Spiritual Growth Love

Looking for God or faith? Romans 8 keeps me grounded. Let me walk with you through this beloved chapter of the Bible. Everything I ever needed to know about God I learned in Romans 8. This anchor keeps me connected to him; I may drift, but I am never far from God and I know he has me tethered to his simple, enormous, love. God wants that for you, too. Come along and see why Romans 8 keeps calling us to come back and get (re)connected to God’s radically simple and enormous love.

In Graciousness, the author addresses Christians who are zealous for God's truth yet struggle to communicate it graciously in a loving way. Filled with practical instruction and wise insights, this book includes a biblical description of graciousness, with a look at positive examples and commands from the Bible and methods for cultivating graciousness in various areas of the Christian life.

The Journey is an interactive Bible study that will guide you, the pioneer, through a journey that will lead you into exploring, discovering, and experiencing God, the one who is love. Andrea guides you through a path where she’s discovered amazing treasures that have profoundly changed her life, while guiding you into making discoveries on your own. Along the way, she shares secrets that she discovered on her journey that have brought the Bible to life, allowing her to know God more intimately, discover the beauty of who he is, and find treasures that have empowered her....

MacKenzie "Mac" Davis left her hometown of Red Leaf, Wisconsin, to pursue a degree in journalism. But when her dad, the town's beloved Coach Davis, suffers a mild heart attack, Mac returns home to help out. She takes a job at the weekly newspaper, but instead of covering serious topics her editor wants her to write about social events - like the garden club's flower show and the historical society's afternoon tea.

The truth of God's love is a message many of us have always known, but we need to be reminded of it again and again. In our limited understanding, we have difficulty comprehending it. God has loved you with an everlasting love, and yet no matter how deeply we feel him in our lives, the word of God often goes unheard. This is why, in the noise of the modern world, the simplicity of his message is all too easily lost. Yet while our prayers have no answers we can hear, that does not mean God has no voice.

Throughout life, we will experience love through our familial and romantic relationships, friendships, and, most importantly, our relationship with God. Only by having a relationship with Christ can we effectively and rightly love others.

Mark Buchanan evaluates the four best places to live - not according to the United Nations, Money, or Forbes - but according to God and Scripture. Where do we find the greatest joy, peace, and wisdom? Where can we go to experience the deepest sense of belonging? Is there a place that abounds with adventure where we can also feel safe, refreshed, and joyful? With compelling insight, Buchanan explores what God has revealed in His Word about where we become most alive, become most fully ourselves, and can dwell most closely with Him.

We were set up to feel like failures in romantic relationships by the dysfunctional perspectives and expectations of love and romance we learned growing up. There is no happily-ever-after that we can reach when we find our prince or princess. As an adult you obviously know that intellectually - but emotionally you are still looking for it because it is what we were taught as children, it is part of the foundation programming that determines how we relate to life.

Lenaburg desperately wanted to be part of a girl tribe in middle school. She wanted to belong, to have friends—to be seen. So the unathletic, gangly sixth-grader tried out for the cheerleading squad. She didn’t have fancy clothes like the other girls, and she noticed that everyone else had “a chest”. So Lenaburg stuffed a pair of her brother’s sweat socks into her bra. You can probably guess the rest: One sock fell out when she started a tumbling routine.

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.

In We Love, We Laugh, We Cook, Becky - a butter and bacon loving mama - and Rachel - a vegan bean eating daughter - share stories of their crazy, wonderful, and sometimes challenging lives as Rachel becomes a mother herself. From food for a family reunion of 30, to lunch for a party of one in a high chair, to a hot meal for a sick friend, the authors demonstrate grace, acceptance, and love to others through the bonding gifts of humor, attentive listening, and cooking... whether diners prefer beef or tofu in their stew.

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.

When we say we have faith in people or material things, it’s because they have proved themselves in the past and we expect them to do the same in the future. But that’s not faith. It’s belief.

According to John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, God raised up Methodism in order to spread the central teaching of entire sanctification. The church has offered an unbalanced understanding of the gospel for too long. This book calls all Methodists—the spiritual descendants of the Wesleyan revival, regardless of contemporary denominational expression—back to who we have been at our best. Perfect Love provides an in-depth explanation of entire sanctification and helps listeners pursue all that God has for us.

In what is now his second published book, author D.L. Williams shares the theological journey of his personal revelation of love that is so clear and well-defined, it indeed has the power to transform the heart of each and every person who listens to it. Beginning with God and his love for us, we take a journey of what love is, how the divine (God) loves humanity with a perfect love, what it means that God loves us, and how the blueprint of his love should permeate our lives.

Life is full of challenges and even as Christians, we are not strangers to pain and suffering. The stories in the Bible have shown us that even favored kings like David and Solomon had their share of ordeals. The apostle, Paul, had to walk a lonely and hardship-filled road on his way to greatness. Job, a person worthy of admiration, went through sickness and almost loses the fight for his faith.

Fire in My Heart is a good all-around introduction (or refresher for longtime Christians) about living the Christian faith. Sr. Ann presents a practical and personal guide to loving God and other people. In her words, "These bedrock priorities in my personal life and prayer have brought me closer to the Lord and increased my hunger and thirst to follow after Him ever more closely. I pray that those same blessings will be yours."

The Bible tells a story—and it may be one you haven't considered. It is the story of God and humans in an unexpected relationship of faithfulness and love. It's about people who fail and about the God who pursues them with his unrelenting covenant love. And it concludes with a miracle plot twist so astonishing, it changes everything.

The world is changing, along with our ideas around sexuality, authority, patriarchy, and truth. Despite the Church's best attempts at downplaying the changes, millions of intellectually honest people are entering into a process often referred to as deconstruction. In The Reconstructionist, pastor, and author Jonathan Foster offers up his own deconstruction story, how it stirred up the fear of his denomination, his subsequent expulsion, and how the insights gleaned might just point a way forward. It's based on three simple ideas: people > text, mercy > sacrifice, and love > fear.

Distilled from the Bible's timeless truths and the experiences of everyday life, these meditations reveal a love that is boundless, fearless, stubborn, lavish, outlandish, and intentional.