Download or read book Between Heaven and Mirth written by James Martin and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2011-10-04 with total page 261 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Between Heaven and Mirth will make any reader smile. . . . Father Martin reminds us that happiness is the good God’s own goal for us.” —Timothy M. Dolan, Archbishop of New York From The Colbert Report’s “official chaplain” James Martin, SJ, author of the New York Times bestselling The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything, comes a revolutionary look at how joy, humor, and laughter can change our lives and save our spirits. A Jesuit priest with a busy media ministry, Martin understands the intersections between spirituality and daily life. In Between Heaven and Mirth, he uses scriptural passages, the lives of the saints, the spiritual teachings of other traditions, and his own personal reflections to show us why joy is the inevitable result of faith, because a healthy spirituality and a healthy sense of humor go hand-in-hand with God's great plan for humankind.
Download or read book Laughing on the Way to Heaven written by Don Waddell and published by Xulon Press. This book was released on 2012-04 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Don has lots of opinions: On being a buffoon: I hate being a buffoon, but it seems like I'm always messing up. Not long ago I got in the car with my wife to run some errands. I took the TV remote with me just in case I had to make a cell phone call. Nancy made fun of me, and I tried to use the mute button on her, but it didn't work. On his 37th Anniversary: "We returned home and wandered off to bed at 10:00. Nancy donned her "Born to Sleep" PJs and I was asleep before my head hit the pillow. When we were newly married this is not the way we would have anticipated our 37th anniversary ending, but in 2004 it was just fine. So much for romance. It's still there; it's just different. On fasting: Fasting is a fundamental Christian practice, and it is mentioned 33 times in the Bible. Now, let me ask a question. When was the last time you heard a sermon on the subject of fasting? You'll hear a hundred sermons on eschatology, a thousand on tithing or how many angels you can stack on the head of a pin before a preacher will suggest a Christian forego his or her staple of donuts, fried chicken or baked beans. Actually, I don't mind fasting; it's just the hunger I object to. On remodeling the house: "What on earth do we need a new toilet for?" I protested. Nancy's response was: "The old toilet was the wrong shade of white." The wrong shade of white?! You got to be kidding me! Our 401K is in the toilet due to the economy, and now I'm spending my kid's inheritance replacing a toilet that is the improper shade of white!!
Download or read book Why Is God Laughing written by Deepak Chopra, M.D. and published by Harmony. This book was released on 2008-06-03 with total page 194 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this refreshing new take on spirituality, bestselling author Deepak Chopra uses a fictional tale of a comedian and his unlikely mentor to show us a path back to hope, joy, and even enlightenment—with a lot of laughter along the way. Meet Mickey Fellows. A successful L.A. comedian, he’s just a regular guy, with his fair share of fears, egocentricities, and addictions. After his father’s death, Mickey meets a mysterious stranger named Francisco, who changes his life forever. The two begin an ongoing discussion about the true nature of being. Reluctantly at first, Mickey accepts the stranger’s help and starts to explore his own life in an effort to answer the riddles Francisco poses. Mickey starts to look at those aspects of himself that he has hidden behind a wall of wisecracks all his life. Eventually Mickey realizes that authentic humor opens him up to the power of spirit—allowing him to finally make real connections with people. After taking the reader on a journey with Mickey, Chopra then spells out the lessons that Mickey’s story imparts to us: ten reasons to be optimistic, even in our challenging world. Chopra believes that the healthiest response to life is laughter from the heart, and even in the face of global turmoil, we can cultivate an internal sense of optimism. Rich with humor and practical advice, Why Is God Laughing? shows us without a doubt that there is always a reason to be grateful, that every possibility holds the promise of abundance, and that obstacles are simply opportunities in disguise. In the end, we really don’t need a reason to be happy. The power of happiness lies within each of us, just waiting to be unleashed. And Mickey Fellows’s journey shows us the way.
Download or read book It s Okay to Laugh with Jesus written by Wayne Bartelt and published by Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.. This book was released on 2019-08-28 with total page 165 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It's Okay to Laugh with Jesus is about a God who loves to laugh because he's proud of his perfect world and loves the people he put in it. He laughs at the folly of humankind that rejects him and rewards faithfulness rather than success. He laughs at a mother as she cuddles her newborn, a baby's giggle, a father tucking a blanket under his son's chin and praying him to sleep. God laughs at the folly of humankind that rejects his love and at the devil knowing his doom is sealed. Those who laugh with Jesus enter a world of smiles and surprises. Starting the adventure costs nothing; living it costs everything. It's easy to become a Christian and difficult to live like one. Once the adventure begins, the awareness shifts from ownership to service, from selfishness to sacrifice, from world-thinking to heaven thinking. Goals change, values deepen, and variables that make no earthly sense develop eternal significance. Where did we ever get the idea that sorrow, sadness and skepticism represent the Christian religion? Not from God. He laughs with a world of people who live and die laughing all the way to heaven. When we laugh with God, the sorrows of life blend with joy; anxiety is calmed with forgiveness; and heartache balances against happiness. In a book of fun and surprises, It's Okay to Laugh with Jesus reveals how, and what, sharpens the faith that brings us closer to our God than we ever thought possible. And when we laugh with him, he knows we're getting it. What a delightful way to spend an hour, a day, a lifetime laughing with Jesus.
Download or read book 50 Days of Heaven written by Randy Alcorn and published by Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.. This book was released on 2011-07-14 with total page 303 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For Christians, eternity is an exciting promise, but many do not know the details of what life will be like in heaven and throughout eternity. 50 Days of Heaven allows the reader to stop wondering about heaven by teaching the biblical facts regarding what's so wonderful about Heaven. The devotional provides an easy-to-follow, 50-day program that reveals the biblical information on what a Christian's life will be like in heaven. Throughout this journey, the reader will learn and meditate upon the promises, rewards, and expectations that a believer in Christ will enjoy for eternity. This devotional draws on the teachings in Randy Alcorn's best-selling book Heaven.
Download or read book The Truth Shall Make You Laugh written by Matt Fore and published by NewBookPublishing.com. This book was released on 2010 with total page 182 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Is it ok to laugh during your devotions?If not, you should stay away from Matt Fore's "The Truth Shall Make You Laugh."Filled with hilarious tales and humorous wit, this twist on your quiet time surprises you with encouragement and delights you with practical insights from God's Word.From a father who had to instruct his son to stop responding to the alter call every Sunday to an uncle who was outsmarted by a mule, "The Truth Shall Make You Laugh" is proof that real-life is funnier than fiction.Be blessed by a running theme of God's provision and protection. Encounter real-life accounts of angelic protection, divine healing, miraculous provisions, an experience at the fringes of heaven and other evidence of a supernatural God."Matt hits the head and the heart with his devotions! Matt's not just a funny man, he's a minister that touches your soul... And that's why you will be blessed with a smile. So get a cup of dark roast and feed your soul for a while."Dr. Dennis "The Swan" Swanberg, Minister of Encouragement
Download or read book Laughter from Heaven written by Barbara Johnson and published by Thomas Nelson. This book was released on 2009-11-23 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Laughter from Heaven is a joyful reminder of the wonderful life awaiting us in heaven. With her humorous approach to all life's circumstances, Barbara wants her readers to catch a light-hearted look at the hereafter. Filled with hope and encouragement, this book is sure to become a favorite of many women who long for a sense of joy in the midst of everyday struggles. In classic Barbara Johnson style, these hilarious pages will show you how to put life's trials into heavenly perspective. She hopes you will find encouragement through your difficulties, renewal for your spiritual doldrums, and laughter when you think you'll never laugh again. Similar in nature to her best-selling title Humor Me, this delightful look at heaven reveals it as a place that will be not only without pain, but will actually be fun! Jokes, stories, cartoons and Barbara's famous one-liners make this another joy-filled book that all her fans will love.
Download or read book Funny Things That Happened on the Way to Heaven written by Anthony F. Rigoli and published by . This book was released on 2005-01-01 with total page 72 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: DOES GOD HAVE A SENSE OF HUMOR? How often that question has come up in discussions from Bible Studies or from people just sharing their faith! Does God have a sense of humor? For years, friends and relatives have told me I should write a book about funny things that have happened throughout my life as a priest. These events have kept my life from being anything but boring. Most of these moments have taken place over the past twenty nine years that I have been a priest. All of us are on a journey. This journey leads us to heaven. Along the way, each of us have encountered funny and interesting things that make our life exciting and full of laughs. In this small book, I hope to capture some of the funny things that have happened to me on my journey to heaven. I have changed the names to protect the "innocent." I truly hope this book helps you to reflect on the funny things that have happened to you during your lifetime. I believe everyone needs to laugh more. Laughter is the key to a healthy life. I have often said that in life we need three bones to have happiness: We need a Wish Bone. We need to have dreams. I really like dreamers. We need a Back Bone, We need to be strong to achieve our dreams and goals but most importantly, we need a Funny Bone. We need to laugh at ourselves more often. Jesus, I am convinced, must have laughed with his friends. I am certain that Peter must have put a smile on his face many times. Finally, I want to dedicate this book to my Mom. She taught me that laughter is truly a gift and a blessing. My Mom died last year. She had Alzheimer's, but we continued to laugh each day that we were together. Her sense of humor and her ability to make us laugh were hergreatest gifts to me and to my family. (All Scriptures passages are taken from The New American Bible)
Download or read book Heaven written by Colleen McDannell and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2001-08-11 with total page 444 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In so doing, they shed new light on both the private and public dimensions of western culture. This second edition includes a substantial new preface relating the book to changing views of life after death in the new century."--BOOK JACKET.
Download or read book Stuff Christians Like written by Jon Acuff and published by Zondervan. This book was released on 2020-04-07 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Using the same humor and honesty that galvanized more than a million online readers from more than 200 countries, speaker Jon Acuff brings his insightful take on Christianity to the book world with this new edition of Stuff Christians Like. Do you constantly find yourself towing the fine line between praying before certain types of meals and not others? This book is for you. Have you fallen in love on a mission trip, just to break up when you get home? This book is for you. Are you a unicorn of purity who ranks honeymoon sex slightly higher than the second coming of Christ? Guess what – this book is for you, too. It’s time to shake off Somber Christian Syndrome and embrace the quirks of being a member of God’s kingdom. This book will teach you how to: Break up with your small group Subtly find out if your new Christian friends drink beer too Recognize the shame grenade that is a Jesus Juke Avoid a prayer handholding faux pas Say something Christian-y without looking like a snake handler From prayer shot blocks to metro worship leaders, no stone is left unturned in this hilarious look at faith. “I never knew how much I needed Jesus until I found out I was judging people who use the table of contents in their Bible. This book saved me from looking like a bad Christian.” – Sister Mary Francis, Rhode Island. “It’s such a time saver to know that my Chick-fil-a from the drive-thru comes pre-blessed. I always knew I was making the right choice by choosing the Lord’s chicken.” – Dave L., South Carolina.
Download or read book God Mocks written by Terry Lindvall and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2015-11-13 with total page 376 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the 2016 Religious Communication Association Book of the Year Award In God Mocks, Terry Lindvall ventures into the muddy and dangerous realm of religious satire, chronicling its evolution from the biblical wit and humor of the Hebrew prophets through the Roman Era and the Middle Ages all the way up to the present. He takes the reader on a journey through the work of Chaucer and his Canterbury Tales, Cervantes, Jonathan Swift, and Mark Twain, and ending with the mediated entertainment of modern wags like Stephen Colbert. Lindvall finds that there is a method to the madness of these mockers: true satire, he argues, is at its heart moral outrage expressed in laughter. But there are remarkable differences in how these religious satirists express their outrage.The changing costumes of religious satirists fit their times. The earthy coarse language of Martin Luther and Sir Thomas More during the carnival spirit of the late medieval period was refined with the enlightened wit of Alexander Pope. The sacrilege of Monty Python does not translate well to the ironic voices of Soren Kierkegaard. The religious satirist does not even need to be part of the community of faith. All he needs is an eye and ear for the folly and chicanery of religious poseurs. To follow the paths of the satirist, writes Lindvall, is to encounter the odd and peculiar treasures who are God’s mouthpieces. In God Mocks, he offers an engaging look at their religious use of humor toward moral ends.
Download or read book Future Grace Revised Edition written by John Piper and published by Multnomah. This book was released on 2012-09-25 with total page 450 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Live Long Die Laughing written by Mark Lowry and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2000-10-18 with total page 161 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: InLive & Die Laughing,comedian/singer Mark Lowry pulls his wild-and-wacky train of thought into the station with musings about everything from God's character to church potlucks. Using material from his email newsletter, along with responses from its nearly 40,000 subscribers ("reMarkable,"www.marklowry.com), Lowry underscored the idea that God tirelessly loves and looks after his believers, no matter how quirky we are!
Download or read book A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Heaven written by Corey Taylor and published by Da Capo Press. This book was released on 2013-07-16 with total page 250 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Slipknot and Stone Sour singer Corey Taylor's New York Times bestselling journey into the world of ghosts and the supernatural Corey Taylor has seen a lot of unbelievable things. However, many of his most incredible experiences might just shock you. For much of his life, the Grammy Award-winning singer of Slipknot and Stone Sour and New York Times bestselling author of Seven Deadly Sins has brushed up against the supernatural world. Those encounters impacted his own personal evolution just as much as headlining at Castle Donington in front of 100,000 people at Download Festival or debuting at #1 on the Billboard Top 200. Since growing up in Iowa, his own curiosity drew him into situations that would've sent most people screaming scared and running for the hills. He's ballsy enough to go into the darkness and deal with the consequences, though. As a result, he's seen ghosts up close and personal, whether while combing through an abandoned house in his native Iowa as a child or recording an album in the fabled Houdini Hollywood Hills mansion. He's also got the memories (and scars) to prove it. For some reason, he can't seem to shake these spectral stories, and that brings us to this little tome right here... At the same time, being an erudite, tattooed, modern Renaissance Man, he was never one for Sunday Service. Simply put, he's seen ghosts, but he hasn't seen Jesus. Taylor especially can't find a reason why people do the insane things they do in HIS name. That's where everything gets really interesting. His second book, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Heaven, compiles Taylor's most intimate, incredible, and insane moments with the supernatural. His memories are as vivid as they are vicious. As he recounts these stories, he questions the validity of religious belief systems and two-thousand-year-old dogma. As always, his rapid-fire writing, razor sharp sense of humor, unbridled honesty, and cozy anecdotes make quite the case for his point. You might end up believing him or not. That's up to you, of course. Either way, you're in for a hell of a ride.
Download or read book Laugh Your Way to Grace written by Rev. Susan Sparks and published by Turner Publishing Company. This book was released on 2010-05-01 with total page 173 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Laughter—the GPS System for the Soul Laughter was honored by the ancients as a spiritual healing tool and celebrated by the world's great religions. So why aren’t we laughing along the spiritual path today? What would happen if we did? In this personal and funny look at humor as a spiritual practice, Rev. Susan Sparks—an ex-lawyer turned comedian and Baptist minister—presents a convincing case that the power of humor radiates far beyond punch lines. Laughter can help you: Remove the fearful mask of a God who doesn’t laugh Debunk the myths that you don’t deserve joy Find perspective when faced with adversity Exercise forgiveness for yourself and others Reclaim play as a spiritual practice Heal—emotionally, physically, and spiritually Keep your faith when God is silent Live with elegance, beauty, and generosity of spirit Whatever your faith tradition—or if you have none at all—join this veteran of the punch line and the pulpit in reclaiming the forgotten humor legacy found in thousands of years of human spiritual history.
Download or read book Don t Stop Laughing Now written by Zondervan, and published by Zondervan. This book was released on 2010-05-11 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The best of the best—stories, one-liners, and jokes from some of today’s funniest Christian speakers and best-selling writers This new book, like its best-selling predecessors, is packed with the kind of smiles and smirks, chuckles and giggles that thousands of readers have come to love and expect. It includes some of the funniest stories from today’s Christian writers like Barbara Johnson, John Ortberg, Mark Buchanan, Patsy Clairmont, Becky Freeman, Chonda Pierce, and more. Whether the topic is kids, marriage, pets, church, parenting, aging, or life’s most embarrassing moments, the writers will help you keep life in perspective by revealing their own foibles, follies, and failings. Realizing that laughter and faith can go hand in hand, they offer real-life anecdotes that will keep your world in balance even—and especially—when life gets tough.
Download or read book The Laughter of God written by Walter C. Lanyon and published by . This book was released on 2016-02-12 with total page 238 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "And then one day I heard the Laughter of God in the midst of me and within the world, and all was suddenly changed. Old patterns and ideas were shattered and passed away-a new loveliness of life was exposed to view ... "How does one hear the Laughter of God? Walter Lanyon has a powerful message to share with the world, a message based firmly on the teachings of the Master, Christ Jesus, and the joy and promise it brings is evident throughout the book. In his unique style of speaking directly to the reader, the author reveals what is needed in order to hear this Laughter: "One thing alone is necessary, and that one all-important point is your willingness to take your attention away from the limited human concept of yourself." The realization that God is not some mysterious power but is the very presence of Life within us and our universe brings instant freedom from the discords of human belief."One moment's recognition that you are the Son of the living God, and you have attuned your ear for the Laughter of God." When we awaken to this truth, we can no longer be limited, any more than the chick can be limited to its shell once it has outgrown it. There comes a New Day; the prisons of thought are opened, and we are set free."And one day you will laugh the Laughter of God, too."