Showing titles in Meditations

We plead for God's deliverance from our pain and wonder why he keeps letting it go on. We are not alone. A cloud of witnesses surrounds us, and they help us understand. In these 35 creative retellings of Bible stories, Jon Bloom explores the hope and joy that Abraham, Moses, Naomi, John the Baptist, and others experienced in the painful process of discovering that God's promises really are more trustworthy than our perceptions.

Find out in these inspiring pages how you can dwell in God's rich love, receive answers to your prayers, weather life's difficult storms, establish unbroken communion with Christ, replace fear and doubt with lasting peace, rest in God's secure protection, and produce eternal results. The fullness of God's merciful loving kindness awaits you. You can come through life's greatest difficulties safely, and every longing of your heart can be satisfied.

Can a Christian-killer really endure 195 lashes from a heart of love? Can a mystic who thinks he was caught up into heaven be a model of lucid rationality? Can an ethnocentric Jew write the most beautiful call to reconciliation? Can a person who lives with the unceasing anguish of empathy be always rejoicing? Can a man's description of the horrors of human sin be exceeded by his delight in human splendor? Can a man with a backbone of steel be as tender as a nursing mother?

Trusting Jesus is hard. It requires following the unseen into an unknown and believing Jesus' words over and against the threats we see or the fears we feel. Through the imaginative retelling of 35 Bible stories, Not by Sight gives us glimpses of what it means to walk by faith, counsel for how to trust God's promises more than our perceptions, and the way to find rest in the faithfulness of God.

Sometimes the big and small decisions in life seem overwhelming. How do you know what choices to make about your career, kids, and relationships? Even when you make good decisions, how do you avoid temptation along the way?

Illuminata brings prayer into our daily lives, with prayers on topics from releasing anger to finding forgiveness, from finding great love to achieving intimacy. There are prayers for couples, for parents, and for children; prayers to mend broken relationships and prayers to overcome obsessive and compulsive love. There are prayers to heal the soul, prayers to heal the body, and prayers for work and creativity.

From the moment of his conversion, Paul was a man of prayer. His many prayers scattered throughout his letters are among the richest sources in all of Scripture for getting a practical insight into the subject matter of God-honouring prayer. Pink's detailed study captures the essence of the apostle's concern for the congregations on whose behalf he consistency prayed. However, Gleanings from Paul is much more than a mere study of Paul's prayers. Pink's insights help to gain a more rounded understanding of the apostle himself, the God he served, and the churches he worked with.

We all have ideas that we tell ourselves about God and how he works in our lives. Some are true--but many are false. James Bryan Smith believes those thoughts determine not only who we are, but how we live. In fact, Smith declares, the most important thing about a person is what they think about God. The path to spiritual transformation begins here.

The World’s Greatest Stories are an award winning series of Bible stories combining the excitement of a story, the accuracy of a Bible narration, and the highest quality production values. The texts for all the stories are taken directly, word for word, from the Bible. They are told using the art of a dramatic storyteller and incorporate carefully chosen music and sound effects. The result is a very exciting story that comes straight from the words of Scripture.

The Song of Solomon offers strikingly candid - and timeless - insights on romance, dating, marriage, and sex. We need it. Because emotions rise and fall with a single glance, touch, kiss, or word. And we are inundated with songs, movies, and advice that contradicts God's design for love and intimacy. Matt Chandler helps navigate these issues for both singles and marrieds by revealing the process Solomon himself followed: attraction, courtship, marriage...even arguing. The Mingling of Souls will forever change how you view and approach love.

We aspire to freedom but often resign ourselves to an existence trapped in uneasiness and dread. Is there any way to shed such heaviness and reignite hope for deliverance? In Traveling Light, Eugene H. Peterson urges us to listen to an expert on freedom, Paul, whose letter to the Galatians reminds us of the realities of life in Christ, freely given to all. 

The Sermon on the Mount is Jesus' most inspiring and challenging description of the Christian counterculture. John Stott's teaching on this timeless text shows how its value system, ethical standard, religious devotion, and network of relationships clearly distinguish it from both the nominal church and the secular world. In this volume, Stott's The Message of the Sermon on the Mount is condensed into brief readings, suitable for daily use, that take us passage by passage through the scripture text.

Some people find the Old Testament to be confusing, out of date, and essentially replaced by the New Testament. They are missing out. The Old Testament offers us a grand narrative that reveals God's work, God's purposes, and God's wisdom. Christopher J. H. Wright fits the pieces together and shows us the coherent whole. Using seven key sentences drawn straight from the Old Testament, he connects the dots and points us toward Jesus. 

Beginning with “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do” and ending with “Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit,” Meacham captures for the listener how these words epitomize Jesus’s message of love, not hate; grace, not rage; and, rather than vengeance, extraordinary mercy. For each saying, Meacham composes an essay on the origins of Christianity and how Jesus’s final words created a foundation for oral and written traditions that upended the very order of the world.  

Meditation for the Modern Yogi in Eight Steps takes the listener step-by-step through specific techniques for developing a successful meditation practice based on the ancient science of yoga.

The World’s Greatest Stories are an award winning series of Bible stories combining the excitement of a story, the accuracy of a Bible narration, and the highest quality production values. The texts for all the stories are taken directly, word for word, from the Bible. They are told using the art of a dramatic storyteller and incorporate carefully chosen music and sound effects. The result is a very exciting story that comes straight from the words of Scripture.

In this book of pastoral reflections, N. T. Wright explores how the Lord's Prayer sums up what Jesus was all about in his first-century setting. Wright locates the Lord's Prayer, clause by clause, within the historical life and work of Jesus and allows the prayer's devotional application to grow out of its historical context. The result is a fresh understanding of Christian spirituality and the life of prayer. This deeply devotional book will refresh and stimulate the heart and mind of any listener.

From Genesis to Revelation, the providence of God directs the entire course of redemptive history. Providence is “God’s purposeful sovereignty”. Its extent reaches down to the flight of electrons, up to the movements of galaxies, and into the heart of man. Its nature is wise and just and good. And its goal is the Christ-exalting glorification of God through the gladness of a redeemed people in a new world. 

Dr. Joseph Murphy, the author of The Power of Your Subconscious Mind, wrote this book as a manual to teach people how to pray, and how to maintain prayer as a part of their everyday activity, as well as how to use prayer in the case of danger or an emergency. According to Murphy, prayer is an ever-present help in time of trouble, but you do not have to wait for trouble to make prayer an integral and constructive part of your life. People can find the source of their goodness and get the results they desire through proper prayer.

Deep within God's Word lies a wondrous story like no other. A drama that originated before time began. An epic saga that resonates with the heartbeat of God. A story that reveals nothing less than the meaning of life. From Eternity to Here presents three remarkable stories spanning from Genesis to Revelation. Each story traces a divine theme that is woven throughout Scripture. Seen together, they offer an extraordinary glimpse into God's highest passion.