In a sinful world, people sin against each other. Christians do too. Even in church, we often give and take offense. How do we handle this? Often with bitterness and grudges. But Christ did not die for us in order that we might live in hostility toward each other. He gives us a better way. Confession and Forgiveness, which Luther frequently used and sometimes even called a third sacrament, has often been neglected in the everyday ministry of our churches. Even so, many are now rediscovering this essential element which God has given us for our spiritual benefit. In these pages, learn from Scripture, from the Lutheran Confessions, and from powerful contemporary stories how to recover and employ this blessing in your own life, and become an ambassador of reconciliation. Book jacket.

Rediscovering Confession is about recovering the experience of confession, in danger now of becoming a lost art. It identifies four elements present in psychotherapy and confession: a state of heightened self-awareness, a growing realization that our predicament points in some meaningful direction beyond itself, the necessity to make a relevant response to our situation, and a potential for spiritual encounter that accompanies the process. Each chapter contains a section devoted to practice, with exercises for individual contemplation and experimentation, guidelines for forming a confessional partnership, directions for conducting discussions in a study goup, and ways to organize a small confessional group.

In the twenty years since its publication, Celebration of Discipline has helped over a million seekers discover a richer spiritual life infused with joy, peace, and a deeper understanding of God. For this special twentieth anniversary edition, Richard J. Foster has added an introduction, in which he shares the story of how this beloved and enduring spiritual guidebook came to be. Hailed by many as the best modern book on Christian spirituality, Celebration of Discipline explores the "classic Disciplines," or central spiritual practices, of the Christian faith. Along the way, Foster shows that it is only by and through these practices that the true path to spiritual growth can be found. Dividing the Disciplines into three movements of the Spirit, Foster shows how each of these areas contribute to a balanced spiritual life. The inward Disciplines of meditation, prayer, fasting, and study, offer avenues of personal examination and change. The outward Disciplines of simplicity, solitude, submission, and service, help prepare us to make the world a better place. The corporate Disciplines of confession, worship, guidance, and celebration, bring us nearer to one another and to God. Foster provides a wealth of examples demonstrating how these Disciplines can become part of our daily activities-and how they can help us shed our superficial habits and "bring the abundance of God into our lives." He offers crucial new insights on simplicity, demonstrating how the biblical view of simplicity, properly understood and applied, brings joy and balance to our inward and outward lives and "sets us free to enjoy the provision of God as a gift that can be shared with others." The discussion of celebration, often the most neglected of the Disciplines, shows its critical importance, for it stands at the heart of the way to Christ. Celebration of Discipline will help motivate Christians everywhere to embark on a journey of prayer and spiritual growth.

God wants you to succeed in every area of your life! And with His presence in your life, you can. His grace or unmerited favor can swing open doors of opportunities and place you at the right place at the right time for His blessings. Even if you lack the necessary qualifications, His unmerited favor can propel you forward. Discover in Unmerit...

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER You deserve to stop suffering because of what other people have done to you. Have you ever felt stuck in a cycle of unresolved pain, playing offenses over and over in your mind? You know you can't go on like this, but you don't know what to do next. Lysa TerKeurst has wrestled through this journey. But in surprising ways, she’s discovered how to let go of bound-up resentment and overcome the resistance to forgiving people who aren’t willing to make things right. With deep empathy, therapeutic insight, and rich Bible teaching coming out of more than 1,000 hours of theological study, Lysa will help you: Learn how to move on when the other person refuses to change and never says they're sorry. Walk through a step-by-step process to free yourself from the hurt of your past and feel less offended today. Discover what the Bible really says about forgiveness and the peace that comes from living it out right now. Identify what's stealing trust and vulnerability from your relationships so you can believe there is still good ahead. Disempower the triggers hijacking your emotions by embracing the two necessary parts of forgiveness. Look for additional biblically based resources and devotionals from Lysa: Good Boundaries and Goodbyes It's Not Supposed to Be This Way Uninvited You're Going to Make It Embraced Seeing Beautiful Again

Hope changes everything. It can disarm guilt, shatter shame, and put your past in its place. All you have to do is make the choice to let it in. It won’t be easy. It won’t be quick. But it is possible and we serve a God who promises over and over again that anything is possible. Pete Wilson, pastor and the author of Plan B, presents a new look at the power of healing through hope, revealing 4 unique choices that have the potential to change your life forever. With Wilson’s telltale cadence and candor, Let Hope In explores accounts of seemingly hopeless moments in the Bible illustrating God’s ultimate plan for healing by letting hope fill the dark places of your past. Discover how pain that is not transformed becomes transferred. Embrace the freedom of being okay with not being okay. Learn that a life of trusting is far more magnificent than a life of pleasing. Because hurt people hurt people, but free people have the power to free people. So make today the day that you get unstuck. The day you fill your past with the light of hope, the day you say good-bye to regret and shame. The day you choose to change your future and embrace who God created you to be, simply by making the choice to let hope in.

Is the Black Church dying? The picture is mixed and there are many challenges. The church needs spiritual revival. But reviving and strengthening the Black Church will require great wisdom and courage. Reviving the Black Church calls us back to another time, borrowing the wisdom of earlier faithful Christians. But more importantly, it calls us back to the Bible itself. For there we find the divine wisdom needed to see all quarters of the Black Church live again, thriving in the Spirit of God. It’s pastor and church planter Thabiti Anyabwile's humble prayer that this book might be useful to pastors and faithful lay members in reviving at least some quarters of the Black Church, and churches of every ethnicity and context— all for the glory of God.

To say that offering forgiveness is a challenge is an understatement. Forgiveness is tough! Forgiveness is often messy. Forgiveness doesn’t feel good to most of us. And when it comes to the biggest, deepest hurts in life, forgiveness can seem impossible. Some hurts are the everyday, garden-variety irritations we endure for having to live in the company of other human beings who lose their tempers, get up on the wrong side of the bed, say nasty things, are ungrateful, selfish, and irritable. Some hurts are of a magnitude that far transcend these — degradation, exploitation, abandonment, rejection, humiliation, racism, bullying, physical, sexual, or emotional abuse. But with God’s grace, even in those most difficult cases, forgiveness is possible. In Choosing Forgiveness, Fr. Thomas Berg and Dr. Timothy G. Lock are your guides on the way toward forgiveness through the grace of God. This book will help you discover the pathway to healing, peace, and interior freedom, releasing you and those who have wronged you from the bondage of unforgiveness.

This book lays out an application-intensive approach to seeking out and developing qualified church leaders. Thoughtful analysis of key passages in Acts and 1 Timothy are balanced with practical action points in a contemporary context.