Spiritual Growth Love

It's no easy journey disentangling the good news of the gospel from the toxic theologies that have rendered Jesus unrecognizable. It's no wonder the church has sent many walking. In The Road Away from God, Jonathan Martin reimagines Luke's story of two disillusioned disciples walking the Emmaus road away from the holy city where they had watched their hope die before their eyes. For anyone who is feeling their faith unravel, reckoning with religious trauma, or walking the long road of deconstruction, Martin speaks hope into the journey of today's disillusioned disciples.

Nowhere was the vitality of Jesus more visible than in His love - compassionate, honest, powerful, humble, and sacrificial. Get to know Jesus, observe His life and His love as they unfold in the gospel accounts of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Combined with author Paul Miller’s own life stories, Love Walked Among Us will encourage you to imitate Jesus’ way of loving people in your relationships and community. Become more like Jesus and grow in your relationship with God.

If you are longing to experience God more than the shame or hurts of your past, the pressures of your present, or the fear of your future, Brave Surrender offers a soul-healing path forward. As Kim learned in her own life, the first step - and the bravest step - is letting go. Once we let go of anything that gets between us and God, we are freed to take hold of the life that truly matters.

Good Christians are supposedly known for diligently practicing spiritual disciplines like Bible study, prayer, evangelism, and serving God. Disciplines that are expected, through inspired effort, to conquer sin in us and in the world. The tragedy is so few Christians understand that we aren’t just sinful but wounded. We don’t need a list of disciplines. We need a healer, a deliverer to come and set us free. Kevin Butcher points us toward this healing Jesus, who offers us his all-encompassing love.

We want to love God with all our hearts, but we often find ourselves striving in our efforts to please Him, acutely aware of our weaknesses. As our failures pile up, we become frustrated and discouraged. Have we missed the essence of the gospel? Is there a simple but true way to serve God that can fill us with joy and peace rather than fear and discouragement? St. Thérèse of Lisieux faced similar struggles. As a young woman who desired to abandon herself to God, she felt daunted at the thought of climbing “the steep stairway of perfection.”

Englischer Natalie Collins looks forward to Friday night suppers at Levi and Mary Shetler’s house every week: delicious food, wonderful conversation with her Amish friends, and, best of all, the presence of Levi’s older brother, Lucas. Natalie and Lucas have become best friends despite their different backgrounds. They share a love of books, and he is teaching her about God in a way that she can understand. But the closer they become, the more opinions everyone seems to have. Levi and Mary, Lucas’s family, and even Natalie’s mother have concerns about their relationship.

The Gospels in the New Testament provide us with more than history - they help us encounter Jesus. This passionate daily devotional will bring you to the feet of your Savior in wonder and worship. Inspired by The Passion Translation, each devotion provides a daily Scripture from the Gospels, an encouraging text, and a meaningful prayer that reveals the character of Jesus and his ever-present love - restoring the broken, befriending the sinner, teaching his followers, healing the sick, and unveiling his fiery heart.

Do you ever feel like you don't pray enough, read your Bible enough, share your faith enough, love God enough...and ultimately that you're not a very good Christian? Welcome to the club. Messy Spirituality was written for the silent majority of us who are convinced we just don't do Christianity right. Mike Yaconelli dares to suggest that imperfection, unfinishedness, and messiness are, in fact, the earmarks of true Christianity; that real Christianity is messy, erratic, lopsided...and gloriously liberating.

This 40-day devotional based on the classic best-selling novel Redeeming Love leads you on a personal, six-week journey into God's all-consuming embrace.

God wants you to enjoy life—and one of the ways to experience a blessed life is the Ten Commandments. These timeless truths are so much more than the dry rules we've consigned them to be. They're an invitation into a relationship with God of overflowing blessing and love. But to receive those benefits, we actually have to know—and follow—God's instructions.

You may say that you love your family, your spouse, your church, or the Lord. You may also express love for temporal things like a good cup of coffee, your home, or a nice dinner at your favorite restaurant. But it is rarer to truly say "I love my life!" It's common to be more frustrated with life than at peace with it, because the daily grind wears you down. Responsibilities and burdens become heavy and rob you of the happiness you're meant to have as a child of God. But you can be hopeful, learn to rise above your challenges, and be filled with wonder at what God might do every day.

At age five, in the backyard of her suburban Long Island home, Anna Raimondi had a profound experience. A contemplative child, she slid her body into the small grotto that once held a statue of the Blessed Mother. Anna remembers “a feeling of pure and unadulterated peace”. In that peace, she heard a voice. It was gentle and strong, and it said, “Anna, I am here for you always. Always come to me.” That was the beginning of their first conversation.

Seasons of crisis, pain, and loss may impact the people we become, but our circumstances do not define who we are. Your identity is greater than your experiences. The only experience that ought to define your identity, determine your self-worth, and shape your destiny is an encounter with the unconditional love of God. The eternal, unchanging love of a Perfect Father changes everything!

Over twenty years later, Dee was still in love with her charming Southern gentleman when he passed away suddenly in 2007. Determined to carry on Johnnie’s work, Dee earned her mortuary science degree, only to find herself no longer needed in the family business. So Dee crossed the racial divide in the most segregated industry in America and joined the staff of an African-American funeral home as a single white woman. In The Undertaker’s Wife, Oliver draws from her experience to provide candid advice on dying well and surviving the loss of those who have gone before.

Jesus commands us to love our neighbors. So why are so many Christians taught to fear their neighbors? The American church is known as a people who are afraid, who have been nurtured through fear into hatred, and who have moved from hatred to violence - or at least to neglect. This fear, too often lived out boldly in the name of Jesus, is a false religion.

We believe in God, we serve God, we trust God, but would we say that we enjoy God on a day to day basis? What exactly does a personal relationship with God look like, and how is it even possible? This seminal work by Tim Chester shows us how we can enjoy God in every moment of every day, whether we are experiencing good times or hard times; whether we are changing diapers, or stuck on a train. He explores how the Father, the Son and the Spirit relate to us in our day-to-day lives, and how to respond.

Rob and Kristin Bell introduce a startling new way of looking at marriage, The Zimzum of Love. Zimzum is a Hebrew term where God, in order to have a relationship with the world, contracts, creating space for the creation to exist. In marriage, zimzum is the dynamic energy field between two partners, in which each person contracts to allow the other to flourish. Mastering this field, this give and take of energy, is the secret to what makes marriage flourish.

Invisible realms of angels became visible to Sebastián Blaksley in an extraordinary series of 144 visitations overseen by archangels Raphael and Gabriel. They asked him to take down their messages, including messages from Jesus and Mother Mary. Choose Only Love is the result. Hearing this truth, like hearing a song once loved but forgotten, rekindles a relationship with your true self that is direct, personal, and magnificent.

What happens when you look at your life and think, I thought it would be better than this? You know you can’t stay where you are, but have no idea what to do next. When Jessica N. Turner, a mom of three, lost her 16-year-marriage after her husband came out as gay, her life shattered. With grit and determination, she picked up the pieces, chose hope and courageously rebuilt a beautiful next chapter.

In this exposition of 1 Corinthians 13, Jonathan Edwards delves into the crucial Christian discussions of grace, love, and salvation. In doing so, he reveals their natural relations to one another and how living in grace should inevitably lead to living with love. This work does not simply explain the passage, but it also serves as a practical guide of how to live out a life of love.