As you begin counting down to your wedding day or find yourself in the midst of the early years of marriage, it's important to invest time and energy into building a lifelong partnership. Over 8 sessions, learn to develop your foundation as individuals and a couple while growing in your understanding of Christ and His divine goal for marriage. Allow Him to be your teacher, guide, counselor, and coach as you discover biblical principles behind living life to the fullest as a couple. Features: Interactive questions and tools to guide discussion and make the study personal for couples Tools and suggestions for pre-marital education and counsel Seven weeks of personal study segments to complete between eight weeks of group sessions Benefits: Understand God's biblical purpose for marriage to establish a foundation that provides stability and oneness in your relationship Learn that following God's principles leads to freedom in the roles and responsibilities of husband and wife Follow God's stewardship principles for financial freedom Challenge thinking regarding needs, intimacy, and oneness in marriage Keep Christ first and grow in spiritual maturity as a couple Learn the necessary skills to effectively communicate and manage conflict Create healthy expectations for marriage
Christians who want to take the next step in their faith walk need look no further. It's time to ante up and go all in with God. The Gospel costs nothing. You can't earn it or buy it. It can only be received as a free gift, which is compliments of God's grace. It doesn't cost anything, but it demands everything. It demands that we go "all in," putting all that we have into God's hands. But why do so many Christians hesitate to do that? And when did we start believing that the Gospel is an insurance plan? We're afraid that if we go all in that we might miss out on what life has to offer. But Jesus did not die to keep us safe. He died to make us dangerous. So, let's step out of spiritual no man's land and kneel at the foot of the cross of Christ and surrender to his lordship. It's time to dethrone yourself and enthrone Christ as king, and Pastor Mark Batterson is here to show you how. Using his customary vivid, contemporary illustrations, as well as biblical characters like Shamgar, Elisha, Jonathan, and even Judas, you will be challenged to trade what Batterson calls "inverted Christianity" for true discipleship as you strip away your excuses and inhibitions and follow God completely. It's now or never. Are you ready to go all in and all out for God? Also available: All In student edition, video curriculum, and study guide.
How's your marriage?Often, once the honeymoon is over, a marriage slowly becomes lukewarm. Each spouse gradually begins to take the other for granted. Days turn into months, and months turn into years. What began as a close and intimate relationship disintegrates. Often two people are simply living under the same roof-sharing a bed, bathroom, and a closet-physically in the same home, yet miles apart emotionally. Sometimes when our marriage wanes, it feels like at any time it could collapse?or has collapsed. If you find yourself in this place, this study is for you. There is hope. If your marriage is "great," then this study is also for you. We all need encouragement. Our world needs Godly marriages, so join seasoned marriage educators Byron and Carla Weathersbee along with Amy Castellow in a 9-session Bible study designed for small groups to create conversations centered around God's call to selflessness, acceptance, perseverance, and intimacy.This study will help you love like never before as you establish healthy rhythms in your marriage.
Are you struggling today? Do you look back and long for what used to be, or are you looking ahead and have no idea what's coming? Are you stuck in the middle of a mess because life has not turned out as you expected? When you run to God for answers, do you often feel like you aren't getting them--or at least aren't getting the answers you want? Are you holding on . . . but not sure how much longer you can? In times of not knowing, Sheila Walsh offers a lifeline of hope. With great compassion born of experience and hardship, Walsh comes alongside the hurting, fearful, and exhausted to remind us that we serve a God who is so much greater than our momentary troubles, no matter how insurmountable they feel. She doesn't offer a quick fix. She offers a God fix. Sharing from her own painful struggles and digging deep into biblical stories of rescue, hope, and miracles, she gives you the strength to keep going, to keep holding on to God in a world turned upside down. The accompanying study includes 10 lessons to help individuals or groups dive deeper.
“Women of the Word will help all who read it to find their way deeper into the Word of God without having to be seminary educated, a genius, or even an especially good student.” —Kathy Keller We all know it’s important to study God’s Word. But sometimes it’s hard to know where to start. What’s more, a lack of time, emotionally driven approaches, and past frustrations can erode our resolve to keep growing in our knowledge of Scripture. How can we, as Christian women, keep our focus and sustain our passion when reading the Bible? With over 250,000 copies sold, Women of the Word has helped countless women with a clear and concise plan they can use every time they open their Bible. Featuring the same content as the first edition, and now with added study questions at the end of each chapter, this book equips you to engage God’s Word in a way that trains your mind and transforms your heart.
Feeling overwhelmed and unproductive? The answer isn’t to do more. What image forms in your mind when you think of productivity? An assembly line? Spreadsheets? Business suits or workplace uniforms? In the ancient world, productivity didn't conjure images like these. Instead, it referred to crop yield and fruit bearing. This agrarian imagery helps us understand productivity through a biblical lens. Jesus taught, By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit (John 15:8). Who doesn’t want to have a truly productive life—to bear much fruit? But how does this happen in the places we hold dear—the home, workplace, and in our communities? We often feel overworked and overrun, defeated and discouraged. The world says be productive so that you can get all you can out of this life. The Bible says be productive so you can gain more of the next life. In Redeeming Productivity, author Reagan Rose explores how God’s glory is the purpose for which He planted us. And he shows how productivity must be firmly rooted in the gospel. Only through our connection to Christ—the True Vine—are we empowered to produce good fruit. This book shows how we can maintain the vitality of that connection through simple, life-giving disciplines. Readers will discover manageable applications like giving God the first fruits of our days. Additionally, Reagan discusses how our perspective on suffering is transformed as we see trials as God’s pruning for greater productivity.
It was impulsive of me, I know, to go out on a limb and write what I did in that postcard after only two dates with Carla. At the time, however, something inside told me that she was the one. But could I trust that little voice inside? If anything, I should have distrusted it, for I''d only recently broken up with my high school sweetheart. So what did that little voice and I really know? // Can we trust that voice inside that tells us he or she is the one? // Carla far exceeded anyone I had imagined would come my way. Spring term had just ended for us at the university we attended when she left to work at a camp for the summer. I can have a pretty one-track mind and so using a blank postcard that a friend of mine had brought back from a recent trip of his to Hawaii, I jotted a note to Carla along with the cryptic note "82884WWBTAOWD" tucked away in the bottom right-hand corner. It looked like a postal code, and no one but me knew that it stood for "We will be there after our wedding day: 8/28/84." Inside I was sure I knew what I wanted, but outside there wasn''t a chance I would let anyone know. As much as I was drawn to a life together with Carla, I didn''t yet want her to know it! That was pretty bold of me (or maybe psycho), considering it was three years prior to my projected Hawaiian honeymoon.1 But I was so smitten by Carla I could have penned the note with my own testosterone. Rereading that postcard today you can tell that we didn''t know each other all that well, but every encounter I''d had with Carla (all two of them!) left me more captivated by this woman. One of those meetings was at "Rock n'' Roll," one of those crazy guy-girl college functions at a skating rink, where the small group Carla was leading and the group of guys that grabbed me decided to gather. Truth be told, I had looked forward to skating in circles about as much as being chained in front of the home decorating channel. But like most hot-blooded college males, at the time I was willing to make an exception if the prospect of picking up a great woman was involved. As a joke, the DJ played one of those junior high "couples only" songs. It was at that point I realized Carla was the one. Not really the one to marry--just the one to ask to skate. My heart was racing as I built up courage to ask Carla. As trite and cheesy as that may sound, my hands sweat more than an evangelist at a summer tent revival when I''m nervous. So for me to ask Carla--whom I didn''t really know--to skate with me while holding my sweat-slippery hands took some big-time courage. (Don''t laugh. All of us have personal insecurities held over from 7th grade.) I didn''t want to gross her out, but I also didn''t want to let the opportunity slip by, because in the vernacular of the early 1980''s Carla was what my friends and I called a "godly fox." What a stupid phrase. At the time, however, that saying was "off the hook." Carla had me "crazier than a mug," another phrase with the shelf life of about a month. And though the way we say it changes more often than a university freshman changes majors, the experience down through the centuries remains the same: I soon fully believed Carla was the one. She was the most beautiful, most Christ-centered, most amazing woman I had ever met. Put bluntly, I was deeply infatuated with her. Married people often tell singles in that twitter-pated state of mind I was in that spring, "You''ll know whether she''s the one." "But how?" you naturally ask when you begin getting serious. "Oh, you''ll just know." "But how?!" you may think. Often, no one will give you a better answer than "You just know that you know," another stupid phrase that needs to go out with 1980''s parachute pants. Yet in spite of all I didn''t know then, and as presumptuous as my hidden Hawaiian love note was, Carla entered my life somehow as an answer to a question my heart had been asking for years. Something clicked in me when I met her, and I knew that if she was not the girl I would marry, then my future wife would probably be someone an awful lot like her. That much I already knew. If only "knowing that you know" were easier. But that''s precisely the point, we think. Knowing whether she or he is the one isn''t easy for a reason. It''s difficult because the journey God is leading you on is one that will search you to the core. "Knowing that you know" isn''t as simple as browsing the Internet to match your online personality profile with some pre-selected mate. Instead it''s a journey that will challenge your faith, deepen your trust, and refine who you are in the process. You see, this journey isn''t only about seeking a yes or no answer to marriage. It''s about something much larger, where God''s Spirit mysteriously touches our lives and we find God wooing us through our search to "know that we know" into a relationship with Him more beautiful than the very thing you''re seeking by picking up this book. That journey is what this book is all about.
Human beings were created to reflect the image of God—but only to a limited extent. Although we share important attributes with God (love, mercy, compassion, etc.), there are other qualities that only God possesses, such as unlimited power, knowledge, and authority. At the root of all sin is our rebellious desire to be like God in such ways—a desire that first manifested itself in the garden of Eden. In None Like Him, Jen Wilkin leads us on a journey to discover ten ways God is different from us—and why that’s a good thing. In the process, she highlights the joy of seeing our limited selves in relation to a limitless God, and how such a realization frees us from striving to be more than we were created to be.
Live intentionally and embrace abundant life! Imagine waking up every single day convinced that the twenty-four hours ahead of you are a precious gift to be used wisely. Now imagine that you know exactly how to spend them to be a force for God’s good. All too often we wander through life without appreciating the gift of every moment we’ve been given. The result? An unsatisfying life, missed opportunities to experience the joy of being in sync with God, and days marked with apathy instead of passion. Our time on earth is measured. We should want to make every moment count—not only because we aren’t guaranteed the next one, but also because this is exactly how our Savior spent His time here. How, then, do we walk out unwavering joy-filled faith every day, determined to let go of the things that keep us from experiencing abundant life and fulfilling the plans God has for us? The answers are found in following the footsteps of the One who lived fully, because He was determined that we might do the same. In this six-week study of Luke, we will follow the life and ministry of Jesus as we consider the choices He made on His way to the cross. We’ll intimately connect with a Savior who remained laser-focused on His mission to love the world. In return, we’ll receive a model for intentional living that we can replicate to ensure we are living each day to the fullest and making a difference for God’s kingdom. And together we’ll determine to embrace the abundant life we are promised in Jesus. The participant workbook includes five days of lessons for each week, combining study of Scripture with personal reflection, application, and prayer. It’s time to stop wandering and start living!
