Download or read book Saving Jesus from the Church written by Robin R. Meyers and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2009-02-24 with total page 262 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Countless thoughtful people are now so disgusted with the marriage of bad theology and hypocritical behavior by the church that a new Reformation is required in which the purpose of religion itself is reimagined. Meyers takes the best of biblical scholarship and recasts these core Christian concepts to exhort the church to pursue an alternative vision of the Christian life: Jesus as Teacher, not Savior Christianity as Compassion, not Condemnation Prosperity as Dangerous, not Divine Discipleship as Obedience, not Control Religion as Relationship, not Righteousness This is not a call to the church to move to the far left or to try something brand new. Rather, it is the recovery of something very old. Saving Jesus from the Church shows us what it means to be a Christian and how to follow Jesus' teachings today.
Download or read book Saving Jesus from Those Who Are Right written by Carter Heyward and published by Fortress Press. This book was released on with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this theological resource for spiritual transformation and social change, Carter Heyward rethinks the figure Jesus and his import for church, academy, and society. Rather than focus on the endlessly variable pictures of Jesus in contemporary biblical scholarship, and in radical opposition to the Jesus of the "Christian Right," Heyward presents "Jesus as our brother, infused with a sacred power and passion for embodying right (mutual) relation, and ourselves with him in this commitment." She goes on "to explore, concretely, how we might live this way."
Download or read book Stop Asking Jesus Into Your Heart written by J. D. Greear and published by B&H Publishing Group. This book was released on 2013-02-01 with total page 128 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “If there were a Guinness Book of World Records entry for ‘amount of times having prayed the sinner’s prayer,’ I’m pretty sure I’d be a top contender,” says pastor and author J. D. Greear. He struggled for many years to gain an assurance of salvation and eventually learned he was not alone. “Lack of assurance” is epidemic among evangelical Christians. In Stop Asking Jesus Into Your Heart, J. D. shows that faulty ways of present- ing the gospel are a leading source of the confusion. Our presentations may not be heretical, but they are sometimes misleading. The idea of “asking Jesus into your heart” or “giving your life to Jesus” often gives false assurance to those who are not saved—and keeps those who genuinely are saved from fully embracing that reality. Greear unpacks the doctrine of assurance, showing that salvation is a posture we take to the promise of God in Christ, a posture that begins at a certain point and is maintained for the rest of our lives. He also answers the tough questions about assurance: What exactly is faith? What is repentance? Why are there so many warnings that seem to imply we can lose our salvation? Such issues are handled with respect to the theological rigors they require, but Greear never loses his pastoral sensitivity or a communication technique that makes this message teachable to a wide audience from teens to adults.
Download or read book Jesus Wants to Save Christians written by Rob Bell and published by Zondervan. This book was released on 2009-03-17 with total page 204 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There is a church not too far from us that recently added a $25 million addition to their building. Our local newspaper ran a front-page story not too long ago about a study revealing that one in five people in our city lives in poverty. This is a book about those two numbers. Jesus Wants to save Christians is a book about faith and fear, wealth and war, poverty, power, safety, terror, Bibles, bombs, and homeland insecurity. It's about empty empires and the truth that everybody's a priest. It's about oppression, occupation, and what happens when Christians support, animate and participate in the very things Jesus came to set people free from. It's about what it means to be a part of the church of Jesus in a world where some people fly planes into buildings while others pick up groceries in Hummers.
Download or read book Saving Jesus from the Church written by Robin R. Meyers and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2009-02-19 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Scholarly, pastoral, prophetic, and eloquent. The invitation to follow Jesus instead of worshiping Christ could not come at a more important time, or be issued by a more credible source.” — Desmond Tutu “Robin Meyers emerges in Saving Jesus from the Church as a national voice for a new Christianity. He is a well read scholar and a superb communicator. He writes with a refreshing honesty and a disarming authority. This book is a treat.” — John Shelby Spong, author of Jesus for the Non-Religious Robin Meyers, a rising star of liberal Christianity, restores the true mission of the faith that captures the heart of Jesus’s concern for people over “right belief.” Saving Jesus from the Church will resonate deeply with those who enjoy the works of John Shelby Spong, Marcus Borg, and John Dominic Crossan.
Download or read book What Jesus Demands from the World written by John Piper and published by Crossway. This book was released on 2011 with total page 428 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Looks at the Gospels and examines what Christ requires of his followers in a redemptive-historical context. New and seasoned believers will see God's loving plan for their ultimate satisfaction. Now in paperback.
Download or read book Saving Jesus from Those who are Right written by Carter Heyward and published by Augsburg Fortress Publishing. This book was released on 1999 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this theological resource for spiritual transformation and social change, Carter Heyward rethinks the figure and import of Jesus for church, academy, and society. Rather than focus on the endlessly variable pictures of Jesus in contemporary biblical scholarship, and in radical opposition to the Jesus of the Christian Right, Heyward presents Jesus as our brother, infused with a sacred power and passion for embodying right (mutual) relation, and ourselves with him in this commitment. She goes on to explore, concretely, how we might live this way.Wonderfully clear-sighted, this brief, faithful, and intelligent Christology offers reconstructions of incarnation, atonement, evil, suffering, and fear. It also sheds light on the significance of Jesus for ecological, racial, economic, and gender justice. Heyward's book envisions a mighty counter-cultural force, which she names christic power, that can help save American culture from its greed and domination and save the figure of Jesus from culture-generated distortions. In short, Heyward's book will help people come to terms with the life-changing implications of Jesus' person and ethic. To a generation in search of the transforming potential of Christian commitment, Heyward's most important work offers both spiritual depth and unwavering commitment to the human good. A study guide to this book is available here on fortresspress.com. Click on the tab Letter from the Author.
Download or read book Seeing and savouring Jesus Christ written by JOHN PIPER and published by Inter-Varsity Press. This book was released on 2020-05-21 with total page 105 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Who is Jesus Christ? You've never met Him in person, and you don't know anyone who has. But there is a way to know who he is. How? Jesus Christ - the divine Person revealed in the Bible - has a unique excellence and a spiritual beauty that speaks directly to our souls and says, "Yes, this is truth." It's like seeing the sun and knowing that it is light, or tasting honey and knowing that it is sweet. The depth and complexity of Jesus shatter our simple mental frameworks. He baffled proud scribes with his wisdom but was understood and loved by children. He calmed a raging storm with a word but would not get himself down from the cross. Look at the Jesus of the Bible. Keep your eyes open, and fill them with the portrait of Jesus in God's Word. Jesus said, "If anyone's will is to do God's will, He will know whether the teaching is from God or whether I am speaking on my own authority." Ask God for the grace to do His will, and you will see the truth of His Son. John Piper has written this book in the hope that all will see Jesus for who he really is and will come to enjoy him above all else.
Download or read book The Pleasures of God written by John Piper and published by Multnomah. This book was released on 2012-01-17 with total page 401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The author of Desiring God reveals the biblical evidence to help us see and savor what the pleasures of God show us about Him. Includes a study guide for individual and small-group use. Isn’t it true—we really don’t know someone until we understand what makes that person happy? And so it is with God! What does bring delight to the happiest Being in the universe? John Piper writes, that it’s only when we know what makes God glad that we’ll know the greatness of His glory. Therefore, we must comprehend “the pleasures of God.” Unlike so much of what is written today, this is not a book about us. It is about the One we were made for—God Himself. In this theological masterpiece—chosen by World Magazine as one of the 20th Century’s top 100 books, John Piper reveals the biblical evidence to help us see and savor what the pleasures of God show us about Him. Then we will be able to drink deeply—and satisfyingly—from the only well that offers living water. What followers of Jesus need now, more than anything else, is to know and love—behold and embrace—the great, glorious, sovereign, happy God of the Bible. “This is a unique and precious book that everybody should read more than once.” —J.I. PACKER, Regent College, Vancouver, British Columbia
Download or read book The Jesus I Never Knew written by Philip Yancey and published by Zondervan. This book was released on 2008-09-09 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How does the Jesus of the New Testament compare to the Jesus we think we know so well? Join bestselling author Philip Yancey as he conducts an enlightening biblical and historical investigation into the real Jesus. From the manger in Bethlehem to the cross in Jerusalem, Philip Yancey presents a complex character who generates questions as well as answers--a disturbing and exhilarating Jesus who wants to radically transform your life and stretch your faith. In The Jesus I Never Knew, Yancey: Cuts through existing views and preconceptions of Jesus, citing experts from church history, modern history, and popular culture Discusses how different people and cultures view Jesus Dissects popular quotes about Jesus Points us back to the Bible The Jesus I Never Knew will engage your heart, mind, emotions, and senses, preparing you for a new, life-changing encounter with the real Jesus described in the Gospels. Praise for The Jesus I Never Knew: "This is the best book about Jesus I have ever read, probably the best book about Jesus in the whole century. Yancey gently took away my blinders and blazed the trail through my own doubting fears, pious know-it-all, and critical balderdash until I saw the Savior anew and thought I heard him ask me, 'Now whom do you say that I am?' and I understood the question as I never had before." --Lewis B. Smedes, Senior Professor, Fuller Seminary "Philip Yancey takes the reader with him on his very personal journey to Jesus. In The Jesus I Never Knew, I became convinced that the Jesus I met--in some ways for the first time--has known me all along. This book is destined to become a favorite--to recommend to those still seeking Jesus and to pass along to those who've met him, but long to know him more." --Elisa Morgan, President Emerita, MOPS International
Download or read book Hard to Believe written by John F. MacArthur and published by Thomas Nelson. This book was released on 2006-01-08 with total page 243 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jesus Christ did not die on the cross so you and I could have a nice day. Ministers and teachers who water down the gospel of Christ in order to make it more popular and appealing may be leading their fun-loving audiences down the road to eternal punishment. This book is John MacArthur's unflinching, unapologetic treatise on the modern tendency to alter the true message of Christianity in order to meet the whims and desires of a culture hoping for nonconfrontational messages, easy answers, and superficial commitments. Too many people just want a Madison Avenue Jesus to make them well, make them happy, and make them prosperous. But Jesus Christ isn't a personal genie. He is the Savior. He died in agony to satisfy the wrath of a holy God and to forgive the sins of humankind. Faith in Him demands a willingness to make any sacrifice He asks. The hard truth about Christianity is that the cost is high, but the rewards are priceless: abundant and eternal life that comes only from faithfully follwing Christ.
Download or read book Jesus Saves written by Darcey Steinke and published by Grove/Atlantic, Inc.. This book was released on 2012-11-27 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From one of the most daring and sensuous young writers in America, Jesus Saves, a New York Times Notable Book of the Year, is a suburban gothic that explores the sources of evil, confronts the dynamic shifts within theology, and traces the consequences of suburban alienation. Set in the modern launch pads of adolescent ritual, the strip malls and duplexes on the back side of suburbia, it’s the story of two girls: Ginger, a troubled minister’s daughter; and Sandy Patrick, who has been abducted from summer camp and now smiles from missing-child posters all over town. Layering the dreamscapes of Alice in Wonderland with the subculture of River’s Edge, Darcey Steinke’s Jesus Saves is an unforgettable passage through the depths of the literary imagination.
Download or read book How Jesus Saves the World from Us written by Morgan Guyton and published by Westminster John Knox Press. This book was released on 2016-04-01 with total page 184 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Christianity has always been about being saved. But today what Christians need saving from most is the toxic understanding of salvation we've received through bad theology. The loudest voices in Christianity today sound exactly like the religious authorities who crucified Jesus. This is a book for Christians who are troubled by what we've become and who want Jesus to save us from the toxic behaviors and attitudes we've embraced. Each of the 12 chapters proposes an antidote for the toxicity that has infiltrated Christian culture, such as "Worship not Performance, "Temple not Program," and "Solidarity not Sanctimony." Each chapter includes thought-provoking discussion questions, perfect for individual or group study. There are many reasons to lose hope about the state of our world and our church, but Guyton offers one piece of good news: Jesus is saving the world from us, one Christian at a time.
Download or read book What Is Saving Faith written by John Piper and published by Crossway. This book was released on 2022-02-02 with total page 277 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bestselling Author and Pastor John Piper Reflects on the Relationship between Treasuring Christ and Saving Faith What happens in the heart when it experiences real saving faith? John Piper argues that faith in Christ is not saving unless it includes an "affectional dimension of treasuring Christ." Nor is God glorified as he ought to be unless he is treasured in being trusted. Saving faith in Jesus Christ welcomes him forever as our supreme and inexhaustible pleasure. What Is Saving Faith? explains that a Savior who is treasured for his all-satisfying worth is more glorified than a Savior who is only trusted for his all-forgiving competence. In this way, saving faith reaches its God-appointed goal: the perfections of Christ glorified by our being satisfied in him forever. Written by Best-Selling Author and Pastor John Piper: Explores a critical and misunderstood element of the Christian faith, urging believers to ask the unsettling question, Do I have saving faith? Theologically Robust: Studies respected theologians' work regarding salvation, including John Calvin, Jonathan Edwards, Henry Scougal, John Owen, Wayne Grudem, and J. I. Packer Accessible: Written for students, nominal or thoughtful Christians, and church leaders of all levels, as well as anyone interested in the nature of faith and the essential relationship between faith and feeling
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 Saving Jesus written by Dr Miceal Ledwith and published by . This book was released on 2017-11-04 with total page 562 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jesus promised that those who truly put his teachings into practice would do all the wonders he did and greater. Why then, even after 2,000 years, has there never yet been any significant sign of these wonders happening in any of the more than 20,000 Christian Churches and Congregations that are proud to bear his name today? The Crucifixion took place on the eve of Passover. That major Jewish Festival centered on the sacrifice of a lamb on the altar of the Temple. The shedding of its blood was believed to wash our sins in the sight of God. It was almost inevitable that the earliest followers of Jesus would have tied Jesus to the Sacrificial Lamb of Passover. Over the centuries this warped belief that Jesus is a Suffering Savior, who came here to die for our sins, has dealt a crippling blow to the emergence of the spiritual power that he promised us. There is hope. This book assaults those crippling beliefs by an investigation that ranges through history, the religious mindset, and the workings of the brain. It shows how we can learn to change these deeply embedded and subconscious programs. As Jesus said: "Those who have ears to hear let them hear."
Download or read book Jesus the Only Way to God written by John Piper and published by Baker Books. This book was released on 2010-08-01 with total page 128 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: If the evangelical church at large was ever too confrontational in its evangelism, those days are gone. In our shrinking, pluralistic world, the belief that Jesus is the only way of salvation is increasingly called arrogant and even hateful. In the face of this criticism, many shrink back from affirming the global necessity of knowing and believing in Jesus. In Jesus, the Only Way to God, John Piper offers a timely plea for the evangelical church to consider what is at stake in surrendering the unique, universal place of Jesus in salvation.
