“A triumph. This novel’s haunting strength will hold the reader until the very end and make Faith and her story impossible to forget.” —Richmond Times Dispatch “Extraordinary.” —Orlando Sentinel From the #1 New York Times bestselling author Jodi Picoult (Nineteen Minutes, Change of Heart, Handle with Care) comes Keeping Faith: an “addictively readable” (Entertainment Weekly) novel that “makes you wonder about God. And that is a rare moment, indeed, in modern fiction” (USA Today).

Although temptation is a common and well-acknowledged part of the human experience, few realize the truth behind temptation and fewer still know how to defeat it. Tempted and Tried will not reassure Christians by claiming that temptation is less powerful or less prevalent than it is; instead, it will prepare believers for battle by telling the truth about the cosmic war that is raging. Moore shows that the temptation of every Christian is part of a broader conspiracy against God, a conspiracy that confronts everyone who shares the flesh of Jesus through human birth and especially confronts those who share the Spirit of Christ through the new birth of redemption. Moore walks readers through the Devil's ancient strategies for temptation revealed in Jesus' wilderness testing. Moore considers how those strategies might appear in a contemporary context and points readers to a way of escape. Tempted and Tried will remind Christians that temptation must be understood in terms of warfare, encouraging them with the truth that victory has already been secured through the triumph of Christ.

God Wants to Help You Overcome Your Greatest Battle of All What we think and believe determines who we are. If that’s so, then why are we so insecure, defensive, lonely, empty, fearful, depressed, self-absorbed, dysfunctional, angry and confused? We are a mess. But that’s not what God has in mind for us. In fact, the Master has hope, strength, beauty, joy, love, creativity, freedom, power, peace, patience, goodness, laughter, organization, effectiveness and purpose for us. So, what went wrong? We lost our identity in our sin. We’ve become unanchored, tossed about on the sea of a million influences, none of which is our Master’s heart or mind. Between the world, the flesh and the devil, we don’t know what to think and therefore our lives are filled with hurt, pain and regret. Someone is running the show in our minds and it’s not us, at least not the real us, nor the real owner. Jesus is not okay with this. He died to save us from our sins and set us free. He made a way for our souls to be rescued from our enemies. He bought the territory of our minds and planted His flag of holy ground. It’s time for us to get angry enough to take back control of our minds, to master them and bring them back in alignment with the Master’s will. It’s time to return to The Master’s Mind.

Invoking the biblical motif of Jacob's struggle with the Face of God (Genesis 32), Simon D. Podmore undertakes a constructive theological account of 'spiritual trial' (tentatio; known in German mystical and Lutheran tradition as Anfechtung) in relation to enduring questions of the otherness and hiddenness of God and the self, the problem of suffering and evil, the freedom of Spirit, and the anxious relationship between temptation and ordeal, fear and desire. This book traces a genealogy of spiritual trial from medieval German mystical theology, through Lutheran and Pietistic thought (Tauler; Luther; Arndt; Boehme), and reconstructs Kierkegaard's innovative yet under-examined recovery of the category (AnfAegtelse: a Danish cognate for Anfechtung) within the modern context of the 'spiritless' decline of Christendom. Developing the relationship between struggle (Anfechtung) and release (Gelassenheit), Podmore proposes a Kierkegaardian theology of spiritual trial which elaborates the kenosis of the self before God in terms of Spirit's restless longing to rest transparently in God. Offering an original rehabilitation of the temptation of spiritual trial, this book strives for a renewed theological hermeneutic which speaks to the enduring human struggle to realise the unchanging love of God in the face of spiritual darkness.

“If I had my entire life to live over, I’d choose to be a preacher again. It’s been extremely rewarding and gratifying. But I could do ministry a lot better if given a second try. As I look back on my forty years at Southeast Christian Church in Louisville, KY, I wish I had a mulligan. This book lists seven things I’d do differently and seven I’d do about the same. They are written in hopes they’ll be a source of encouragement for those growing weary and losing heart. I pray my observations will inspire others to conclude, ‘If he can do it, I can, too.’ In this book I share both the joys and sorrows of my ministry, both the successes and failures. I’m going to be as transparent as possible in hopes that it will encourage ministers to stand firm in the faith and be faithful unto death. If just one minister is motivated to pick up the sword of the Spirit and re-enter the battle, it will be well worth the effort.” — Bob Russell

God does most of the work required for our salvation, but one doctrine of theology, Sanctification, requires our input. Testing and Temptations is about the interplay our actions have in our own spiritual growth. This book explains the difference between trials and temptations and the role each plays in our Christian sanctification.

The NIV is the world's best-selling modern translation, with over 150 million copies in print since its first full publication in 1978. This highly accurate and smooth-reading version of the Bible in modern English has the largest library of printed and electronic support material of any modern translation.

You are "The God Who Sees Me." Discover a close relationship with God—no matter the pain or suffering in your life. Witness the depths of God’s compassion through the eyes of Hagar, a runaway slave who meets the living God in a desert of despair, where she gives Him the name El Roi, "The God Who Sees Me." A largely forgotten Old Testament character, Hagar is actually one of only a few people who have ever spoken directly with the LORD. Through this seven week study, you will find that when you surrender your life into God’s hands, your trials and triumphs serve a magnificent purpose: to draw you into the arms of the faithful God who sees you.

Stress happens. We all feel it. It steals our joy, interrupts our sleep, affects our relationships, and wears us down. We can't escape the things and people that cause it. We can't medicate it away. So we must deal with it. But how? How do we attain peace in life? With compassion and biblical insight, pastor Vance Pitman calls us away from anxious living to a life of indescribable peace by applying truths from God's Word to the stress we feel in our - schedule - budget - relationships - decision-making - emotions - and circumstances Discover the freedom and peace that are yours when you no longer allow stress to dominate your life and instead take hold of the soul-satisfying, joy-producing, fruit-bearing life that God intended you to live.

The freedom to question—asking and being asked—is an indispensable and sacred practice that is absolutely vital to the health of our communities.According to author David Dark, when religion won’t tolerate questions, objections, or differences of opinion, and when it only brings to the table threats of excommunication, violence, and hellfire, it does not allow people to discover for themselves what they truly believe.The God of the Bible not only encourages questions; the God of the Bible demands them. If that were not so, we wouldn’t live in a world of such rich, God-given complexity in which wide-eyed wonder is part and parcel of the human condition. Dark contends that it’s OK to question life, the Bible, faith, the media, emotions, language, government—everything. God has nothing to hide. And neither should people of faith.The Sacredness of Questioning offers a wide-ranging, insightful, and often entertaining discussion that draws on a variety of sources, including religious texts and popular culture. It is a book that readers will likely cherish—and recommend—for years to come.