Bible Studies for Life: Like No Other - Bible Study Book


Book Description

Remind your group of the centrality of Christ, His uniqueness, and how His life and character greatly impact our lives.




A Friendship Like No Other


Book Description

Live in the love of a God who desires a relationship with you. Throughout A Friendship Like No Other, renowned spiritual director William A. Barry, SJ, explores the premise that God wants to relate to us as a close friend. Barry has contemplated this idea—radical for many Christians—throughout his lifetime, and he explains that it actually traces back to the “developing revelation of God contained in the Bible.” A Friendship Like No Other offers three well-supported and practical sections: prayerful exercises to help lead you to the conviction that God wants your friendship; a close look at objections to this idea; and reflections on experiencing the presence of God and discerning those experiences. Brief, personal meditations are woven throughout. Grounded in biblical tradition and with a clear focus on Ignatian spirituality, this book offers a fresh, heart-changing approach to living joyfully in the freedom of the divine embrace.




Like No Other


Book Description

In the timeless tradition of "West Side Story" and "Crossing Delancey, " this thoroughly modern take on romance is sure to inspire laughter, tears, and the belief that love can happen when and where it's least expected.




A God Like No Other: Depaganizing the God of the Hebrew Bible


Book Description

For centuries, scholars and interpreters of the Hebrew Scriptures or Old Testament have read those Scriptures as if they spoke of a God whose desires, concerns, and interests were essentially no different than those of the other gods of antiquity known to us. Like those gods, what the God of Israel supposedly sought above all else was the honor, worship, and obedience of human beings and their submission to his will as his faithful and devoted servants. While he undoubtedly demanded the practice of what was good, right, and merciful among his people in a way that set him apart from other gods, ultimately he did so for his own sake in order to bring about in them the type of behavior that pleased him and compel them to live in conformity with his justice, holiness, and righteousness. Those who sought to enjoy his blessings and avoid his fierce wrath and punishments had no choice but to strive to keep him content by observing all that he had commanded and making atonement for the sins and offenses they committed by offering him the sacrifices that appeased him. Although he loved his people deeply, his righteous and holy nature placed limits on that love and prevented him from showing them his favor unless the demands of his nature were satisfied. When we abandon such an understanding of the God of Israel and instead read the Hebrew Bible on its own terms in order to grasp the logic underlying its narratives, however, a very different portrait of God emerges. The God of whom the biblical texts speak is a God who desires nothing but the good for all those whom he has created and refuses to back down from his efforts to bring them to live in ways that will allow them to enjoy the wholeness and well-being he desires for all when they insist on filling their lives with injustice, suffering, and violence. When he demands that they obey all that he has commanded by practicing justice and compassion and avoiding behaviors that do them harm, he does so not for his sake but for theirs. If he jealously refuses to let his people serve and worship other gods, it is only because those gods bring death and destruction rather than the life that is found in him alone. While at times he must himself resort to violence and even bring down evil on human beings in order to put a stop to oppression and injustice, he does so only because his passionate and unbending commitment to the well-being of all of the families of the earth together with his beloved people Israel will not allow him to hold back or relent in his efforts to save them, not from him, but from themselves. Christian and Jewish readers alike will find in the present volume a God who is very different from the God they have been taught to encounter previously in the biblical texts, a God whose ultimate concern is not for his own glory, honor, or worship or for the demands of a righteous and holy nature that holds him captive, but for the healing, wholeness, and well-being of all of his creatures. Such an understanding of God not only calls into question traditional interpretations of the Hebrew Bible but also lays the basis for a fresh reading of the many difficult passages that have long challenged biblical interpreters due to the violent and troubling image of God that they convey.




When I Don't Desire God


Book Description

Explaining how to become a Christian hedonist, a bestselling author offers guidance on how to find spiritual joy to readers who are unsure of where to seek it.




Made Like Martha


Book Description

An invitation for overachievers to discover what it means to rest as God's daughters without compromising their God-given design as doers. Are you a Martha who feels guilty for not being a Mary? Do you want to sit at Jesus’s feet as Mary did—but you feel the need to get things done? In Made Like Martha, Katie M. Reid invites you to exchange try-hard striving for hope-filled freedom without abandoning your doer’s heart in the process. Through her own story and rich biblical illustrations, Katie reminds you that it’s not important whether you sit and listen or stand and work. What matters is that your spiritual posture is one of a beloved daughter who knows she doesn’t need to earn God’s love. Your desire to get things done is not something to temper but something to embrace as you serve from a place of strength and peace—knowing Christ already did His most important work for you on the cross. With “It Is Finished” activities at the end of each chapter and a fiveweek Bible study included, Made Like Martha helps you find rest from striving even as you celebrate your God-given design to “do.” “Made Like Martha will infuse your life with a fresh perspective as you learn both to embrace your God-given personality and also discover how—and when—to rest and retreat.” —Karen Ehman, Proverbs 31 Ministries speaker and New York Times bestselling author of Keep It Shut




Jesus


Book Description

The life of Jesus was more than a historical event. It was a blueprint on how to live life to the fullest. As you follow in His footsteps, when you say the things Jesus said and do the things He did, God says you will have life and have it more abundantly. This book is a detailed portrait of the life of Jesus as described in the gospel of John. It will help you be transformed into His image and will show you how to take up your cross and follow His example as it guides you on your journey to understand Jesus and His destiny for your life.




God Has a Name


Book Description

What you believe about God sets the foundation of the person you will become. In God Has a Name, pastor and New York Times bestselling author John Mark Comer invites you to rethink many of the prevalent myths and misconceptions about God and weigh them against what God actually tells us about himself. After all, what you believe about God will ultimately shape the type of person you become. We all live at the mercy of our ideas, and nowhere is this more true than our ideas about God. The problem is many of our ideas about God are wrong. Not all wrong, but wrong enough to form our souls in detrimental and disheartening ways. God Has a Name is a simple yet profound guide to understanding God in a new light--focusing on what God says about himself in the Bible. This one shift has the potential to radically alter how you relate to God, not as a doctrine, but as a relational being who responds to you in an elastic, back-and-forth way. John Mark Comer takes you line by line through Exodus 34:6-8--Yahweh's self-revelation on Mount Sinai, one of the most quoted passages in the Bible. Along the way, Comer addresses some of the most profound questions he came across as he studied these noted lines in Exodus, including: Why do we feel this gap between us and God? Could it be that a lot of what we think about God is wrong? Not all wrong, but wrong enough to mess up how we relate to him? What if our "God" is really a projection of our own identity, ideas, and desires? What if the real God is different, but far better than we could ever imagine? No matter where you are in your spiritual journey, God Has a Name invites you to step into a fresh and biblically rooted vision of who God is that has the potential to alter your life with God and shape who you become.




No More Faking Fine


Book Description

Scripture reveals a God who meets us where we are, not where we pretend to be. No More Faking Fine is your invitation to get honest with God through the life-giving language of lament. If you've ever been given empty clichés during challenging times, you know how painful it is to be misunderstood by well-meaning people. When life hurts, we often feel pressure--from others and ourselves--to keep it together, suck it up, or pray it away. But Scripture reveals a God who lovingly invites us to give honest voice to our emotions when life hits hard. For most of her life, Esther Fleece Allen believed she could bypass the painful emotions of her broken past by shutting them down altogether. She was known as an achiever and an overcomer on the fast track to success. But in silencing her pain, she robbed herself of the opportunity to be healed. Maybe you've done the same. Esther's journey into healing began when she discovered that God has given us a real-world way to deal with raw emotions and an alternative to the coping mechanisms that end up causing more pain. It's called lament--the gut-level, honest prayer that God never ignores, never silences, and never wastes. No More Faking Fine is your permission to lament, taking you on a journey down the unexpected pathway to true intimacy with God. Drawing from careful biblical study and hard-won insight, Esther reveals how to use God's own language to come closer to him as he leads us through our pain to the light on the other side, teaching you that: We are robbing ourselves of a divine mystery and a divine intimacy when we pretend to have it all together God does not expect us to be perfect; instead, he meets us where we are There is hope beyond your heartache, disappointment, and grief Like Esther, you'll soon find that when one person stops faking fine, it gives everyone else permission to do the same.




God's Great Love for You


Book Description

God’s Great Love for You, written by #1 New York Times bestselling author and respected pastor Rick Warren, takes children on a whimsical and heartfelt journey that reminds them God’s love is with them wherever they go. Show children how big and wide God’s love is with this charming picture book. A family favorite for generations, Rick Warren approached the thoughtful message with the wonder of a child and encourages us all to rest in God’s peace and hope. God’s Great Love for You: Assures children that God’s love is big and unstoppable Inspires children with its warm and sincere message of acceptance and love Is well-loved by parents, grandparents, and their little ones as a perfect read aloud story for children ages 4-8 Makes a perfect gift for birthdays, christenings, dedications, Christmas or Valentine’s day, and more Features beautiful illustrations by Chris Saunders