The Power of Love, Faith and Hope takes readers on a journey through the many perspectives of love, faith and hope. This book will prompt you to take an introspective look at love, resurrect your dreams and live a life that is accepting of the belief that all of your dreams are possible!
What beliefs are core to the Christian faith? This book is here to help you understand the reason for your hope as a Christian so that you can see it with fresh sight and invite others into the conversation. A lot of Christians take their story—the narratives that give rise to their beliefs—for granted. They pray, go to church, perhaps even read their Bible. But they might be stuck if a stranger asked them to explain what they believe and why they believe it. Author, pastor, and theologian Mike Horton unpacks the essential and basic beliefs that all Christians share in a way that is easy to understand and applicable to our lives today. And in a way that will make you excited to be a Christian! Core Christianity covers topics like: Jesus as both fully God and fully man. The doctrine of the Trinity. The goodness of God despite a broken world. The ways God speaks. The meaning of salvation. What is the Christian calling? Includes discussion questions for individual or group use. This introduction to the basic doctrines of Christianity is perfect for those who are new to the faith, as well as those who have an interest in deepening their understanding of what it means to be a follower of Jesus Christ.
"Love is the way. Love is the only way. Those who follow in my way follow in the way of unconditional, unselfish, sacrificial love. And that kind of love can change the world." --Bishop Michael Curry Two billion people watched Bishop Michael Curry deliver his sermon on the redemptive power of love at the royal wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle (now the Duke and Duchess of Sussex) at Windsor Castle. Here, he shares the full text of the sermon, plus an introduction and four of his favorite sermons on the themes of love and social justice. The world has met Bishop Curry and has been moved by his riveting, hopeful, and deceptively simple message: love and acceptance are what we need in these strange times.
Is there any eternal value to your day job? Is it possible to find gospel meaning in your "secular" career? If you really love Jesus, shouldn't you quit your job and go into full-time ministry? How does your everyday work have anything to do with God's mission in the world? Many marketplace Christians have wrestled with these questions in their lives and in their work. But from entrepreneurs to assembly line workers, from high-paid execs to minimum-wage hospitality staff, more Christians are becoming overwhelmingly filled with renewed purpose as they realize that their work has a role in God's kingdom plan. In Missional Marketplace, author Erik Cooper offers his perspective through personal stories and reflections on the sacredness of all work, framing the faith and work discussion through the lenses of The Great Story, The Great Commandment, and The Great Commission. This book will create a gospel-collision between your faith, your work, and the global mission of God in this world.
"So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love." 1 Corinthians 13:13 Faith, hope, and love—we hear a lot about each on their own, but how are they related? Why is this triad mentioned so often in the New Testament? Written in the form of fifty-eight questions and answers, this book reveals how these three theological virtues—also referred to as "three divine sisters"—together serve as the foundation for our whole Christian life. Deeply scriptural, steeped in key theological texts, and modeled after the classic catechisms of church history, this book will instruct our minds, stir our hearts, and motivate us to faith-filled obedience.
- Improve your health and well-being. - Remove the problems from your life - Increase the power of your faith In life, day-to-day problems come to us all, but if our faith is weak, even small problems can quickly grow to appear bigger than they really are. Doubt and worry are the most destructive forms of fear; they can cloud our vision blinding us from the truth. A mountain of doubt can cripple your life. Like a rabbit in headlights, you close your eyes and freeze, hoping the problem will go away when you have opened them. When it remains, you can be left dazed and confused not knowing what way to turn. All rational thought goes out the window. In a panic to get things back to the way they were; you can make all the wrong decisions. No one likes change, but it is much easier when you come from a place of strength; when it originates from a place of faith and not fear. Faith is like a muscle; like any muscle, it needs to be consistently exercised to have maximum power. When all is going smoothly, our faith can be easily neglected, although this is the time that we must use to maintain its strength. If you were asked to run a marathon tomorrow, unless you had put in the training, you might not even reach the half way point. How then can you expect to have the faith to remove the problems from your life if you do not first develop a level of faith that can do so? Faith is something that needs constant attention or thoughts of doubt will set in. In this book, I will share with you methods to increase your faith, and keep it at its highest level; so you are prepared for any problem or difficulty that may arise. When you nurture your faith, you will begin to see your life change in unusual ways. Things that once held you back will soon fade away. A simple change of perspective can make a mountain become level ground. Change your life today; increase the power within.
You are what you love. But you might not love what you think. In this book, award-winning author James K. A. Smith shows that who and what we worship fundamentally shape our hearts. And while we desire to shape culture, we are not often aware of how culture shapes us. We might not realize the ways our hearts are being taught to love rival gods instead of the One for whom we were made. Smith helps readers recognize the formative power of culture and the transformative possibilities of Christian practices. He explains that worship is the "imagination station" that incubates our loves and longings so that our cultural endeavors are indexed toward God and his kingdom. This is why the church and worshiping in a local community of believers should be the hub and heart of Christian formation and discipleship. Following the publication of his influential work Desiring the Kingdom, Smith received numerous requests from pastors and leaders for a more accessible version of that book's content. No mere abridgment, this new book draws on years of Smith's popular presentations on the ideas in Desiring the Kingdom to offer a fresh, bottom-up rearticulation. The author creatively uses film, literature, and music illustrations to engage readers and includes new material on marriage, family, youth ministry, and faith and work. He also suggests individual and communal practices for shaping the Christian life.
Life doesn’t always go the way we hope it will. Whether it’s singleness, childlessness or some other big disappointment, it’s hard to be content when life lets us down. Author Jennie Pollock knows what it's like to feel discontent. With warmth and honesty, she answers common doubts that arise when life doesn't go the way we had hoped: Is God good? Is he enough? Is he worth it? She walks readers through the process of taking our eyes off the things we wish we had and instead enjoying the character of the God we do have—a God who is good, who meets all our needs, and whose promises are worth the wait. Drawing on encouragements from the Bible and the stories of others, this book helps readers to trust in God’s plan for their lives and enjoy true contentment through a genuine conviction that Jesus is better than even our most keenly-felt hopes and longings for this life.
This volume, three separate books in one edition, is a collection of Josef Pieper's famous treatises on the three theological virtues of Faith, Hope, and Love. Each of these treatises was originally published as a separate work over a period of thirty-seven years, and here they are brought together in English for the first time. The first of the three that he wrote, On Hope, was written in 1934 in response to the general feeling of despair of those times. His "philosophical treatise" on Faith was derived from a series of lectures he gave in the late 1950s and early 1960s. His most difficult work, one that he struggled with for years - and almost abandoned - was his work On Love. Pieper now feels that this is the most important book he has written. He discusses not only the theological virtue of caritas-agape, but also of eros, sexuality, and even "love" of music and wine.
Explore this stunning quality of God’s grace: It never ends! In this revision of a foundational work, John Piper reveals how grace is not only God’s undeserved gift to us in the past, but also God’s power to make good happen for us today, tomorrow, and forever. True life for the follower of Jesus really is a moment-by-moment trust that God is dependable and fulfills his promises. This is living by faith in future grace, which provides God's mercy, provision, and wisdom—everything we need—to accomplish his good plans for us. In Future Grace, chapter by chapter—one for each day of the month—Piper reveals how cherishing the promises of God helps break the power of persistent sin issues like anxiety, despondency, greed, lust, bitterness, impatience, pride, misplaced shame, and more. Ultimate joy, peace, and hope in life and death are found in a confident, continual awareness of the reality of future grace.