Sinner, Servant, Saint


Book Description

His neighbors thought he was spoiled and lazy. His teachers found him incorrigible. His own father believed he was crazy. His mother never doubted that he was a true son of God. Arrogant and grandiose, young Francis di Bernardone was an embarrassment to his family and a source of amusement to his community. He led a lavish, undisciplined life, squandering his father’s fortune on the finest food, wine, and late-night parties with his coterie of friends. Convinced that he was destined for greatness, Francis joined the fight for Assisi’s independence, fully expecting to find glory in battle. Those dreams were crushed when he was captured by the enemy and held in a medieval dungeon for a year. After his release, Francis resumed his search for glory—but this time he sought the Glory of God. In his determination to follow Christ’s example of humility and poverty, Francis was beset by ill health, family strife, abuse, derision, war, Vatican politics, and his own shortcomings. Yet many were inspired by the authenticity of his message and his obvious conviction. A brotherhood formed around him that grew from twelve to many thousands within his lifetime. The Friars Minor, now called Franciscans after their founder, has spread worldwide and continued through the centuries to carry forward Francis’ legacy of bringing Christ to the world.




Saints, Sufferers, and Sinners


Book Description

There are many complexities associated with ministering to another person. Where does a helper begin? What’s important to notice? Is there an overall ministry strategy that’s beneficial? Saints, Sufferers, and Sinners by author and counselor Michael R. Emlet outlines a model of one-another ministry based on how God sees and loves his people. Emlet helps readers use Scripture to find foundational categories for understanding and approaching one another, which serve as guideposts for wise care. Filled with everyday illustrations as well as counseling examples, Emlet demonstrates what it looks like to approach fellow believers simultaneously as saints, sufferers, and sinners. As part of CCEF's Helping the Helper series, this guide for ministry provides an overall framework for wisely helping any person, balancing all three aspects of our experience as Christians.




Saints for Sinners


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Last Words


Book Description

The last words of the dying have long captured the popular imagination. Why this abiding interest in exit lines? Perhaps because these final words—spoken in hope or fear, joy or sorrow—provide a view from the border between this world and the next. As this provocative and sometimes amusing collection illustrates, those who have gone before leave us with much more than helpful epigrams or witticisms. Paul Thigpen points out that their final words can actually "point us to fundamental realities—to the very heart of God." Even those sinners and strays who failed to live their faith may reveal much about the final shape of things to come. From comforting to sobering, these selections provide food for thought regarding the nature of Christian hope and the promise of eternal life.




Saints and Sinners


Book Description

With her inimitable gift for describing the workings of the heart and mind, Edna O'Brien introduces us to a vivid new cast of restless, searching people who-whether in the Irish countryside or London or New York-remind us of our own humanity. In Send My Roots Rain, Miss Gilhooley, a librarian, waits in the lobby of a posh Dublin hotel-expecting to meet a celebrated poet while reflecting on the great love who disappointed her. The Irish workers of "The Shovel Kings" have pipe dreams of becoming millionaires in London, but long for their quickly changing homeland-exiles in both places. "Green Georgette" is a searing anatomy of class, through the eyes of a little girl; "Old Wounds" illuminates the importance of family and memory in old age. In language that is always bold and vital, Edna O'Brien pays tribute to the universal forces that rule our lives.







Servants of Salvation


Book Description

Truth telling is the most gratifying human expression possible. Servants of Salvation: Saints of Yahshua is a restorative account of the facts and personalities surrounding the Incarnate Son of a Loving Father. The careful and methodical telling of relevant facts and circumstances surrounding the divine plan attending to the redemptive renewal of all those few mortals, who have been Called-Out to a better life in a better space, is the work of this book. It is a 22-piece literary composition detailing the activities, hopes, and dreams of the Saints of Salvation's uncompromising devotion and allegiance to a Self-Less Savior Who gave to each of us, mortals, a new way of living, a new way of behaving, and a new way of forgiving. It is the graphic account of all those faithful walkers and workers who dared to depart from the conventional-comfort zone of their day, in a determined pursuit of the Passionate Person of a Precious-and-Personal Savior. "Servants of Salvation" is a priceless lifeline into the protective bosom of our Holy Father YHWH. This book exposes the intricate "particulars" that must be negotiated by all prospective Saints whose destination is the Kingdom of Heaven. It gives each of us that one additional opportunity to evade and avoid all those worldly snares and pitfalls that the gods and goddesses of this world, under the sinister sway of God Satan, have concocted to separate us from the love and rewards of a Loving Creator and Blessed Savior. This book poignantly informs our collective consciousness of one core truth: Yahshua is the Salvation of YHWH to us; and the only pathway into the Paradise of our Holy Dad is through the medium of His Son, our Savior Yahshua.




The Sinner's Guide


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Sinners in the Hands of a Loving God


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Pastor Brian Zahnd began "to question the theology of a wrathful God who delights in punishing sinners, and has started to explore the real nature of Jesus and His Father. The book isn’t only an interesting look at the context of some modern theological ideas; it’s also offers some profound insight into God’s love and eternal plan." —Relevant Magazine (Named one of the Top 10 Books of 2017) God is wrath? Or God is Love? In his famous sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” Puritan revivalist Jonathan Edwards shaped predominating American theology with a vision of God as angry, violent, and retributive. Three centuries later, Brian Zahnd was both mesmerized and terrified by Edwards’s wrathful God. Haunted by fear that crippled his relationship with God, Zahnd spent years praying for a divine experience of hell. What Zahnd experienced instead was the Father’s love—revealed perfectly through Jesus Christ—for all prodigal sons and daughters. In Sinners in the Hands of a Loving God, Zahnd asks important questions like: Is seeing God primarily as wrathful towards sinners true or biblical? Is fearing God a normal expected behavior? And where might the natural implications of this theological framework lead us? Thoughtfully wrestling with subjects like Old Testament genocide, the crucifixion of Jesus, eternal punishment in hell, and the final judgment in Revelation, Zanhd maintains that the summit of divine revelation for sinners is not God is wrath, but God is love.




The Life of St. Gemma Galgani


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