man and woman, and an enlarged understanding of what it means to be human.This is the original revolution: the creation of a distinct community with its alternate set of values and its coherent way of incarnating them. Such a group is not only a novelty, but is also, if lived faithfully, the most powerful tool of social change.

    

    There are answers to the most crucial issues of our time, all presented in an easy-to-understand format that helps you remember information for when you'll need it most. Written by Dr. Norman Geisler and Peter Bocchino, Unshakable Foundations is the culmination of more than thirty years of experience teaching apologetics. The information has been refined and sorted to present the truths most critical for today's readers. With clear and direct evidence, the authors help construct a foundation on which readers may stand firm in this changing world. Topics covered include the origin of life, good vs. evil, science and the universe, heaven and hell, and the deity of Jesus. As well, major ethical issues of contemporary society are addressed--from biomedicine to abortion. Uniquely integrating illustrations to clarify abstract concepts, the book is written for anyone seeking comprehensible answers to difficult questions to the faith.

    But how do you share it without scaring them away or offending them? For most Christians, “evangelism” is an intimidating word that suggests handing out tracts to strangers or doing other awkward things.             But what if there was a more organic, more authentic way to share your faith with your friends, neighbors, and coworkers?             Dave and Jon Ferguson have found five simple, straightforward practices that will allow any believer to do just that. And by consistently living them out, you can affect not just individual lives but your entire neighborhood and community—one person at a time.

    Each lesson is self-contained, featuring clear teaching from Scripture, and requires no extra work outside of the group setting. The self-explanatory Leader s Guide helps small group leaders with discussion questions and background material that clearly explain and apply the gospel truths from each lesson. Designed for: Pastors and leaders who want to spur gospel renewal in their churches and ministries. Church-planters who want to form gospel DNA in the churches they start. Students and campus ministers who are looking to live out the gospel on campus. Christians who want to be more deeply formed around the gospel. Small group leaders who are looking for content that works with diverse groups of people. Missionaries who are looking for simple material to disciple new Christians.

    Now The Forgotten Ways Handbook moves beyond theory to practice, offering ways for any missionally minded person to apply the ideas contained in The Forgotten Ways to their life and ministry.This intensely practical handbook includes many helpful tools: summary sections encapsulating the ideas contained in each chapter in a popular way; suggested practices to help readers embed missional paradigms concretely; and adult learning-based techniques and examples from other churches and organizations that enable readers to process and assimilate the ideas in a group context. EXCERPTMake no mistake about it; the scope of the change that is required to shift to the kind of movement described in The Forgotten Ways is nothing less than paradigmatic. Every element of mDNA poses a direct challenge to the prevailing ways of doing church and mission. When taken together, all six elements of Apostolic Genius make the task seem enormous. But we don't think it is actually as difficult as it seems. And it is certainly not impossible. The Chinese church proves that a highly institutionalized form of Christianity can become a remarkable movement given the right circumstances. And we don't believe that we have to have persecution to activate Apostolic Genius. Less intense forms of adaptive challenges can, and do, force the church to respond. What we are witnessing in our own day indicates that. Because the church carries the gospel as well as the full coding of Apostolic Genius in her, the potential for world transformation is always present in us. We can always draw upon latent resources and instincts. God is able and very willing to stir his church up. In fact we see this as one of the very special works of the Holy Spirit--to awaken God's people to their calling and destiny as a movement that can and will change the world.

    Who is the real Jesus? Do we remake him in our own image and then wonder why our spirituality is less than life-changing and exciting? Steve Chalke—a high-profile visionary in the United Kingdom and an evangelical recognized not only by Christians but by the general public as well—believes that the real Jesus is deeply challenging. And each new generation must grapple with the question of who he is, because only through a constant study of Jesus are we able to discover God himself. The Lost Message of Jesus is written to stir thoughtful debate and pose fresh questions that will help create a deeper understanding of Jesus and his message. It is an encounter with the real Jesus of his world—not the Jesus we try to mold to ours. Themes include: •The Kingdom of God—shalom—is available to everyone now, through Jesus •The world outside your own church needs to hear of the depth of God’s love and suffering •Jesus was a radical and a revolutionary! •Jesus offers immediate forgiveness, without cost, to anyone •Jesus shows us repentance isn’t a guilt-laden list of dos and don’ts, but an inspirational vision of a new way to live Focusing on some of the key episodes, events, and issues of Jesus’ life, we will see how too often the message we preach today has been influenced more by the culture we live in than the radical, life-changing, world-shaping message Jesus shared two thousand years ago.

    Young men and women explore what they really believe about the nature of the world and the purpose of life. They choose their work. They build friendships or even choose to marry. They develop goals and adopt habits that may very well last a lifetime.Yet late modernity is not a welcome environment for the emotional, intellectual and spiritual formation that occurs during these critical years. Society is increasingly fragmented. And the educational system itself, fragmented and specialized, may disintegrate more than it integrates.Professors, campus ministers, parents, youth pastors and others who are concerned with college students face an immense challenge in these days. How do they help Christian students, during one of the most eventful and intense periods of life, learn to connect what they believe about the world with how they live in it?Drawing on the history of ideas, ethics, sociology and a host of examples from contemporary popular culture, Steven Garber vigorously engages just that question. His book, The Fabric of Faithfulness, is must reading for all those who work on campuses and care about today's students.

    Or another definition of success.