Life Growth

During our chaotic times, discover five forgotten values that can spark internal growth and help us reconcile our Christian faith with the complexities of race, sexuality, and social justice. Most believers live in the state of "being a Christian" without ever being deeply formed by Christ. Our pace is too frenetic to be in union with God, and we don't know how to quiet our hearts and minds to be present. Our emotions are unhealthy and compartmentalized.

Nearly everyone wants to go to heaven when they die. Nearly everyone assumes they will go there. And yet the Bible paints a picture of the "road that leads to eternal life" being found and traveled by few. Careful students of the Scriptures often find themselves wondering, How can I be sure of my salvation? Veteran Bible teacher Donald S. Whitney guides us carefully and patiently through the Bible's teachings on salvation and eternal life - steering us clear of misplaced confidence and pointing us always toward Christ, our hope.

As a WWE wrestler with millions of fans, Shawn Michaels had adulation and all the attention he could ask for, but he found himself longing for something more. When he became a committed Christian at the height of his career, Shawn learned what it's like to be a man of faith in a secular arena. Wrestling for My Life documents Shawn's journey to finding a new way of life - one that's marked by faith, family, and forgiveness.

Imagine what it would have been like to be a follower of Jesus: first-century Christians walked away from their old lives just to be where He was. What they learned, sitting at His feet, was discipleship. And when His work on earth was done, first-century Christians took His words and example and spread out, teaching the gospel to everyone. The good news is that we, too, can participate in this lifestyle.

Charles Stanley helps you recognize and begin to live with the guiding presence of the Holy Spirit by challenging you in three parts to look up, within, and ahead. Life abundant - Jesus promised it and we long for it, yet few Christians seem to have it. Blending lively anecdotes, commentary, and teachings from the Bible, Charles Stanley introduces you to the Holy Spirit. He is not an oversized electrical current you just plug into when you need additional help, or a theological concept, but just as real and active as Christ.

We are living through the most prosperous age in all of human history, yet we are listless, divided, and miserable. Wealth and comfort are unparalleled, but our political landscape is unmoored, and rates of suicide, lone­liness, and chronic illness continue to skyrocket. How do we explain the gap between these truths? And how should we respond? For evolutionary biologists Heather Heying and Bret Weinstein, the cause of our troubles is clear: The accelerat­ing rate of change in the modern world has outstripped the capacity of our brains and bodies to adapt.

Are you tired of being bombarded by toxins at every turn? Do you want a more natural, "crunchy" approach to the world (with or without the beige aesthetic)? Well, grab your kombucha and join Emily Morrow on a journey to a more wholesome existence with Really Very Crunchy: A Beginner's Guide to Removing Toxins from Your Life without Adding Them to Your Personality.

Drawing from an incredibly rich trove of global data, this groundbreaking book reveals that human progress has been slowing down since the early 1970s. Danny Dorling uses compelling visualizations to illustrate how fertility rates, growth in GDP per person, increases in life expectancy, and even the frequency of new social movements have all steadily declined over the last few generations.

Are you sometimes perplexed with Jesus' teaching? Do you really want what he wants? Best-selling author Kyle Idleman reveals that the key to the abundant life Jesus promised lies in embracing his inside-out way of life. As he examines Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, Kyle unpacks the many counterintuitive truths, including: brokenness is the way to wholeness, mourning is the path to blessing, and emptiness is required in order to know true fullness.

In Your ONE Life, pastor Lance Witt offers you a roadmap to align yourself with God's purposes and take extreme ownership over your life. Sharing several practical tools, Witt shows you how to craft the life you want; care for your emotional health; establish a healthy rhythm of life; do life with God, not just for God; and practice the presence of people.

All of the great religions focus on it. And important thinkers, philosophers, and artists in history have talked about receiving inspiration from it. It is the great voice of beyond (and within) ourselves, surrounding and suffusing everything and everyone. It's the power to access true love, life, creativity, and peace. And whatever your particular faith names it, you can work miracles in your life with this power.

For the last quarter-century, author and activist Brian D. McLaren has been writing at the intersection of religious faith and contemporary culture. In Life After Doom, he engages with the catastrophic failure of both our religious and political leaders to address the dominant realities of our time: ecological overshoot, economic injustice, and the increasing likelihood of civilizational collapse.

In the first half of life, we are naturally preoccupied with establishing ourselves; climbing, achieving, and performing. But as we grow older and encounter challenges and mistakes, we need to see ourselves in a different and more life-giving way. This message of falling down - that is in fact moving upward - is the most resisted and counterintuitive of messages in the world's religions. Falling Upward offers a new paradigm for understanding one of the most profound of life's mysteries: how those who have fallen down are the only ones who understand "up".

Our books are a part of who we are as people, and we can't imagine life without them. I'd Rather Be Reading is the perfect literary companion for everyone who feels that way. In this collection of charming and relatable reflections on the reading life, beloved blogger and author Anne Bogel leads people to remember the book that first hooked them, the place where they first fell in love with reading, and all of the moments afterward that helped make them who they are today.

Practicing Our Faith offers help to Christians who are asking how our faith can help us discern what we might do and who we might become. How can we live faithfully and with integrity in a world where the pace of existence is so fast and life's patterns are changing all around us? Can we conduct our daily lives in ways that help us not just get by but flourish - as individuals, as communities, and as a society in concert with creation and in communion with God?

You are what you have. You are how you look. You are who you know. Our culture endlessly echoes these lies that hold many men and women captive. Your value, our world says, is a matter of sight - clothes, cars, youth, power, and beauty will make you worth something. But you don't have to measure yourself by the world's standards. You are not what they see. You are who God sees.

In our instant-gratification culture, we consume a fleeting, shallow diet of media, relationships, entertainment, and spirituality. Our souls go hungry, longing for a fuller, more satisfying life. Best-selling author and beloved pastor Jack Hayford shows, in what has become a modern-day classic, how we can feed our deepest places with the sustaining Bread of Life. With warmth and wisdom, he reveals how we can link our souls to timeless practices and principles set forth in Scripture.

The things Jesus did are not just for Bible times. They are for today. For everyone. Chicagoland pastor Robby Dawkins sees this again and again in his ministry to hurting people and even to gang members. Everyday people are seeing God's power unleashed through simple faith in God's Word; they are healing the sick, routing demons, and making a dynamic impact for the Kingdom of God. But many other believers are missing out, unaware that they have far more power and authority than they realize.

Find your passion in life, believe that you have the power to achieve your goals, abolish negative self-talk that may be holding you back, embrace the uniqueness that is within you, overcome stress by balancing priorities in your life, banish worry, live each day as if it might be your last, and motivate yourself to take action now.

Jesus warned that deception would grow worse as we draw nearer to the end times, saying, "Take heed that no one deceives you" (Matthew 24:4). Distinguishing truth from error has become an increasingly challenging task—even in the church. We live in a time when falsehoods assault us from every direction. Packaged with just enough truth to make them appear trustworthy, these counterfeits have grown more and more difficult to detect and avoid. Living in the Daze of Deception explores the many ways error is masquerading as truth—and how you can discern the difference.