Revised version of the author's thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Chicago, 2009.

Shares uplifting advice about the virtues of forgiveness, offering strategic and biblically based advice on how to achieve peace and personal fulfillment by letting go of past wrongs.

Revised version of the author's thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Chicago, 2009.

Meira Z. Kensky examines scenes of the divine courtroom in Jewish and Christian literature from antiquity. Her central argument is that these courtroom scenes, though fanciful in nature and often remarkably entertaining, are part of a serious inquiry taking place throughout the Mediterranean as to the nature of divine justice. These scenes can contain explicit criticism about the adequacy and equity of God's justice, or can be used to attempt to vindicate God from charges of injustice and inequity. What is important is that this amounts to a rotation of the courtroom scene: the courtroom, rather than simply functioning on the narrative level with the reader as an additional spectator, is rotated so that the reader is in the judicial position, and it is the judge and the process itself which are being adjudicated. When man is tried, it is truly God who is on trial.

Follow God's process for growth and learn how you can benefit from life's challenging experiences with this book by bestselling inspirational author T.D. Jakes. In this insightful book, #1 New York Times bestselling author T.D. Jakes wrestles with the age-old questions: Why do the righteous suffer? Where is God in all the injustice? In his most personal offering yet, Bishop Jakes tells crushing stories from his own journey-the painful experience of learning his young teenage daughter was pregnant, the agony of watching his mother succumb to Alzheimer's, and the shock and helplessness he felt when his son had a heart attack. Bishop Jakes wants to encourage you that God uses difficult, crushing experiences to prepare you for unexpected blessings. If you are faithful through suffering, you will be surprised by God's joy, comforted by His peace, and fulfilled with His purpose. Crushing will inspire you to have hope, even in your most difficult moments. If you trust in God and lean on Him during setbacks, He will lead you through.

Pastor and Grammy-winning musician Smokie Norful inspires readers to go to God and experience more fulfillment, delight, power, and success than they ever dreamed. According to Smokie Norful, sometimes our lives feel like a pot of rice in his grandmother’s kitchen: hissing, boiling over, about to explode and create panic. The only way to avoid an explosion is to take the lid off—that is, to stop being trapped inside ourselves and instead look to God and his grace to make us all he intends us to be. Taking the lid off, Norful argues, entails four actions: look inward, experiencing the cleansing of forgiveness and the power of the Holy Spirit; look outward, seeking for others to experience the joy of living for God and have the best God has to offer; look upward and marvel at God’s love and strength to accomplish his purposes; and move onward, devising a strategy to accomplish all God has put in our hearts to do. When we take these four steps, the pressure goes down, we gain peace and perception, and things work out much better in the end. When we finally take the lid off, we can become the people God has created us to be and do what we were intended to do. We get in touch with the unlimited power of his Spirit, we’re directed by the challenge of his purposes, and we experience the joy of seeing him use us to change lives. All of us need help in taking the lid off in order to trust God, take action, and reach our full potential.

As a Christian, do you ever wonder why you still struggle with sin? Are you tired of repeating the same old mistakes? Have you found yourself caught in a seemingly never-ending cycle of habitual sin and shame? Are you tired of the feelings of defeat and long for the freedom, peace, and victory promised in being a new creation? Then it's time to face him. He is called the old man, the old self, or our old nature. We all have one. Are you ready to look him in the eye? Are you ready to fight him? Are you ready to live free? Let it begin today. It's time to kill your old man and be the person God sees in you. "Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. For he that is dead is freed from sin. Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him" (Rom. 6:6-8).

God has more for us than what we are experiencing. We have all limited God in our lives at some point in one way or another. Fear of success, fear of persecution and imaginations are all ways that we limit God. We often see ourselves in a certain way but we have to change that image if we want to experience the abundant life that God has for...