Spiritual Growth Love

Jacob and Solomon were polygamists. Tamar and Rahab were prostitutes. What are polygamists and prostitutes doing on the pages of holy scripture? And God told the prophet Hosea to marry a prostitute. What about Cain - did he really marry his sister? Abraham did, and he was also a polygamist. Lot offered his daughters up for rape, David committed adultery (or rape?), and the Bible calls both men righteous. Love, Old Testament style, was bizarre.

Do we love people like Jesus loves them?Jesus loved verbs. He loved action words such as live, come, rest, learn, hear, give, go, and even die. Wouldn’t it make sense that the people who claim to follow Jesus would love the same words Jesus loved?Unfortunately, somewhere along the way someone tried to make the word Christian an adjective. So now people speak of "Christian" books and "Christian" music and "Christian" schools.

They've helped orchestrate the perfect day for countless couples. Now 12 new couples will find themselves in the wedding spotlight in the second Year of Weddings novella collection.

Women's hearts are designed by God for relationships. But in this fractured world, the relationships we so deeply desire are often the sources of great pain. Drawing on the Bible's wisdom, counselor Sharon Hersh reveals the secret to enduring life's heartaches and still coming up living wholeheartedly, loving with abandon, and daring to hope and believe.

In Is This The One?, Steve Arterburn - an award-winning author and the founder and chairman of New Life Ministries - has created a "how-to" plan for happier, stronger marriages. He contends that living in a "no regrets" relationship can be as simple following this spiritually solid and personally drawn plan before the first "I do" is even spoken. He prescribes three sets of ten carefully devised dates designed to help couples reveal their true colors and clarify whether or not they are a compatible match.

Happy Couples Know How to Talk About Money - The number one cause for divorce is financial infidelity. Now "The Money Couple" reveals the missing ingredient needed before any financial program or plan can work: healthy financial communication. This book tells you how to diagnose your level of financial infidelity; identify your individual Money Personality; master the Money Huddle and the Money Dump; and achieve financial goals once and for all.

To experience the best life that God intends for you, you must learn to live fully, love completely, and lead boldly - the hallmarks of Jesus' time on earth. Brian Houston now shares his transformative approach to the Christian life through practical tools and inspiring teaching that will help you identify your unique gifts and reenergize your faith, no matter where you are in your relationship with God.

Many Christians misunderstand and trivialize the biblical meaning of love and miss the transformation that God wants for them. We may practice the disciplines without grasping the life that Jesus desires to give within us. Through many years of spiritual formation teaching, coaching, and spiritual direction, I have found that both pastors and lay folk seem to simply blow past the central teaching of Scripture that love forms the heart of the Gospel message.

In this encouraging devotional, best-selling author Shannon Ethridge points to examples of New Testament believers to show how any woman can confidently share her faith. Through the stories of these early saints, you'll learn that drawing others to Christ doesn't have to involve specific steps or persuasive words. In fact, when God's love fills your heart, it overflows naturally into the lives of those around you and creates in them an irresistible yearning to experience it for themselves.

In Fear Not, Ed Love unpacks 11 biblical stories in which God commanded someone to "fear not". Each story exposes a common fear and challenges listeners to face their own fear and follow in faith. Listeners will discover how God uses ordinary people to accomplish his extraordinary purposes.

We all yearn for greater contentment. We try new planners, new apps, new jobs, new diets, and new relationships hoping that one more change will finally make our lives feel right. But no matter what we do, the peace we seek feels out of reach. How can we find the meaning and purpose we long for? Fourth-century philosopher and theologian St. Augustine asked the same question.

Moral evaluation must be based on more than our subjective feelings or the received wisdom or majority opinion of our community. But thinking objectively and reasonably about our ethical commitments is a process that's rarely taught in contemporary education or even in churches. Ethics Beyond Rules is a clear and accessible introduction for thoughtful Christians who want to lead moral lives - who want to define their moral code by firm biblical standards while acknowledging the complex nature of the issues at hand.

Women today feel pressure to be the best wife, mom, and professional possible - often at the expense of their own identity. But what if you could experience deep peace - knowing you are loved right now, just as you are? In Brave Love, the founder of the multi-million-dollar company Lisa Leonard Designs inspires women to find themselves again amidst the noise and competing demands of real life.

The world around us is in a constant state of reinvention, from technology, to careers, to family. It's easy to struggle in the midst of change, and each season brings new challenges. But we need reinvention: the kind that leads us to new fulfillment and our calling in Christ. To reinvent ourselves in Christ means a transformation in our hearts, souls, bodies, and minds. And we can achieve this by biblically exploring and answering the questions: What do you want? What do you have? What will you do? and Why will you do it?

You Are Equipped gives women specific tips and strategies for combating the lies the enemy tries to whisper to us about our purpose as well as our relationships. You Are Equipped gives practical strategies for overcoming everyday hurdles that often keep us frustrated in our purpose and our most important relationships. If you are ready to live a life free of fear, self-doubt, and overwhelm, this audiobook will give you tips and strategies to make the next necessary moves in your life.

Written by a retired family physician with 15 years experience as a lay servant, Spit Out the Apple looks in detail at how humans embrace the self-sovereignty given by the apple from the Garden of Eden. It describes in detail how corrupting that embrace is, and recommends several strategies in rejecting that choice for a much fuller, joyful, and loving life. The book speaks to the atheist, the agnostic, the new Christian, and disciples seeking a closer relationship with God.

Escrito en torno a la divertidísima y perspicaz historia de Bob, cada capítulo de A todos, siempre enseña una lección que Bob aprendió - en general de la manera más difícil - sobre lo que significa amar sin inhibición, inseguridad o limitación. Desde encontrar el número exacto de amigos hasta descubrir el lado positivo del fracaso, A todos, siempre señala el camino para personificar el amor haciendo lo inesperado, lo intimidante, lo aparentemente imposible.

When you find yourself loving Jesus but hating life, rest assured you are in good company. Many men and women before you have found themselves in the same position. This life is filled with dark valleys, and most of us are just looking for an immediate way out of the valley we're in. You may have been told the fix to the darkness of depression and sadness is either more prayer or more pills, more church or more counseling, more truth or more therapy. But what if the solution is not an "either-or?"

McKoy invites us to discover how a common dining-room table can be transformed into a place where brokenness falls away to reveal peace and fellowship. Whether the table is laid with bounty or with meager offerings, whether it is surrounded by the Body of Christ or homeless, broken souls, she shows us that healing begins when we say, "Come in. I may not know you, but I know your maker. And so I offer you my heart."

Vince Antonucci, a pastor who reaches out to people on the Las Vegas Strip, has seen it all - and, more important, he has seen God's love in action on each and every street corner. Is God for the people who are left out? Is he for the guy who betrayed his wife and left his kids? Is he for the doubters? The skeptics? The atheists? The answers to these questions can be found in the lives of people Vince meets and ministers to.