Download or read book Saving the Saved written by Bryan Loritts and published by Zondervan. This book was released on 2016-10-11 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: White-knuckling can never get you where you want to go. But grace can. You already know because you’ve tried: repeated attempts to earn God’s love and approval get you nowhere and leave you exhausted. When performance taints our relationship with him, the Christian life can turn into an unholy hustle. It was never meant to be like this. In Saving the Saved, Pastor Bryan Loritts reveals the astonishing truth that God doesn’t want your spiritual scorekeeping. He simply wants your surrender. The punchline of the gospel of Matthew is just that—a message of grace and performance-free love to do-good, try-harder Jews who thought they had to earn their way into God’s favor. It’s an ancient message, yet it can be a lifeline to us today as we live in a world of performance metrics. Just as Matthew wrote to the Jews in his gospel, we were never meant to flounder under the pressures and anxieties of show Christianity. Make no mistake: we are called to live in obedience, but Jesus wants us to save us from the illusion that our actions can ever earn God’s acceptance of us. In Pastor Bryan’s relevant, uncompromising style, Saving the Saved proclaims the good news that once the pressure is off to perform, we are free to abide. Beyond the man-made rules and the red tape, there is a God who knows you by name. Come and meet him as you’ve never known him before.
Download or read book The Love He Saved written by Carol Denise Mitchell and published by CDMBOOKS. This book was released on with total page 179 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Frankie Mae Tyson was in love. She loved Michael Jackson for as long as she could remember, and she had always dreamed of meeting him. One day, while driving down the Santa Monica freeway, 20-year-old Frankie saw a large, flashy limousine. There wasn't a doubt in her mind; it was Michael Jackson. They flirted as they drove down the highway. Frankie Mae had never been a popular girl. In school, the boys had made fun of her, but Michael Jackson saw her picture in a vacant store window before he met her, and he saw the plain girl in a special light. He cared about her. She cared about him, and they were both successful in keeping their union secret from the world. He truly loved her. She had self-confidence after meeting Jackson, and she made it clear to him from the start that she did not want anything but his love. For many years, Frankie refused to accept Michael's attempts to free her from the ghetto. Michael and Frankie were careful to keep their relationship a secret from Oprah and the world, as Michael used doubles to cover for him when he was with his secret love, Frankie Mae. He even surprised her one day when, just hours before his famous Moonwalk on Motown 25, he attended her Security Guard of the Month Award ceremony. "As Michael watched me through a peephole that day, I was proud of him for always supporting me, and I was stunned to see the determination of opportunists and the media to bring Michael Jackson down." "When you love a man as much as I love Michael, death can be a surreal thing to go through. I am not going to take my life; I am going to live my life in memory of Michael Jackson. I am not worried, for he knows that I will be with him one day, as I promised."
Download or read book Love Wins written by Rob Bell and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2011-03-15 with total page 162 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Millions of Christians have struggled with how to reconcile God's love and God's judgment: Has God created billions of people over thousands of years only to select a few to go to heaven and everyone else to suffer forever in hell? Is this acceptable to God? How is this "good news"? Troubling questions—so troubling that many have lost their faith because of them. Others only whisper the questions to themselves, fearing or being taught that they might lose their faith and their church if they ask them out loud. But what if these questions trouble us for good reason? What if the story of heaven and hell we have been taught is not, in fact, what the Bible teaches? What if what Jesus meant by heaven, hell, and salvation are very different from how we have come to understand them? What if it is God who wants us to face these questions? Author, pastor, and innovative teacher Rob Bell presents a deeply biblical vision for rediscovering a richer, grander, truer, and more spiritually satisfying way of understanding heaven, hell, God, Jesus, salvation, and repentance. The result is the discovery that the "good news" is much, much better than we ever imagined. Love wins.
Download or read book Gospelbound written by Collin Hansen and published by Multnomah. This book was released on 2021-04-06 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A profound exploration of how to hold on to hope when our unchanging faith collides with a changing culture, from two respected Christian storytellers and thought leaders. “Offers neither spin control nor image maintenance for the evangelical tribe, but genuine hope.”—Russell Moore, president of ERLC As the pressures of health warnings, economic turmoil, and partisan politics continue to rise, the influence of gospel-focused Christians seems to be waning. In the public square and popular opinion, we are losing our voice right when it’s needed most for Christ’s glory and the common good. But there’s another story unfolding too—if you know where to look. In Gospelbound, Collin Hansen and Sarah Eekhoff Zylstra counter these growing fears with a robust message of resolute hope for anyone hungry for good news. Join them in exploring profound stories of Christians who are quietly changing the world in the name of Jesus—from the wild world of digital media to the stories of ancient saints and unsung contemporary activists on the frontiers of justice and mercy. Discover how, in these dark times, the light of Jesus shines even brighter. You haven’t heard the whole story. And that’s good news.
Download or read book Does God Desire All to Be Saved written by John Piper and published by Crossway. This book was released on 2013-09-30 with total page 66 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Are There Two Wills in God? Divine Election and God's Desire for All to Be Saved In this short, theological essay, John Piper builds a scriptural case that God's unconditional election unto salvation is compatible with God's genuine desire and offer for all to be saved. Helping us to make sense of this seemingly paradoxical relationship, Piper wisely holds both truths in tension as he explores the Bible's teaching on this challenging topic, graciously responds to those who disagree, and motivates us to passionately proclaim the free offer of the gospel to all people.
Download or read book Saving Paradise written by Rita Nakashima Brock and published by Beacon Press. This book was released on 2008 with total page 588 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Saving Paradise" offers a fascinating new lens on the history of Christianity, asking how its early vision of beauty evolved into a vision of torture, and what changes in society and theology marked that evolution.
Download or read book Gay Girl Good God written by Jackie Hill Perry and published by B&H Publishing Group. This book was released on 2018-09-03 with total page 138 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “I used to be a lesbian.” In Gay Girl, Good God, author Jackie Hill Perry shares her own story, offering practical tools that helped her in the process of finding wholeness. Jackie grew up fatherless and experienced gender confusion. She embraced masculinity and homosexuality with every fiber of her being. She knew that Christians had a lot to say about all of the above. But was she supposed to change herself? How was she supposed to stop loving women, when homosexuality felt more natural to her than heterosexuality ever could? At age nineteen, Jackie came face-to-face with what it meant to be made new. And not in a church, or through contact with Christians. God broke in and turned her heart toward Him right in her own bedroom in light of His gospel. Read in order to understand. Read in order to hope. Or read in order, like Jackie, to be made new.
Download or read book Anything We Love Can Be Saved written by Alice Walker and published by Ballantine Books. This book was released on 2012-04-04 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Anything We Love Can Be Saved, Alice Walker writes about her life as an activist, in a book rich in the belief that the world is saveable, if only we will act. Speaking from her heart on a wide range of topics--religion and the spirit, feminism and race, families and identity, politics and social change--Walker begins with a moving autobiographical essay in which she describes her own spiritual growth and roots in activism. She goes on to explore many important private and public issues: being a daughter and raising one, dreadlocks, banned books, civil rights, and gender communication. She writes about Zora Neale Hurston and Salman Rushdie and offers advice to Bill Clinton. Here is a wise woman's thoughts as she interacts with the world today, and an important portrait of an activist writer's life. NOTE: This edition does not include photographs.
Download or read book The Biblical Doctrine of Judgment written by Leon Morris and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2006-08-01 with total page 73 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The doctrine of the final judgment enshrines many important truths. It streses man's accountability and the certainty that justice will finally triumph over all the wrongs which are part and parcel of life here and now. The former gives a dignity to the humblest action, the latter brings calmness and assurance to those in the thick of the battle. The doctrine gives meaning to life. . . . The Christian view of judgment means that history moves to a goal. . . . Judgment protects the idea of the triumph of God and of good. . . . Judgment means that in the end God's will will be erfectively done. --from chapter 4
Download or read book Fierce Love written by Dr. Jacqui Lewis and published by Harmony. This book was released on 2021-11-09 with total page 195 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A healing antidote to our divisive culture, full of evocative storytelling, spiritual wisdom, and nine essential daily practices—by the first female, Black senior minister at the historic Collegiate Churches of New York “Fierce Love teaches us that with spiritual faith we can transcend the darkest moments and come through stronger.”—Gabrielle Bernstein, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Universe Has Your Back We are living in a world divided. Race and ethnicity, caste and color, gender and sexuality, class and education, religion and political party have all become demographic labels that reduce our differences to simplistic categories in which “we” are vehemently against “them.” But Rev. Dr. Jacqui Lewis’s own experience—of being the first female and first Black minister in her church’s history, of being in an interracial marriage, and of making peace with childhood abuse—illustrates that our human capacity for empathy and forgiveness is the key to reversing these ugly trends. Inspired by the tenets of ubuntu—the Zulu philosophy that we are each impacted by the circumstances that impact those around us, and that the world won’t get better until we all get better—Fierce Love lays out the nine daily practices for breaking through tribalism and engineering the change we seek. From downsizing our emotional baggage to speaking truth to power to fueling our activism with joy, it demonstrates the power of small, morally courageous steps to heal our own lives, our posse, and our larger communities. Sharing stories that trace her personal reckoning with racism as well as the arc of her journey to an inclusive and service-driven faith, Dr. Lewis shows that kindness, compassion, and inclusive thinking are muscles that can be exercised and strengthened. With the goal of mending our inextricable human connection, Fierce Love is a manifesto for all generations: a bighearted, healing antidote to our rancorous culture.
Download or read book A Heart Like Jesus written by Max Lucado and published by Thomas Nelson. This book was released on 2009-06-21 with total page 96 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The heart of Jesus is sacred, and the lessons and examples it provides to us are paramount in our daily mission to follow in His footsteps. Max Lucado poses the question "what if, for one day and night, your heart was replaced by the heart of Christ?" That thought-provoking question leads to many personal revelations demonstrating that we can recast our hearts to be more like that of Jesus, and the blessings created by the transformation will unleash ripples to the widest edges of our lives and those around us.
Download or read book The Saving Love Collection written by Dawn Huskey and published by Xlibris Corporation. This book was released on 2021-12-02 with total page 463 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This collection of stories shows how love can save a person. Will they survive the attacks of the jealous and possessive? Will their relationships be intact when it is all said and done? They all discover how love works as they go through challenges. They feel immediate attraction when they finally find the love they have been searching for. Please follow the lives of Michael and Marie in My Dream to My Nightmare. They are hunted by possession and diverted identity. Katie and Travis as they fight jealousy in Love. Sarah and Scott as they fight a stalker from the past in Loved Twice. Seth and Jamie as they battle the dark past in The Love That Saved Me. Dawn and Jason as they discover their friendship goes deeper in A Best Friends Love. Tori and Ryan as the love they share is started by surprise in A Surprise Love. Sean and Ashlee as they rekindle a forgotten attraction in Love in The Rain.
Download or read book Tiny Love Stories written by Daniel Jones and published by Hachette UK. This book was released on 2020-12-08 with total page 204 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Charming. . . . A moving testament to the diversity and depths of love.” —Publishers Weekly You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll be swept away—in less time than it takes to read this paragraph. Here are 175 true stories—honest, funny, tender and wise—each as moving as a lyric poem, all told in no more than one hundred words. An electrician lights up a woman’s life, a sister longs for her homeless brother, strangers dream of what might have been. Love lost, found and reclaimed. Love that’s romantic, familial, platonic and unexpected. Most of all, these stories celebrate love as it exists in real life: a silly remark that leads to a lifetime together, a father who struggles to remember his son, ordinary moments that burn bright.
Download or read book To Save the Love that Was Lost written by Lyman Allen and published by AuthorHouse. This book was released on 2008-03 with total page 350 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When asked what led him to write To Save the Love That Was Lost. Lyman Allen said, "I wrote because I had to. It was a matter of passion I should say 'guided passion, ' because I found out that I was guided, and so the book is ours, Sofia's and mine. There was a lid on my passion: I wanted to believe that life made more sense than what we experience every day. We function from day to day, yes, but I think a lot of us live with a gut feeling of how life ought to be, and this is backed up, maybe, by a higher sense of that truth. Well I found that there is that truth, and it's in To Save the Love that Was Lost. In fact it's in the title. So, I'm offering an invitation to people to peek out from under that lid and see what they might find. I found the answer that makes sense. "Our book is about the original message of Jesus-Christianity before it was taken over by organized faith (is that a contradiction in terms?) It's about what was intended to work for the world, how we must learn to live. I found that Jesus' lost teachings are supported by religious history of 20-even 26-centuries ago. A lot of those teachings were discovered in 1945, hidden for all that time. They never got tampered with. "The title is from a verse deleted from a famous parable. It's a mission statement about advancing the original Christianity of Jesus-that's the love part-and it relates directly to the fate of our planet. It turns out that my mission was to write a book about these things. The book is, in fact, a spiritual thesis supported by ancient documents, recently discovered. That might be a 'first.'"
Download or read book Modern Love Revised and Updated written by Daniel Jones and published by Crown. This book was released on 2019-09-03 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The most popular, provocative, and unforgettable essays from the past fifteen years of the New York Times “Modern Love” column—including stories from the anthology series starring Tina Fey, Andy Garcia, Anne Hathaway, Catherine Keener, Dev Patel, and John Slattery A young woman goes through the five stages of ghosting grief. A man’s promising fourth date ends in the emergency room. A female lawyer with bipolar disorder experiences the highs and lows of dating. A widower hesitates about introducing his children to his new girlfriend. A divorcée in her seventies looks back at the beauty and rubble of past relationships. These are just a few of the people who tell their stories in Modern Love, Revised and Updated, featuring dozens of the most memorable essays to run in The New York Times “Modern Love” column since its debut in 2004. Some of the stories are unconventional, while others hit close to home. Some reveal the way technology has changed dating forever; others explore the timeless struggles experienced by anyone who has ever searched for love. But all of the stories are, above everything else, honest. Together, they tell the larger story of how relationships begin, often fail, and—when we’re lucky—endure. Edited by longtime “Modern Love” editor Daniel Jones and featuring a diverse selection of contributors, this is the perfect book for anyone who’s loved, lost, stalked an ex on social media, or pined for true romance: In other words, anyone interested in the endlessly complicated workings of the human heart. Featuring essays by: Veronica Chambers • Terri Cheney • Deborah Copaken • Trey Ellis • Jean Hanff Korelitz • Ann Hood • Mindy Hung • Amy Krouse Rosenthal • Ann Leary • Andrew Rannells • Larry Smith • Ayelet Waldman • and more!
Download or read book Things Not Seen written by Jon Bloom and published by Crossway. This book was released on 2015-07-15 with total page 146 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: True faith is hard. More than mere sentimentalism, faith often calls for a deep and resilient trust in God—especially when the going gets tough and the road is dark. In Things Not Seen, author Jon Bloom encourages readers with 35 imaginative retellings of stories from the Bible that illustrate the importance of living by faith. A follow-up to the author's previous book, Not by Sight: A Fresh Look at Old Stories of Walking by Faith, this inspiring volume explores the lives of Abraham, Moses, Saul, John the Baptist, and more—helping readers remember God's promises, rely on his grace, and follow his leading regardless of the circumstances. The book includes a foreword by popular author and blogger Ann Voskamp.
Download or read book Saved by Love A Story of London Streets written by Emma Leslie and published by Library of Alexandria. This book was released on 2020-09-28 with total page 87 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: THERE are some places in London where King Dirt holds a carnival all the year round—narrow back streets, where the tall houses, almost meeting at the top, shut out every gleam of sunlight, except during the longest and hottest days of summer; and then only a narrow rift of golden glory lights up a strip in the centre, and makes the shady corners look more dark and desolate than ever. In one of the shadowed nooks of such a street sat a little girl, her head leaning against the brick wall for a pillow; and you might have thought her fast asleep, but for an occasional sob. She had cried so long that her eyes were swollen and heavy; and even the faint light of Fisher's Lane made them ache so much that she was glad to close them. No one noticed her for some time, but at length a girl about her own age stopped and looked at her, and at last spoke. "What's the matter?" she said, touching her shoulder. With a sob and a start the girl opened her eyes. "O Elfie, is it you?" she said; and then her tears broke out afresh. "What is it? Haven't you got anything to eat?" she asked. "I shall never want to eat anything again," sobbed the other. "O Elfie, mother's dead!" "Dead, is she?" said Elfie, but looking as though she could not understand why that should cause any one to cry. "I shall never be happy again, Elfie. O mother, mother, why didn't you take me with you?" wailed the poor little orphan. "Just because she didn't want you, I guess," said Elfie, but at the same time sitting down to soothe the grief she could not understand. "There, don't cry," she went on in a matter-of-fact tone. "My mother's gone away, but I don't cry after her; not a bit of it; I know better than that, Susie Sanders." Susie shrank from her companion's touch as she said this, and thought of what her mother had said about making companions of the children in the street, and half regretted having spoken to Elfie. There was a great difference in the two girls, any one could see, though both might be equally poor. Elfie was unmistakably a street child, ragged, dirty, sharp-looking, with bright cunning eyes shining out of a good-tempered-looking face; while Susie, in her patched black frock and tidy pinafore, and timid, shrinking ways, showed unmistakably that, poor as she might be, there had been some one to love and take care of her. Alas for her, poor child! Her only friend in the wide world had died that morning, leaving her alone in the streets of London. It was the old, old story: a widow striving to work for herself and her only child, and sinking at last beneath the stroke of disease, after giving up one by one every article of furniture, and moving from place to place, until at last she was glad to find a refuge in the garret of one of these gaunt houses, where she had not lived many weeks before God called her to the mansion he had prepared for her.
