When Kathy Woodard meets handsome Zacchaeus Washington, a Sunday school teacher and junior deacon in her church, and falls in love, shes convinced shes found her soul mate. After two years of dating, Kathy pledges her life to him, and they are married in the family church. A couple of years later, Kathy feels blessed. She has a wonderful husband, a son and a daughter, close friends, delightful siblings, and a heavenly Father who orchestrated it all. Zack and Kathy continue to embrace church responsibilities and move closer in their relationship to Christ. Church members gravitate toward Zack and embrace his preaching with awe. At home, however, a different Zack exists; pride and deception begin to raise their ugly heads. Kathy realizes her godly knight in shining armor is not whom she thought he was. Hidden secrets and the unfolding life principles of Ananias and Saphirra challenge the Washingtons household of bliss. Will Kathy, like Sapphira, still follow Zack?

Sapphira, a half-breed Jewish outcast, and Domidicus, a high-ranking Roman army officer sworn to carry out his emperors edicts, are caught up in the intrigue of Herods court where they witness the cruelty and immorality of the dying king until a predestined encounter with the Christ Child changes their lives.

Ten of the Bible’s best-known femmes fatales parade across the pages of this popular and unforgettable study with situations that sound oh-so-familiar. Women everywhere marvel at those “good girls” in Scripture–Sarah, Mary, Esther–but on most days, that’s not who they see when they look in the mirror. Most women (if they’re honest) see the selfishness of Sapphira or the deception of Delilah. They catch of glimpse of Jezebel’s take-charge pride or Eve’s disastrous disobedience. Like Bathsheba, Herodias, and the rest, today’s modern woman is surrounded by temptations, exhausted by the demands of daily living, and burdened by her own desires. So what’s a good girl to do? Learn from their lives, says beloved Bible study teacher and speaker Liz Curtis Higgs, and choose a better path. Whether they were “Bad to the Bone,” “Bad for a Season, but Not Forever” or only “Bad for a Moment,” these infamous sisters show women how not to handle the challenges of life. With her trademark humor and encouragement, Higgs combines a contemporary retelling of the stories of these “other women” in Scripture with a solid, verse-by-verse study to teach us how to avoid their tragic mistakes and joyfully embrace grace. Let these Bad Girls show you why studying the Bible has never been more fun! Includes Discussion Questions and Study Guide

In this writing, we have considered how Jesus set the pattern for our early Christian faith in the Great Commission and how a spiritual battle can be expected as we learn to overcome the old sin nature. We learn that the baptism by the Holy Spirit occurs when the Holy Spirit immerses the new believer spiritually into the death of Jesus on the cross. As the new believer surrenders to the indwelling Christ, the filling of the Holy Spirit is experienced. However, when we sin against the Holy Spirit by lying to, grieving, or quenching Him, our fellowship with Jesus is broken and must be restored by confessing our sin. Because we have the power of the resurrected Christ living in us, we begin our new life in Christ from the position of victory, seated together with Jesus in heavenly places. Even though we have this position of victory, we are tempted by the old sin nature, but a way of escape is provided by our saying, "No, I won't go there," to the temptation. Through this journey we learn to surrender our all to Jesus so He becomes our life as we live each day here on this earth. When we do this, Jesus lives His life through ours. It is my earnest prayer this book will enable us to understand how much God loves us and who we have become in Christ. Because of who Christ is in us through the Holy Spirit, we have the authority to say no to the temptation of sin. When Jesus is our life we live with joy, peace, and victory in our hearts, whatever the circumstances of life may be.

Willa Cather’s twelfth and final novel, Sapphira and the Slave Girl, is her most intense fictional engagement with political and personal conflict. Set in Cather’s Virginia birthplace in 1856, the novel draws on family and local history and the escalating conflicts of the last years of slavery—conflicts in which Cather’s family members were deeply involved, both as slave owners and as opponents of slavery. Cather, at five years old, appears as a character in an unprecedented first-person epilogue. Tapping her earliest memories, Cather powerfully and sparely renders a Virginia world that is simultaneously beautiful and, as she said, “terrible.” The historical essay and explanatory notes explore the novel’s grounding in family, local, and national history; show how southern cultures continually shaped Cather’s life and work, culminating with this novel; and trace the progress of Cather’s research and composition during years of grief and loss that she described as the worst of her life. More early drafts, including manuscript fragments, are available for Sapphira and the Slave Girl than for any other Cather novel, and the revealing textual essay draws on this rich resource to provide new insights into Cather’s composition process.