Showing results by narrator "Dean Gallagher" in All Categories

Rethink the blessing... recover the call. Are you lucky? What if I told you that Jesus thinks you are? Not because of a charm or a chance but because of the arrival of the kingdom of God. You are lucky because you are invited into the kingdom. God has come to you in the midst of your mess and mistakes. He is inviting you to surrender, to live in a different way, and to participate in his work of rescuing and redeeming the world. You have a part in the future that God is bringing.

As a young boy, Aurelio F. Barreto III fled communist Cuba with his family to search for the American Dream. But making his first million in his twenties only led the young inventor to realize he could not buy the kind of life he was searching for. Read what finally got Aurelio's attention, and how God used his lifes' failures and challenges in an unexpected new way.

Some people think that salvation is merely about meeting the minimal entrance requirements needed to get into heaven when they die. But that’s not how Jesus talked about it. Rightly understood, salvation is an invitation to know God and to experience his presence, favor, and power starting right here on earth. Best-selling author John Ortberg dispels the myth that eternal life is something we can only hope to experience after we die; recaptures the New Testament definition of salvation, eternal life, and the Good News of the Gospel; and explains what it really means to be a disciple.

Best-selling author John Ortberg dispels the myth that eternal life is something way out in outer space that we can only hope to experience after we die - and that being saved is merely about meeting the minimal entrance requirements for getting into heaven. Instead, John unpacks the reality that the moment we trust Christ, we are initiated into “eternal living” with God as a here and now reality, one that will continue beyond our life on this earth.

Vince Antonucci, a pastor who reaches out to people on the Las Vegas Strip, has seen it all - and, more important, he has seen God's love in action on each and every street corner. Is God for the people who are left out? Is he for the guy who betrayed his wife and left his kids? Is he for the doubters? The skeptics? The atheists? The answers to these questions can be found in the lives of people Vince meets and ministers to.

Let's face it. Church isn't working. We hear sermons about the abundant life Jesus promised, but how many of us are actually living it? How many of our churches are thriving? How many people in our congregations are experiencing God's blessings? Maybe it's time to call it quits. Quit church? Well, not exactly. Drawing from his experience coaching hundreds of churches toward true growth, Chris Sonksen calls on us to quit our casual, cultural commitment to church as we know it....

Heaven is closer than we realize. Its boundaries overlap our own, and angels move in and out of our daily lives. If that reality seems dim to us now, it beamed for the early Christians. Through their writings, sermons, songs, and art, the ancient faithful confessed a powerful and vivid belief that angels help carry us on our journey to God. Lifted by Angels helps modern listeners glimpse angels as these early Christians did.

Did Jesus have bad habits? In our culture we have a tendency to describe Jesus in ways that soften his revolutionary edge. Len Sweet uncovers and presents to us the offensive and scandalous Jesus described in the Bible. Did he disappear when people needed him most? Yes. Did he refuse to answer questions directly? Yes. Did Jesus offend the people of his day? Absolutely yes. Popular author and speaker Len Sweet examines the words and actions of Jesus and places them in context.

There's more going on in the world than meets the eye. There is an unseen spiritual realm, and occasionally God allows us glimpses of it. Angels, Miracles, and Heavenly Encounters offers a fascinating look at the supernatural world. It includes more than 40 true stories of miraculous provision, encounters with angels and demons, near-death experiences, and incredible rescues. You'll marvel at how God and His angels are working behind the scenes to protect and guide us.

Welcome back to Hope Springs...where Grace Wesley teaches high school history. She is on the hot seat with the school district after she answers Brooke Thawley's question about Jesus during a classroom discussion. Suddenly Brooke becomes a pawn in an epic court case that could cost Grace the career she loves.

Over the last 500 years, blood-red moons have fallen on the first day of Passover three separate times. These occurrences were connected to some of the most significant days in Jewish history: 1492 (the final year of the Spanish Inquisition when Jews were expelled from Spain), 1948 (statehood for Israel and the War of Independence) and 1967 (the Six-Day War). Every heavenly body is controlled by the unseen hand of God, which signals coming events to humanity. There are no solar or lunar accidents.

How did violence and power seep into our understanding of faith and grace? For those troubled by this trend toward the sword, perhaps there is a better way. What if the message of Jesus differs radically from the drumbeats of war we hear all around us? Using his own journey from war crier to peacemaker and his in-depth study of peace in the Scriptures, author and pastor Brian Zahnd reintroduces us to the gospel of peace.

Is real friendship too risky? We live in a world where real friendship is hard to find. Suspicious of others and insecure about ourselves, we retreat into the safety of our small, self-made digital worlds. Tragically, even the church can become a place that reinforces this isolation. Jesus models a much richer vision of friendship. Scott Sauls, pastor and teacher, invites you to see the breadth of Christ's love in this audiobook, Befriend.

"And if someone asks about your hope as a believer, always be ready to explain it. But do this in a gentle and respectful way" (1 Peter 3:15-16, NLT). This book demonstrates again and again that talking about God is simple when we commit ourselves first to loving and listening to our friends. For people who are intimidated or fatigued by the idea of talking about matters of faith, Talking About God offers story after gripping story about faith conversations that avoid cliché and combativeness.

Having forfeited his youth to the state prison system, Michael moved back to the only home he'd ever known. An empty shell of a man now lived - if it could be called living - in the still-vacant house of his parents in a town with one stoplight. A town that hated him. Had always hated him. And was ready to pick up where the prison system had left off. Now he's on the run from men who've tried to kill him once; but Michael is more than an ex-con. A powerful, sinister force creeps inside him, threatening and destructive.

I'd Like You More If You Were More like Me takes on one of life's most important questions: How can I get closer to God and other people? We were created for deep connections. When people have deep connections, says John Ortberg, they win in life. When they don't have deep connections, they cannot win in life. I'd Like You More If You Were More like Me offers help in overcoming one of the biggest obstacles to making deep connections: the fact that we're so different. Different from God and different from each other.

Though statistics and maps can be a great place to start, The Yes Effect reveals that true transformation begins when we restart our hearts - getting in sync with God's tenderness toward the oppressed and regaining compassion for the lost.In The Yes Effect, Dr. Bush shares his own story as well as inspiring stories of individuals and organizations around the world whose acts of love and justice are bringing hope and transformation in places of misery and immobility.

When a day trip out of Las Vegas with his wife takes a turn for the worse, Jack is sure he has the ability to get them home. But he has driven into something far beyond reason.

Hope in the darkest hour. In this riveting new book, I'm Still Standing, pastor and Christian television pioneer Jim Bakker pulls back the curtain and recounts the many struggles he and his family experienced in 2020, including attacks on his ministry and platform as well as physical struggles through a life-changing stroke. Along the way, he delivers a series of warnings based on the Book of Revelation that are both stunning and impossible to ignore.  

Prodigals digs deeply into each line from Jesus's famous parable about the prodigal son, inviting all listeners—those down on their luck or high on their horse—to identify as prodigals. A prodigal is anyone who accepts they have a sinful human nature and turns toward the love of home, the place where we find a deeper relationship with God. Rather than divide the world into prodigals and nonprodigals, Taylor invites listeners to find themselves in the teaching of Jesus as either younger or elder siblings.