Book picks similar to
Being God's Friend by Charles Haddon Spurgeon
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Proclaiming a Cross-Centered Theology
Mark Dever - 2009
If a pastor understands what the Word says about God, man, and the curse, about Christ and his substitutionary atonement, and about the call to repentance and sacrifice, he will develop and preach a sound theology. And sound theology is, in the words of J. Ligon Duncan, essential to faithful pastoral ministry.Proclaiming a theology that is centered on Christ's atonement is especially critical, for by this atonement, Christians have been brought from death to life, and by it a church lives or dies. In this penetrating sequel to Preaching the Cross, John Piper, R. C. Sproul, John MacArthur, and Thabiti Anyabwile join authors Mark Dever, Ligon Duncan, C. J. Mahaney, and Albert Mohler in exploring the church's need for faithful proclamation and calling pastors and churches to cross-centered, scripturally saturated thinking.
The Attributes of God
Arthur W. Pink - 1988
Without understanding God's attributes, we have a skewed perception of him--often one cast in our own image. We need more than just a theoretical knowledge of God in order to worship him as he desires. This classic work of Arthur W. Pink invites readers to discover the truth about seventeen attributes of God, including his sovereignty, immutability, patience, love, faithfulness, and much more. Pink shows readers a God who is alive, all-powerful, and active in his creation. The perfect introductory text, The Attributes of God also has enough depth and meat to satisfy the more experienced reader.
The Divine Conspiracy: Rediscovering Our Hidden Life in God
Dallas Willard - 1998
In this classic, one of the most brilliant Christian thinkers of our times and author of the acclaimed The Spirit of Disciplines, Dallas Willard, skillfully weaves together biblical teaching, popular culture, science, scholarship, and spiritual practice, revealing what it means to "apprentice" ourselves to Jesus. Using Jesus’s Sermon of the Mount as his foundation, Willard masterfully explores life-changing ways to experience and be guided by God on a daily basis, resulting in a more authentic and dynamic faith.
Searching for God Knows What
Donald Miller - 2000
Every person is constantly seeking redemption (or at least the feeling of it) in his or her life, believing countless gospels that promise to fix the brokenness. Typically their pursuits include the desire for fulfilling relationships, successful careers, satisfying religious systems, status, and escape. Miller reveals how the inability to find redemption leads to chaotic relationships, self-hatred, the accumulation of meaningless material possessions, and a lack of inner peace. Readers will learn to identify in themselves and within others the universal desire for redemption. They will discover that the gospel of Jesus is the only way to find meaning in life and true redemption. Mature believers as well as seekers and new Christians will find themselves identifying with the narrative journey unfolded in the book, which is simply the pursuit of redemption.In Searching for God Knows What, best-selling author Donald Miller invites you to reconnect with a faith worth believing. With humor, intelligence, and his trademark writing style, he shows that relationship is God’s way of leading us to redemption. And our need for redemption drives us to relationship with God. “Being a Christian,” Miller writes, “is more like falling in love than understanding a series of ideas.”Maybe you are a Christian wondering what faith you signed up for. Or maybe you don’t believe anything and are daring someone—anyone—to show you a genuine example of authentic faith. Somewhere beyond the self-help formulas, fancy marketing, and easy promises there is a life-changing experience with God waiting. Searching for God Knows What weaves together beautiful stories and fresh perspectives on the Bible to show one man’s journey to find it.
God in the Whirlwind: How the Holy-Love of God Reorients Our World
David F. Wells - 2014
What's more, a renewed vision of God's character is the cure for evangelicalism's shallow theology, with its weightless God and sentimental gospel.Written by one of evangelicalism's most insightful minds, this book will help you stand firm in your faith despite the changing winds and raging storms of the modern world.
Your Eternal Reward: Triumph and Tears at the Judgment Seat of Christ
Erwin W. Lutzer - 1998
No hiding. No opportunity to put a better spin on what you did. No attorney to represent you. The look in His eyes says it all. Like it or not, standing before Christ is precisely where you and I shall some day be, 'for we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ' (2 Corinthians 5:10). And while we will not lose our entrance to heaven if we are believers, what we do in our earthly life will determine our standing in the eternal kingdom. There are eternal consequences to what we do.Jesus will not wink at our disobedience. He does not play favorites. We will be rewarded according to our faithfulness. There is no exception, no special deferment. When God calls our name we will be there. We cannot hide, for God will find us; we cannot scheme to make ourselves look good, for God shall see us. We cannot excuse ourselves, for God knows us.In Your Eternal Reward, pastor Erwin Lutzer teaches readers not only the effects of the Judgment Seat of Christ and the Great White Throne, but shares what Jesus will be looking for and how we can use the resources of this life to store up treasures in heaven. This life is training for the next. We are to be learning the rules of the kingdom and running the race to win the prize Christ has promised to His faithful servants. When He calls your name, will you hear Him say, 'Well done, good and faithful servant'?
Jesus Is: Find a New Way to Be Human
Judah Smith - 2013
How would you finish that sentence?The subject is there, and so is the verb, but what comes next? Your answer could shed light on the path to becoming who you were made to be. In these pages, Judah Smith fills out that sentence again and again, each time further revealing the character of Jesus. He writes as if to a friend, revealing the Jesus that somber paintings and hymns fail to capture. With passion, humor, and conviction, he shows that Jesus is life. Jesus is grace. Jesus is your friend. Jesus is a new and better way to be human.
For the Love: Fighting for Grace in a World of Impossible Standards
Jen Hatmaker - 2015
People are the best and worst thing about the human life.Jen Hatmaker knows this all too well, and so she reveals how to practice kindness, grace, truthfulness, vision, and love to ourselves and those around us. By doing this, For the Love leads our generation to reimagine Jesus' grace as a way of life, and it does it in a funny yet profound manner that Christian readers will love. Along the way, Hatmaker shows readers how to reclaim their prophetic voices and become Good News again to a hurting, polarized world.
The Mystery of God's Will: What Does He Want For Me?
Charles R. Swindoll - 1999
The problem is, this struggle often involved a great deal of confusion and worry." ?Chuck SwindollMany people have the idea that if they could just somehow find that single planned direction, they would be effortlessly swept through life. But life is not like that. Probably the most misunderstood factor of discovering God's will is the thought that, If I do this, the struggles will end, the questions are over, the answers come, and I live hapily ever after. But that's not reality.Does that mean that God's will must remain opaque to us?that we must muddle and grope blindly through life with no clue to what He wants for us? "Not at all," says Charles Swindoll.In this groundbreaking book, Swindoll invites us to join him on a spiritual quest. "I believe God's will for us in this life is not some black-and-white objective designed to take us to an appointed destination here on earth as much as it is about the journey itself . . . and what matters to Him in our lives."The Mystery of God's Will overflows with practical insights, humor, and unforgettable stories that will de-mystify, clarify, and put your mind at ease.
Becoming Worldly Saints: Can You Serve Jesus and Still Enjoy Your Life?
Michael E. Wittmer - 2015
How can we embrace and thrive in the tension between enjoying creation and promoting redemption? By living out our God-given purpose.As “worldly saints,” created in the image of God, we are natural creatures with a supernatural purpose—to know and love God. Because we live in a world that is stained by the curse of sin, we must learn to embrace our nature as creatures created in the image of God while recognizing our desperate need for the grace that God offers to us in the gospel.Writing in a devotional style that is theologically rich, biblically accurate, and aimed at ordinary readers, Mike Wittmer helps readers understand who they are, why they are here, and the importance of the story they tell themselves. In Becoming Worldly Saints, he gives an integrated vision that shows how we can be heavenly minded in a way that leads to earthly good, empowering believers to seize the abundant life God has for them.
Having a Mary Heart in a Martha World: Finding Intimacy with God in the Busyness of Life
Joanna Weaver - 2000
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.
If God Is Good Why Do We Hurt?
Randy Alcorn - 2010
He dodges none of the difficulties, and never lapses into platitudes, hand-wringing, or oversimplification. On this troubling but inescapable topic, you’ll find frank acknowledgment of the inherent limitations that set humanity apart from the God who has none. There’s also generous, real encouragement that brings God nearer in our understanding when we need His comfort the most. And amid our heavy doubts and swirling confusion on this topic, Randy Alcorn points us ultimately toward Jesus as “the only answer bigger than the questions.”
Prayer: Experiencing Awe and Intimacy with God
Timothy J. Keller - 2014
But few receive instruction or guidance in how to make prayer genuinely meaningful. In Prayer, renowned pastor Timothy Keller delves into the many facets of this everyday act.With his trademark insights and energy, Keller offers biblical guidance as well as specific prayers for certain situations, such as dealing with grief, loss, love, and forgiveness. He discusses ways to make prayers more personal and powerful, and how to establish a practice of prayer that works for each reader.Dr. Keller’s previous books have sold more than one million copies. His Redeemer Presbyterian Church is not only a major presence in his home base of New York, it has also helped to launch more than two hundred fifty other churches in forty-eight cities around the world. His teachings have already helped millions, the majority of whom pray regularly. And with Prayer, he’ll show them how to find a deeper connection with God.
The Gospel Comes with a House Key
Rosaria Champagne Butterfield - 2018
However, when the Bible calls Christians to be hospitable, it's calling them to much more. In this book, Rosaria Butterfield invites readers into her home and shows from her own life and experience how "radically ordinary hospitality" can be a bridge for bringing the gospel to lost friends and neighbors—something that she experienced herself on her journey to Christ. Such hospitality welcomes those who look, think, believe, and act differently than us into our own everyday, sometimes messy lives. Christians will be inspired and equipped to use their homes and tables as a way of showing a skeptical, unbelieving world what love and authentic faith really look like.Table of ContentsPreface: Radically Ordinary Hospitality1. Priceless: The Merit of Hospitality2. The Jesus Paradox: The Vitality of Hospitality3. Our Post Christian World: The Kindness of Hospitality4. God Never Gets the Address Wrong: The Providence of Hospitality5. The Gospel Comes with a House Key: The Seal of Hospitality 6. Judas In the Church: The Borderland of Hospitality7. Giving Up the Ghosts: The Lamentation of Hospitality8. The Daily Grind: The Basics of Hospitality9. Blessed are the Merciful: The Hope of Hospitality 10. Walking the Emmaus Road: The Future of Hospitality Conclusion: Feeding the 5000: The Nuts and Bolts and Beans and Rice