Can a thoughtful person today seriously believe that God wrote a book? There are an unprecedented number of sophisticated attacks on the origin, credibility, and reliability of the Bible. It can be difficult to know what to say when skepticism and secularism take over so many conversations.
Being a teenage girl is tough–beyond the stereotypical issues of hair, clothes, and boys. Under the surface of a girl’s life, you’ll find her dealing with a wild mixture of low self-esteem, jealousy, temptation, frustration, depression, fear, and longing. She daily fights the battle of image, searches for authentic relationships, and longs for unconditional acceptance and love. In this collection of one hundred eighty poignant and moving devotionals, leading Christian women–some teenagers themselves–address key issues and offer relevant guidance to nurturing a relationship with God. . .and consequently a rich inner life. Includes selections from singers Rebecca St. James and Stacie Orrico, 9/11 widow Lisa Beamer, author Shirley Dobson, best-selling teen fiction author Robin Jones Gunn, Mother Teresa, and many others.
Does the fact that you were “formed from dust” make you insignificant? Not according to God’s Word, which calls you “beloved”! Drawing deeply from Scripture and their own experiences, Goggin and Stroble lead you on a journey toward communion with Jesus. Learn why empty self-help strategies and resolutions will always fail you—but Christ will not.
Broken Experience Victory over Sin (#3 of The Unshakable Truth Journey Growth Guides) examines the truth about humankind s brokenness because of original sin, humankind s ongoing problem with sin, and how instead to make right choices in life.
Today there are too many examples of those claiming to follow Christ being caustic, divisive, and irrational, contributing to dismissals of the Christian faith as hypocritical, self-interested, and politically co-opted. What has happened in our society? It seems one short outrageous video or pithy post can trigger an avalanche of comments on social media. In this guide, Ed Stetzer―respected columnist and popular Bible teacher―leads small groups through a deep conversation of what it would look like if Christians were at their best. How might our world and our communities be different? Spend the next six weeks discussing what it means to represent the love of Jesus Christ in this new polarized age. This discussion guide for small groups is designed to be used with the teaching videos featuring Ed Stetzer.
Today there are too many examples of those claiming to follow Christ being caustic, divisive, and irrational, contributing to dismissals of the Christian faith as hypocritical, self-interested, and politically co-opted. What has happened in our society? One short outrageous video, whether it is true or not, can trigger an avalanche of comments on social media. In this groundbreaking book featuring new survey research of evangelicals and their relationship to the age of outrage, Ed Stetzer offers a constructive way forward. You won’t want to miss Ed’s insightful analysis of our chaotic age, his commonsensical understanding of the cultural currents, and his compelling challenge to Christians to live in a refreshingly different way.
Understand what it means to be compelled by love. In the book entitled Compelled by Love, trusted missiologist Ed Stetzer and coauthor and pastor Philip Nation challenge readers to look at love within the context of God, the church, and the lives of individual believers. Selected as the 20082009 emphasis book for WMU®, a million-member nonprofit missions organization, Compelled by Love will give readers a basic theological grounding and a platform for personal application as they understand what missional living is all aboutit is simply the calling to love others. Look at the love of God; begin to truly understand what is at the center of the churchs foundation, commission, and direction; but most importantly, understand your role within the mission of God as you integrate love into all aspects of your missional calling.
What does a Christian life lived “by the Spirit” look like? Bringing together scholars and practitioners of spiritual formation from across the Protestant spectrum, this volume offers a distinctly evangelical consideration of the benefits of contemplation. The contributors draw on historical examples from the church-including John Calvin, Richard Baxter, Jonathan Edwards, and John Wesley-to consider how contemplative prayer can shape Christian living today. The result is a robust guide to embracing contemplation that will help Christians as they seek to keep in step with the Spirit.
Tim Muehlhoff gives us insight into recognizing how God is at work in the world. He unpacks the doctrine of common grace to uncover how God works in ways that we don’t always realize. If we have a limited idea of what divine action looks like—dramatic answers to prayer, healings with no medical explanation, financial needs being met unexpectedly—then we miss seeing how God acts through common grace in ordinary, everyday ways such as antibiotics, financial planners, and thoughtful friends. Muehlhoff offers dozens of illustrations from contemporary culture to help us understand and communicate how God is present and acting in the world today.
Eyewitness: The Visual Bible Experience by Jeff White is a new personal Bible experience that helps readers discover God in fresh and surprising ways. Designed for adults and older teens, Eyewitness features 39 true-to-Scripture Bible stories that bring you face-to-face with the people in the Bible, all designed in a graphic novel style that offers a visual, illustrated approach to Bible storytelling. Each page features imaginative, full-color illustrations from various artists from around the world.
This is no ordinary missions book. The theme isn’t new, but the approach is refreshing and compelling, as contributors David Platt, Louie Giglio, Michael Ramsden, Ed Stetzer, Michael Oh, David Mathis, and John Piper take up the mantle of the Great Commission and its Spirit-powered completion. From astronomy to exegesis, from apologetics to the Global South, from being missional at home to employing our resources in the global cause, Finish the Mission aims to breathe fresh missionary fire into a new generation, as together we seek to reach the unreached and engage the unengaged.
Are you struggling with anxiety, unhealthy relationships, unresolved hurt, or other soul-scarring pain? Discover how to overcome brokenness and live in God’s freedom! Offering time-tested, biblically based, and research-supported principles, this dynamic guide blends McDowell’s hard-earned wisdom with Bennett’s youthful passion to help young adults thrive as they strive for spiritual, emotional, and relational wholeness.
Dr. Joanne Jung has done a great service to the church by bringing back to our attention the long-forgotten Puritan spiritual practice of ‘conference’ in all its various forms. Not content merely to explore this practice on an academic level, Dr. Jung takes the next step and shows how this discipline connects with the contemporary church as an antidote to the now moribund small group movement. Godly Conversation: Rediscovering the Puritan Practice of Conference is a welcome and valuable addition to the now-growing literature on spiritual formation.
As human jealousy is seldom uncontaminated with sin, it tends only to be understood as a negative emotion. However, the Bible tells us that God is a jealous God, and Erik Thoennes offers us unique insights into Godly Jealousy as taught in Scripture, and also looks closely at biblical leaders who displayed Godly human jealousy. Thoennes masterfully draws ethical and theological implications from godly jealousy for the 21st Century. This book is a must-read for anyone who is concerned with character development and who seeks to know the central values needed in the church today.
The three-views approach is an effective and succinct means of introducing theological subjects to readers of all levels. How Then Should We Choose? applies this proven format to the vital topic of decision making and the Christian’s search for the will of God. Garry Friesen of Multnomah Bible College, Henry and Richard Blackaby of Blackaby Ministries International, and Gordon T. Smith of Regent College each contribute summaries of their perspectives on God’s will and their approaches to decision making. Book edited by Douglas Huffman.
In How to Read Theology for All Its Worth, professor, author, and devoted reader Karin Stetina introduces students to the basic skills of intelligent reading, applied especially to theological works. Anyone who’d like to read theology well, whether a formal student or interested layperson, will benefit from the simple steps Stetina outlines. How to Read Theology for All Its Worth will equip readers not only to understand theology but also to insightfully engage authors’ ideas. With the basic tools in hand, everyone can read with confidence and enjoy “conversations” with theological works.
Knowledge for the Love of God is for followers of Jesus needing to better understand the crucial connection between faith and rationality. Timothy Pickavance shows how learning about who God is and what he has done, is doing, and will do draws us closer to him—just as in any relationship. With stories from his own experiences wrestling with this aspect of faith, Pickavance relates a compelling vision of how cultivating the intellect strengthens our Christian worldview, helps us gain freedom in Christ, and enables us to love God with our whole being. Discussion questions at the end of each chapter make this a book to be fruitfully shared among fellow believers desiring a deeper faith—one of heart, soul, strength, and mind.
Tackling fifteen of life’s biggest questions relating to God and his relationship to humanity by presenting biblical answers, this is an excellent crash course on Christianity for believers and seekers alike.
Dr. Barry Corey, president of Biola University, believes we tend to devalue the importance of kindness, opting instead for caustic expressions of certainty that push people away. We forget that the essence of what God requires of us is to “love kindness.” In this book, filled with stories from his travels around the globe, Barry shows us the forgotten way of kindness. It is a life that calls us to put ourselves at risk. A life that calls us to hope. A life of a firm center and soft edges. It is the life Christ invites us to follow, no matter what the cost.
J.P. Moreland is concerned for the evangelical community. He feels that it is currently being held captive by a thoroughly modern understanding of Christianity which has diminished our ability to positively affect change in our culture. In other words, we are no longer salty, and cannot (do not) function as the salt of the earth. What does Jesus say about salt that has lost its flavor? It is good for nothing and must be thrown out (actually, Jesus, in his ever mild manner, says to throw it out and trample it underfoot). This revised edition includes expanded appendices and three new chapters that outline how to argue for the reality of God and the historicity of Jesus’ life teachings, death, and resurrection.
