Book picks similar to
What If Jesus Meant What He Said? by Nate Bramsen


christian
non-fiction
spiritual-growth
adult-religion

Real Christianity


Dale Partridge - 2019
    But the reality is, the lives of many Christians look a lot more like the culture than like Christ. The question the devout are seeking today is, what does it really look like to follow Christ in a culture of darkness? In this short book, Dale Partridge assaults the watered-down, lukewarm Christianity that is harbored in many modern churches and replaces it with the raw, biblical Gospel found in the New Testament.

Upside-Down Spirituality: The 9 Essential Failures of a Faithful Life


Chad Bird - 2019
    Where the world stresses the importance of success, Bird invites readers to embrace nine specific failures in the areas of our personal lives, our relationships, and the church. Why? Because what human wisdom deems indispensable is so often an impediment to our spiritual growth, and what it deems insignificant is so often essential to it.With compelling examples from the Bible and today, Bird paints an enticing picture of the counterintuitive, countercultural life that God wants for us. He helps readers delight in all of the ways that Jesus turned the world upside-down, allowing us to experience true freedom, not from our weaknesses but in the midst of them.

Bad Girls of the Bible: And What We Can Learn from Them


Liz Curtis Higgs - 1999
    Most women (if they're honest) see the selfishness of Sapphira or the deception of Delilah. They catch of glimpse of Jezebel's take-charge pride or Eve's disastrous disobedience. Like Bathsheba, Herodias, and the rest, today's modern woman is surrounded by temptations, exhausted by the demands of daily living, and burdened by her own desires. So what's a good girl to do? Learn from their lives, says beloved humor writer Liz Curtis Higgs, and by God's grace, choose a better path. In Bad Girls of the Bible, Higgs offers a unique and clear-sighted approach to understanding those other women in Scripture, combining a contemporary retelling of their stories with a solid, verse-by-verse study of their mistakes and what lessons women today can learn from them. Whether they were Bad to the Bone, Bad for a Season, but Not Forever or only Bad for a Moment, these infamous sisters show women how not to handle the challenges of life. With her trademark humor and encouragement, Liz Curtis Higgs teaches us how to avoid their tragic mistakes and joyfully embrace grace.

12 Ways Your Phone Is Changing You


Tony Reinke - 2017
    Never offline, always within reach, we now wield in our hands a magic wand of technological power we have only begun to grasp. But it raises new enigmas, too. Never more connected, we seem to be growing more distant. Never more efficient, we have never been more distracted. Drawing from the insights of numerous thinkers, published studies, and his own research, writer Tony Reinke identifies twelve potent ways our smartphones have changed us—for good and bad. Reinke calls us to cultivate wise thinking and healthy habits in the digital age, encouraging us to maximize the many blessings, to avoid the various pitfalls, and to wisely wield the most powerful gadget of human connection ever unleashed.

Love and Respect: The Love She Most Desires; The Respect He Desperately Needs


Emerson Eggerichs - 2004
    Emerson Eggerichs and his wife, Sarah, have already taken the Love & Respect message across America and are changing the way couples talk to, think about, and treat each other. What do you want for your marriage? Want some peace? Want to feel close? Want to feel valued? Want to experience marriage the way God intended? Then why not try some Love and Respect.A wife has one driving need?to feel loved. When that need is met, she is happy. A husband has one driving need?to feel respected. When that need is met, he is happy. When either of these needs isn’t met, things get crazy. Love & Respect reveals why spouses react negatively to each other, and how they can deal with such conflict quickly, easily, and biblically.What readers say about Love & Respect“I’ve been married 35 years and have not heard this taught.”“This is the key that I have been missing.”“You connected all the dots for me.”“As a counselor, I have never been so excited about any material.”“You’re on to something huge here.”Partner Love & Respect with the Love & Respect Workbook for Couples, Individuals, and Groups for an added experience. Love & Respect is also available in Spanish, Amor y Respeto.

Gospel Patrons


John Rinehart - 2014
    I couldn’t put it down.”—Todd Harper, President of Generous Giving "As I read Gospel Patrons, I found myself weeping for joy. I was inspired by the men and women who invested their resources, influence, and time to strategically partner with those who were sharing the good news of Jesus Christ."—Howard Dayton, Founder of Compass-finances God’s way"Gospel Patrons is one of the most important books I have seen this year! It's 100 years overdue and these untold stories urgently need to be told today."—George Verwer, Founder of Operation Mobilization“The Gospel Patrons in this book were men and women who added the catalytic spark to enable astounding works of God.”—Bob Shank, Founder of The Master’s Program"This is a great read! I love the way these stories paint a picture of stewarding relationship, affluence and influence to lay up treasure in heaven."—David Wills, President of the National Christian FoundationThis book tells three stories of Gospel Patrons whose generosity was a catalyst for great movements of God. Their examples invite us to:•Find our parts to play in God's kingdom• Give our lives to what matters most• Live for a lasting legacyFor discounted pricing on bulk orders, please visit: gospelpatrons.com

Jesus Calling: Enjoying Peace in His Presence


Sarah Young - 2003
    So with pen in hand, she embarked on a journey that forever changed her—and many others around the world. In these powerful pages are the words and Scriptures Jesus lovingly laid on her heart. Words of reassurance, comfort, and hope.  Words that have made her increasingly aware of His presence and allowed her to enjoy His peace. Jesus is calling out to you in the same way. Maybe you share the author’s need for a great sense of “God with you”. Or perhaps Jesus seems distant without you knowing why. Or maybe you have wandered farther from Him that you ever imagined you would. Here is a year’s worth of daily readings from Young’s journals to bring you closer to Christ and move your time with Him from monologue to a dialogue. Each day is written as if Jesus Himself were speaking to you. Because He is. Do you hear Him calling?

On Guard: Defending Your Faith with Reason and Precision


William Lane Craig - 2010
    This concise guide is filled with illustrations, sidebars, and memorizable steps to help Christians stand their ground and defend their faith with reason and precision. In his engaging style, Dr. Craig offers four arguments for God’s existence, defends the historicity of Jesus’ personal claims and resurrection, addresses the problem of suffering, and shows why religious relativism doesn’t work. Along the way, he shares his story of following God’s call in his own life. This one-stop, how-to-defend-your-faith manual will equip Christians to advance faith conversations deliberately, applying straightforward, cool-headed arguments. They will discover not just what they believe, but why they believe—and how being on guard with the truth has the power to change lives forever.

Absolute Surrender


Andrew Murray - 2005
    The result of Murray's passionate exploration of the issue of surrender: why it's seemingly impossible and yet completely necessary.

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.

Messiah in the Feasts of Israel


Sam Nadler - 2007
    You will learn the prophetic purposes of the feasts, how the feasts are fulfilled in Messiah, future implications of the feasts and practical truths for life

Keeping Place: Reflections on the Meaning of Home


Jen Pollock Michel - 2017
    Home is our most fundamental human longing. And for many of us homesickness is a nagging place of grief. This book connects that desire and disappointment with the story of the Bible, helping us to see that there is a homemaking God with wide arms of welcome―and a church commissioned with this same work. "Many of us seem to be recovering the sacred, if ordinary, beauty of place," writes author Jen Pollock Michel. "Perhaps we're reading along with Wendell Berry, falling in love with Berry's small-town barber and Jayber Crow's small-town life. . . . Or maybe we're simply reading our Bibles better, discovering that while we might wish to flatten Scripture to serve our didactic purposes, it rises up in flesh and sinew, muscle and bone: God's holy story is written in the lives of people and their places." Including a five-session discussion guide and paired with a companion DVD, Keeping Place offers hope to the wanderer, help to the stranded, and a new vision of what it means to live today with our longings for eternal home.

You Who? Why You Matter and How to Deal With It


Rachel Jankovic - 2019
    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.

Celebration of Discipline: The Path to Spiritual Growth


Richard J. Foster - 1978
    Along the way, Foster shows that it is only by and through these practices that the true path to spiritual growth can be found.Dividing the Disciplines into three movements of the Spirit, Foster shows how each of these areas contribute to a balanced spiritual life. The inward Disciplines of meditation, prayer, fasting, and study offer avenues of personal examination and change. The outward Disciplines of simplicity, solitude, submission, and service help prepare us to make the world a better place. The corporate Disciplines of confession, worship, guidance, and celebration bring us nearer to one another and to God.Foster provides a wealth of examples demonstrating how these Disciplines can become part of our daily activities—and how they can help us shed our superficial habits and "bring the abundance of God into our lives." He offers crucial new insights on simplicity, demonstrating how the biblical view of simplicity, properly understood and applied, brings joy and balance to our inward and outward lives and "sets us free to enjoy the provision of God as a gift that can be shared with others." The discussion of celebration, often the most neglected of the Disciplines, shows its critical importance, for it stands at the heart of the way to Christ. Celebration of Discipline will help Christians everywhere to embark on a journey of prayer and spiritual growth.

Lies Women Believe: And the Truth that Sets Them Free


Nancy Leigh DeMoss - 2000
    And the lies Christian women believe are at the root of most of their struggles. "Many women live under a cloud of personal guilt and condemnation," says Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth. "Many are in bondage to their past. Others are gripped by fear of rejection and a longing for approval. Still others are emotional prisoners." In best selling Lies Women Believe, Nancy exposes those areas of deception most commonly believed by Christian women—lies about God, sin, priorities, marriage and family, emotions, and more. She then sheds light on how we can be delivered from bondage and set free to walk in God's grace, forgiveness, and abundant life. Nancy offers the most effective weapon to ounter and overcome Satan's deceptions: God's truth!