In order to engage the Bible in the spirit of justice, compassion, and love, Jonathan L. Walton suggests reading the Bible in its world for our world. Perfect for individual or group study, A Lens of Love helps Christians to read and interpret the Bible morally and confidently as they engage society's pressing issues. Walton provides interpretive tools to help understand the context of the Scriptures along with the Scriptures themselves in order to engage the richness of the Bible as they strive to live in the world in a biblically grounded, theologically sound, and socially responsible way.
You are not content because of what you do. You are content because of how you see God, yourself, and others. Are you living a life of fear, dissatisfaction, and insignificance despite your efforts to do all the right things? Do you view your world through "lenses" tainted by emotional scars from your past? Chances are you're seeing God, yourself, and others through clouded lenses. An event that culturally positioned Wei Wei Chang as an epic failure became the catalyst for her eventual escape from corporate America. It led her to discover a whole new world of clear-sighted love. From Xinjiang's villages to the Himalayan mountains, Hong Kong, and Arizona, Chang takes us on her journey of discovery, sharing her methods of lens "diagnosis" and seven keys to vision correction. Get ready to discover how to: Reconnect with God so you can experience fulfillment. Identify and remove the tainted lenses that sabotage your joy and peace. Reframe your world so that you can live free of fear and judgment. Start your journey to deepen intimacy, discover contentment, and acquire a fresh vision of God, yourself, and others today!
If God is all powerful and entirely good and loving, why is there so much evil in the world? Based on a close canonical reading of Scripture, this book offers a new approach to the challenge of reconciling the Christian confession of a loving God with the realities of suffering and evil. John Peckham offers a constructive proposal for a theodicy of love that upholds both the sovereignty of God and human freedom, showing that Scripture points toward a framework for thinking about God's love in relation to the world.
What you see of God is only part of the story. From the time Blake Healy was a small child, he has seen angels, demons, and other spiritual things. He sees them with his naked eyes, as vividly and clearly as anything else. Everyplace he goes, every person he meets, every day that goes by, he sees in the spirit. After thirty years of seeing in the spirit, one thing has consistently been the most painful for him to see. It is not when he sees someone trapped in demonic oppression. It is not when he sees the gaping wounds of emotional trauma. It is when he sees the goodness of God go unclaimed by His people. In this book Healy takes readers on a journey of rediscovering the goodness of God. It fills the churches we visit every week. It moves across the sea from nation to nation. All we have to do is learn how to see it and receive it, and then we will watch every corner of the world be completely transformed by the power of His profound good. Other books by Blake Healy include: The Veil 978-1-62999-490-1
Faith in God plus therapy are the combination that leads to wholeness. Tune's story of his faith/therapy path to authenticity with God will empower you for your own life journey. Tune is the son of a drug-addicted single parent mother, who herself, inherited deeply ingrained obstacles to self-love. He found his way out of poverty via the military. He graduated from Howard University and Duke School of Divinity. He was a minister, a sought-after speaker, and social entrepreneur. Outwardly, he was successful, an overcomer. Yet, his past, hidden childhood trauma would sometimes revolt, causing self-sabotage that threatened to destroy the life he was creating. He worked hard to keep the emotional brokenness caused by the challenges of his upbringing carefully hidden -- especially from the church. His mother, with whom he successfully reconciled after she was finally free from addiction, died of lung cancer. Then he divorced -- a second time. Feeling like a failure, questioning his faith and will to live, he made a choice not to give up but to examine his life and seek counseling. Dubbed "Brother Brown" (a Black man's Brene Brown), his book shares his process of applying therapy and faith to anger, shame, self-doubt and plaguing memories. Romal learned that the pursuit of success was not the key to healing the inner turmoil but it was in learning to accept the love of God and learning to love the wounded child within. His past pain was redeemed as self-worth and he finally found inner peace. No longer carrying the weight of secrets, guilt and shame, he emerged emotionally free and more powerful than ever. His book will empower others to stop living a past driven present by healing their stories, embracing the love of God, and learning to truly love themselves.
The author of the classic philosophical treatment of love reflects on the trajectory, over decades, of his thoughts on love and other topics. In 1984, Irving Singer published the first volume of what would become a classic and much acclaimed trilogy on love. Trained as an analytical philosopher, Singer first approached his subject with the tools of current philosophical methodology. Dissatisfied by the initial results (finding the chapters he had written “just dreary and unproductive of anything”), he turned to the history of ideas in philosophy and the arts for inspiration. He discovered an immensity of speculation and artistic practice that reached wholly beyond the parameters he had been trained to consider truly philosophical. In his three-volume work The Nature of Love, Singer tried to make sense of this historical progression within a framework that reflected his precise distinction-making and analytical background. In this new book, he maps the trajectory of his thinking on love. It is a “partial” summing-up of a lifework: partial because it expresses the author's still unfolding views, because it is a recapitulation of many published pages, because love—like any subject of that magnitude—resists a neatly comprehensive, all-inclusive formulation. Adopting an informal, even conversational, tone, Singer discusses, among other topics, the history of romantic love, the Platonic ideal, courtly and nineteenth-century Romantic love; the nature of passion; the concept of merging (and his critique of it); ideas about love in Freud, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Dewey, Santayana, Sartre, and other writers; and love in relation to democracy, existentialism, creativity, and the possible future of scientific investigation. Singer's writing on love embodies what he has learned as a contemporary philosopher, studying other authors in the field and “trying to get a little further.” This book continues his trailblazing explorations.
Is it possible to propose a world formed by love and interpreted from a feeling of wonder without falling into the doctrines inherent in the different religious languages?
Explore the infectiously cheerful nature of God's love with this heartwarming board book! A joyful celebration of God's deep love for little ones, God's Love Is Like Sunshine takes a subject that could be confusing--God's love--and makes it accessible to kiddos. How? By comparing that love to objects and ideas children know and love, such as warm sunshine, overflowing orange juice, and soft clouds. These comparisons paint a beautiful picture of a love that is kind, gentle, and generous. But most importantly, God's Love Is Like Sunshine celebrates how God's love fills up our hearts so they overflow with kindness, gentleness, and generosity for other people. With illustrations that radiate childlike joy and a message that encourages little ones to love God and the people around them, this sweet board book is sure to make you smile.
In this New York Times-bestselling follow-up, JVN voices essays on topics including body positivity, healing and grief, personal style, tales from the hair salon, overcoming imposter syndrome, and issues surrounding systemic racism, cannabis reform, LGBTQ rights and HIV/AIDS awareness. In Jonathan Van Ness’ New York Times bestselling memoir Over the Top, he showed readers how the incredibly difficult moments from his life (surviving sexual abuse and addiction, being diagnosed with HIV) have existed alongside great joy and positivity (landing a breakout role on Netflix’s Queer Eye, becoming an amateur figure skater and professional standup comedian, doting on his cats). If Jonathan has learned anything from these experiences, it’s that in order to thrive, he had to push past the shame and fear of being his true self. To embark on that journey, he had to get comfortable with being uncomfortable. In this candid and curious essay collection, Jonathan takes a thoughtful, in-depth look at timely topics through the lens of his own personal experience—instances that have required him to learn, grow, and back handspring layout to a better understanding of the world around him. He dives deeply and widely—from a poignant reflection on grief and embracing body neutrality to an examination of the HIV safety net and white privilege—to share the ways in which he has learned to embrace change. These stories speak to doing the work to challenge internalized beliefs, finding compassion and confidence, and learning more about what makes us all so messy and gorgeous. Balancing the dark and the light, the serious and the signature humor that is Jonathan Van Ness, these essays will encourage readers to examine their individual assumptions and expand their horizons. Ultimately, it is about giving ourselves the permission to be the flawed and fabulous humans we are, and loving our stories.
A polemic against love that is “engagingly acerbic ... extremely funny.... A deft indictment of the marital ideal, as well as a celebration of the dissent that constitutes adultery, delivered in pointed daggers of prose” (The New Yorker). Who would dream of being against love? No one. Love is, as everyone knows, a mysterious and all-controlling force, with vast power over our thoughts and life decisions. But is there something a bit worrisome about all this uniformity of opinion? Is this the one subject about which no disagreement will be entertained, about which one truth alone is permissible? Consider that the most powerful organized religions produce the occasional heretic; every ideology has its apostates; even sacred cows find their butchers. Except for love. Hence the necessity for a polemic against it. A polemic is designed to be the prose equivalent of a small explosive device placed under your E-Z-Boy lounger. It won’t injure you (well not severely); it’s just supposed to shake things up and rattle a few convictions.
