Religion Saves

In our image-conscious culture, life can become a never-ending performance. The perfection we feel pressured to project to those in our social sphere comes at the expense of our emotional, spiritual, and mental well-being. In the end, we are left exhausted and unfulfilled. How do we flip the script and feed ourselves rather than simply adding to our feeds? In Soul Care to Save Your Life, author, speaker, and recovering performer Manda Carpenter offers an invitation to shift your focus from performing to purposeful living from the inside out.

What drives all of your life’s priorities, values, and decisions? In the sequel to An End to Upside Down Thinking, Mark Gober builds a science-based worldview from which we can create a compass for living. In stark contrast to his prior belief system, Gober explains why life is actually full of meaning. From this perspective, he lays out how we might approach life accordingly, along with the well-traveled “awakening” path that we’re likely to encounter. Approaching life in a new way is the antidote that our civilization desperately needs.

In the 1980s, a young adventurer and collector for a government library, Abdel Kader Haidara, journeyed across the Sahara Desert and along the Niger River, tracking down and salvaging tens of thousands of ancient Islamic and secular manuscripts that had fallen into obscurity. The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu tells the incredible story of how Haidara, a mild-mannered archivist and historian from the legendary city of Timbuktu, later became one of the world's greatest and most brazen smugglers.

Pastor Bryan Loritts reveals the astonishing truth that God doesn’t want your spiritual scorekeeping. He simply wants your surrender. The punchline of the gospel of Matthew is just that—a message of grace and performance-free love to do-good, try-harder Jews who thought they had to earn their way into God’s favor. It’s an ancient message, yet it can be a lifeline to us today as we live in a world of performance metrics.

The Portal explores how meditation and mindfulness will unlock your power, grow your compassion for those around you, and awaken your thirst for change. Sharing personal stories from six people who healed their lives through meditation, as well as compelling insights from some of today’s most innovative thinkers, The Portal shares a vision for humanity transformed.

"I saw his face." Deborah Hall's words launched the destiny of two men from very different worlds. Ron Hall was an international art dealer with upscale tastes; Denver Moore was a homeless drifter with a dangerous past. Millions have read about their unlikely bond through their first book, Same Kind of Different as Me - a New York Times best seller and now a major motion picture.

Now more than ever, people are seeking a reprieve from the constant pressure to achieve, produce, and consume. While many turn to mindfulness and meditation, organizational change expert Marilyn Paul, PhD, offers a complementary solution that is as radical as it is ancient.

Journey with Jesus on the road to Jerusalem with these reflections for Lent by Sinclair Ferguson. As you walk through the second half of Luke’s Gospel, you'll meet the people Jesus encountered on the way to the cross and prepare your heart to appreciate his death and resurrection afresh. Pithy yet profound, these devotions will hold up a mirror to your own heart and, more importantly, give you a window into the heart of the Lord Jesus - the one who came to seek and to save the lost at Easter.

Modern culture 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 we, like Nehemiah, remain committed to resisting the dictates of our culture. In this short book, Pastor Douglas Wilson describes some of the most important ways to create and maintain countercultural Christian communities. Whether it's the need for kids to get calluses or the necessity of love and loyalty within churches, Wilson brings decades of wisdom.

Love is easy to give when you are getting it back. Are we still called to God's plan of how to love when we are getting none in return? Shauna Shanks's brave journey through obedience reveals the outcome of when we dare to follow God's ludicrous outline for love as described in 1 Corinthians 13. Wrecked with news of her husband's affair and his request for a divorce, Shauna finds herself urgently faced with a decision. Does she give up and divorce her husband and move on, or does she try to fight for her marriage?

From inventions to massive monuments, these societies have tried to produce something that would define them and last forever. But only one is eternal: God himself. Christ’s greatest gift, his divine flesh and blood in the Eucharist, is the eternal defining legacy of Christendom, the flower of Western civilization.

The American church is at a critical crossroads. Our witness has been compromised, our numbers are down, and our reputation has been sullied, due largely to our own faults and fears. The church's ethnocentrism, consumerism, and syncretism have blurred the lines between discipleship and partisanship. Pastor Eric Costanzo, missiologist Daniel Yang, and nonprofit leader Matthew Soerens find that for the church to return to health, we must decenter ourselves from our American idols and recenter on the undeniable, inalienable core reality of the global, transcultural kingdom of God.

In this short book, Dr. Matthew Everhard attempts to give the listener a concise exposition of the gospel of Jesus Christ. He explains that our souls were made to serve and adore our creator, our Heavenly Father. But with the advent of sin into the world at the Garden of Eden (Genesis 3), mankind was plunged into ruin and loss. The soul of man is now in jeopardy. Yet because of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the Savior, we can have our sins forgiven and be filled with the Holy Spirit.

Every excuse, reason, and roadblock for not coming to Christ is examined and duly dealt with. If you think you may be too bad, or if perhaps you really are bad and you sin either openly or behind closed doors, you will discover that life in Christ is for you too. You can reject the message of salvation by faith, or you can choose to live a life of sin after professing faith in Christ, but you cannot change the truth as it is, either for yourself or for others.

In How Jesus Saves, Joshua McNall unpacks the meaning of Jesus’ life and death for everyday people. Taking listeners on a journey through Scripture, McNall brings together the primary models of atonement doctrine making the latest theology accessible.

When life feels like a perpetual treadmill rather than a grand adventure, something is off. As bills increase, income seems to fall behind, and the economy wavers unreliably, you must figure out how to create the life you desire with the money you have rather than wish you had. Discover a simple-to-implement plan that merges your unique life goals with your money - complete with concrete, workable how-tos each step of the way. No matter how much you earn, you can make strategic money moves that will build your confidence in your current financial standing.

In Why Government Can't Save You: An Alternative to Political Activism, John MacArthur illustrates through Scripture that regardless of the numerous immoral, unjust, and ungodly failures of secular government, believers are to pray and to seek to influence the world for Christ by godly, selfless, and peaceful living under that authority, not by protests against the government or acts of civil disobedience.

Eliyho Matz has done the world a service by bringing this documentary history together in book form, so that readers may see for themselves what was known, documented, and reported about the Holocaust during the 1940s, and hopefully be able to apply his information and analysis to the thorny problems facing America, Israel and the world today.

Preaching is hard work. When I first felt called to ministry, I had no idea what I was getting myself into. This little book is the kind of resource I wish I had way back when I felt the call to ministry. There were good books on preaching, but most lacked the practical tips I needed. I knew why I preached and what to preach. What I didn't know was how to preach. I needed short, practical tips to get me started in the right direction.

If you've ever wondered if your religion can get you to Heaven after you die, then you don't want to miss this important, easy to understand bible study. Why put off knowing for another day. Isn't your eternal soul worth a little investigating. Are you wasting your time trying to please God when your religion may not even do for you what you've been told it would? Easy answers are available, so don't wait!