Answers to Your Most Puzzling Questions about Prayer In a world where problems grow more and more complex and desperate, the need for prayer is rising. Yet critical needs will go unmet until we have a proper understanding of effective prayer and how it works. Here, in this easy-to-understand guidebook, veteran prayer warrior Charles Simpson answers 21 of your most-asked questions about prayer, including: · Who am I actually talking to? · Do some prayers always "work"? · How important is faith when I pray? · What if my prayers aren't answered? · How does God want me to pray? · How can I pray more effectively? Written in an accessible question-and-answer format, these pages are filled with warmth, candor and personal illustrations that will boost you out of frustration and into times of effective prayer. Here is the hope and help you need to see the results and answers you long for.

The key to seeing all your prayers answered is simple—pray the words of Scripture back to God. Since the Bible is God’s Word and it reveals God’s heart, you will become closer to the Lord as you pray the timeless truths of Scripture when talking to God. You are actually praying His Word back to Him. With the Scripture presented in a fresh, contemporary version, The Paraphrase Prayer Bible will show you how to pray based on the Word of God. Throughout these pages, you will find verses that help you direct your prayers toward God in: Offering praise Making specific prayer requests Communion and intimacy Worship And more… The Prayer Bible will help you connect with God in a powerful new way as you pray the Scripture back to Him, learn how to personalize the Bible, and watch the Word of God come alive like never before!

God wants us to worship him, so it shouldn’t surprise us that the longest book of the Bible sets out to show us how. The Psalms were written by Israel’s greatest worshippers over the course of 1,000 years in order to teach God’s People how he wants them to worship him. They show us what kind of worship is music to God’s ears. God inspired the Bible for a reason. He wants you read it and let it change your life. If you are willing to take this challenge seriously, then you will love Phil Moore’s devotional commentaries. Their bite-sized chapters are punchy and relevant, yet crammed with fascinating scholarship. Welcome to a new way of reading the Bible. Welcome to the Straight to the Heart series.

A compassionate, shame-free guide for your darkest days “A one-of-a-kind book . . . to read for yourself or give to a struggling friend or loved one without the fear that depression and suicidal thoughts will be minimized, medicalized or over-spiritualized.”—Kay Warren, cofounder of Saddleback Church What happens when loving Jesus doesn’t cure you of depression, anxiety, or suicidal thoughts? You might be crushed by shame over your mental illness, only to be told by well-meaning Christians to “choose joy” and “pray more.” So you beg God to take away the pain, but nothing eases the ache inside. As darkness lingers and color drains from your world, you’re left wondering if God has abandoned you. You just want a way out. But there’s hope. In I Love Jesus, But I Want to Die, Sarah J. Robinson offers a healthy, practical, and shame-free guide for Christians struggling with mental illness. With unflinching honesty, Sarah shares her story of battling depression and fighting to stay alive despite toxic theology that made her afraid to seek help outside the church. Pairing her own story with scriptural insights, mental health research, and simple practices, Sarah helps you reconnect with the God who is present in our deepest anguish and discover that you are worth everything it takes to get better. Beautifully written and full of hard-won wisdom, I Love Jesus, But I Want to Die offers a path toward a rich, hope-filled life in Christ, even when healing doesn’t look like what you expect.

University apologist, director, and popular speaker Alex McFarland has spent the last two decades answering questions about Christian worldview and the Bible from children, teens, and parents. In The 21 Toughest Questions Your Kids Will Ask about Christianity, he summarizes questions today’s children and teens are asking about God, the Bible, and the problem of evil. Alex’s experiences have taught him that how adults answer questions about God is as important as, if not more important than, what kids ask. He provides parents with teaching strategies that will help them reach their children intellectually and spiritually. Today’s kids and teens are looking for authenticity, integrity, and straightforward truth. Alex comes alongside parents and gives them tools to effectively answer not only their children’s toughest academic questions but also the questions that plague their hearts.

The book of Job is one of the oldest surviving pieces of writing in human history. It also deals with two of the biggest questions that humans have asked throughout history - what is God like, and why does he allow such suffering in the world? Allow Phil to take you on a journey through the book of Job to discover insights that have shaped the way that people have viewed God and viewed humanity for over 3,000 years. God inspired the Bible for a reason. He wants you read it and let it change your life. If you are willing to take this challenge seriously, then you will love Phil Moore's devotional commentaries. Their bite-sized chapters are punchy and relevant, yet crammed with fascinating scholarship. Welcome to a new way of reading the Bible. Welcome to the Straight to the Heart series.

Millions of Christians have struggled with how to reconcile God's love and God's judgment: Has God created billions of people over thousands of years only to select a few to go to heaven and everyone else to suffer forever in hell? Is this acceptable to God? How is this "good news"? Troubling questions—so troubling that many have lost their faith because of them. Others only whisper the questions to themselves, fearing or being taught that they might lose their faith and their church if they ask them out loud. But what if these questions trouble us for good reason? What if the story of heaven and hell we have been taught is not, in fact, what the Bible teaches? What if what Jesus meant by heaven, hell, and salvation are very different from how we have come to understand them? What if it is God who wants us to face these questions? Author, pastor, and innovative teacher Rob Bell presents a deeply biblical vision for rediscovering a richer, grander, truer, and more spiritually satisfying way of understanding heaven, hell, God, Jesus, salvation, and repentance. The result is the discovery that the "good news" is much, much better than we ever imagined. Love wins.

Pete Greig, the acclaimed author of Red Moon Rising, has written his most intensely personal and honest account yet in God on Mute, a book born out of his wife Samie's fight for her life and diagnosis of a debilitating brain tumor. Greig asks the timeless questions of what it means to suffer and to pray and to suffer through the silence because your prayers seem unanswered. This silence, Greig relates, is the hardest thing. The world collapses. Then all goes quiet. Words can't explain, don't fit, won't work. People avoid you and don't know what to say. So you turn to Him and you pray. You need Him more than ever before. But somehow . . . even God Himself seems on mute. In this heart-searching, honest, and deeply profound book, Pete Greig looks at the hard side of prayer, how to respond when there seem to be no answers, and how to cope with those who seek to interpret our experience for us. Here is a story of faith, hope, and love beyond all understanding.