Looking to right the balances, Kevin DeYoung presents a popular-level treatment of sanctification and union with Christ, helping readers to see what matters most—being like Jesus. He shows how one can be like Christ in being joined to Christ. The market is ready for DeYoung’s timely book, ready to avoid legalism and ambivalence, and they are ready for someone to articulate the inextricable relationship between grace and holiness.

    A part of the human experience often involves anxious feelings that paralyze us, keep us up at night, rob us of our ability to live in the moment, and pretty much suck the life out of us. But this doesn't have to be the case. You can stop freaking out.Sound too good to be true? It is true. In fact, it's a promise from God himself.At least 366 times, the Bible commands us to not fear. God loves us and doesn't want us to be ruled by anxiety. Not surprisingly, most people don't understand what the Bible actually teaches about anxiety, fear, and worry.Consider this book a practical resource to help you connect the dots between your anxiety and what God has to say about defeating it. As you are about to discover, you really can stop freaking out.

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

    We want faith to act like an orderly set of truth-claims designed to solve the problems and pain that life throws at us. With signature candor and depth, Jen Pollock Michel helps readers imagine a Christian faith open to mystery. While there are certainties in Christian faith, at the heart of the Christian story is also paradox. Jesus invites us to abandon the polarities of either and or in order to embrace the difficult, wondrous dissonance of and. The incarnation―the paradox of God made human―teaches us to look for God in the and of body and spirit, heaven and earth. In the kingdom, God often hides in plain sight and announces his triumph on the back of a donkey. In the paradox of grace, we receive life eternal by actively participating in death. And lament, with its clear-eyed appraisal of suffering alongside its commitment to finding audience with God, is a paradoxical practice of faith. Each of these themes give us certainty about God while also leading us into greater curiosity about his nature and activity in the world. As Michel writes, "As soon as we think we have God figured out, we will have ceased to worship him as he is." With personal stories and reflection on Scripture, literature, and culture, Michel takes us deeper into mystery and into worship of the One who is Mystery and Love.

    What not to say. When it is best to remain silent. Or what to do when you ve said something you wish you could now take back.Beyond just a How not to gossip study, Karen will teach what the Bible says about the many ways we are to use our words and the times when we are to remain silent. Using our speech to interact with friends, co-workers, family and strangers will be covered along with the many places we use our words such as in private, in public, online and in prayer. Even the words we say silently to ourselves. Unsolicited opinion-slinging, speaking the truth in love, not saying words just to people-please and dealing with our verbal anger are sub-topics that will also be addressed.Each session will feature a different character from the Bible, using them either as an example of someone to emulate or whose verbal actions we should avoid replicating."

    Our unresolved pain accumulates deep within the recesses of our hearts, in a place Jimmy Evans calls the "hurt pocket." The more pain we accumulate, the more we are mentally, emotionally, and relationally crippled. But what if we could reach into that hurt pocket, confront our pain, and experience release and freedom? Jimmy Evans shows readers how to completely remove and resolve every negative event from their past that is compromising their present and keeping them from their God-given destiny. He helps readers forgive others and themselves and discover true inner peace. Perfect for individuals, as well as small groups and entire churches, When Life Hurts will help set people free from the pain of the past so they can live fully in the present and look forward to the future.

    6:6).Today we see a culture that is increasingly hostile to Christians, and Christians are increasingly aware that they need to form strong communities to do for them what the culture no longer can. This is a good thing, but it will only work if like Nehemiah and his men we are committed to resisting the dictates of our culture. If we are at all afraid of looking like the crazy fundamentalists that our culture loves to hate, then our communities will be as easily led by the culture as anybody else.In this short book, Pastor Douglas Wilson describes some of the most important ways to create and maintain counter-cultural Christian communities. Whether he is talking about the need for kids to get calluses or for love and loyalty within churches, Douglas Wilson brings decades of on-the-ground wisdom and experience to the topic.A city without walls is not really a city; neither is a city without a church at the center. Get busy. Build the walls, fight sin, love your family and church, and live out the Gospel.

    Culture tells us that in order to be liked we must masquerade as someone other than who we are. So, we lacquer ourselves with credit cards and plastic surgery and status updates hoping no one will see the person underneath. This "veneer" allows us to silence our real selves as it gives voice to the alter ego we'd like others to see. But, is this all there is to life or have we been duped? Does material success equal significance? Is our only identity the one we steal from Hollywood? God's idea of humanity is altogether different from the world's. There is a way to live that sees beauty in our imperfection and, as Tim and Jason put it, once we realize this we can strip our veneers and live an unveneered life of freedom, honesty, and beauty.

    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.

    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.

    Francis de Sales). However, we can begin today to make good this neglect by using the powerful spiritual means described in this inspiring book. In Read Me or Rue It the very popular priest writer, Fr. Paul O'Sullivan, tells many true stories about the Poor Souls in Purgatory. He relates incidents from the lives of the Saints to show their great sufferings, our obligation to help them, as well as the many helps and graces which they obtain for their benefactors in return. This already-famous little book needs to be spread far and wide. It will lead to a powerful link between ourselves and the "Church Suffering," our brothers and sisters in Christ who suffer the torments of Purgatory - a powerful bond of charity whereby we shall please God, send souls to Heaven, and obtain for ourselves and our families a host of priceless graces and blessings.Don't miss the companion booklet, "How to Avoid Purgatory": https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2...

    By examining the virtues of Christ, you'll be introduced to a new way of experiencing Him that is authentic and gives meaning that lasts.

    In this honest Advent devotional, best-selling progressive Christian author John Pavlovitz reminds us that God came to meet us in the low places of our lives — and that Jesus continues to come low this Advent season. When we plant our feet firmly in the dirt of everyday life, we see Jesus meeting us in the low places: when we live humbly, when we seek forgiveness, in our grief and suffering, when we act on behalf of someone else, when we pray. As we walk the road of Advent, Jesus reminds us the invitation is not to escape this world to an elevated Heaven somewhere else, but to bring Heaven down. “God with us” is Jesus, getting low. Each devotional includes a scripture and Advent reflection on Jesus meeting us on the ground.

    We’re told we should do it, we might know that we should be doing it, but the reality is often too scary. Paul Williams is realistic about our fear and guilt, but with gentleness he shows us that the key to banishing our fear isn’t complex and clever answers, but rather to take our friends to the person of Jesus. He gives practical examples of how we can naturally and thoughtfully share how Jesus answers, and is the answer to commonly asked questions. Paul also shares how this simple model has led to greater confidence and joy in his own evangelism. This can be our joy too!

    I. Packer has had a long-standing passion for the Puritans. Their understanding of God and His ways with man has largely formed his own spirituality and theological outlook. In A Quest for Godliness, the esteemed author of Knowing God and a dozen other books shares with his readers the rich world of Puritanism that has been so influential in his own life.Dr. Packer masterfully uncovers the hidden treasures of Puritan life and thought. With crystalline clarity he reveals the depth and breadth of Puritan spiritual life, contrasting it with the superficiality and deadness of modern Western Christianity.Drawing on a lifetime of study, Dr. Packer takes the reader on a survey of the lives and teachings of great Puritan leaders such as John Owen, Richard Baxter, and Jonathan Edwards. He offers a close look at such subjects as the Puritan view of the Bible, spiritual gifts, the Sabbath, worship, social action, and the family. He concludes that a main difference between the Puritans and ourselves is spiritual maturity--the Puritans had it; we don't.In a time of failing vision and decaying values, this powerful portrait of Puritans is a beacon of hope that calls us to radical commitment and action when both are desperately needed.A Quest for Godliness is a profoundly moving and challenging exploration of Puritan life and thought in a beautifully written book. Here is J. I. Packer at his very best.