From And Before God

“This is a series of stories of what it looks like to walk with God, over the course of about a year.” So begins a remarkable narrative of one man’s journey learning to hear the voice of God. The details are intimate and personal. The invitation is for us all. What if we could hear from God . . . often? What difference would it make? We have a lot to sort through on any given day. A whole lot to navigate over the course of a week or a month. Am I in the right place? The right relationships? How am I going to come up with enough money to do the things I want to do? And what about love—is this the one? Will it last? What is causing all those fears I keep pushing down inside? Why can’t I overcome those “habits” that look more and more like addictions? Am I at the right church? Should I even go to church? What is God doing in my life? All day long we are making choices. It adds up to an enormous amount of decisions in a lifetime. How do we know what to do? We have two options. We can trudge through on our own, doing our best to figure it all out. Or, we can walk with God. As in, learn to hear his voice. Really. We can live life with God. He offers to speak to us and guide us. Every day. It is an incredible offer. To accept that offer is to enter into an adventure filled with joy and risk, transformation and breakthrough. And more clarity than we ever thought possible.

The Practice of the Presence of God is a spiritual classic written by Brother Lawrence, a 17th-century Carmelite monk. This small but impactful work is a compilation of letters and conversations attributed to Brother Lawrence, offering profound insights into cultivating a continuous awareness of the presence of God in everyday life.

Focusing on cemetery burials in late-eighteenth-century Mexico, Alone Before God provides a window onto the contested origins of modernity in Mexico. By investigating the religious and political debates surrounding the initiative to transfer the burials of prominent citizens from urban to suburban cemeteries, Pamela Voekel challenges the characterization of Catholicism in Mexico as an intractable and monolithic institution that had to be forcibly dragged into the modern world. Drawing on the archival research of wills, public documents, and other texts from late-colonial and early-republican Mexico, Voekel describes the marked scaling-down of the pomp and display that had characterized baroque Catholic burials and the various devices through which citizens sought to safeguard their souls in the afterlife. In lieu of these baroque practices, the new enlightened Catholics, claims Voekel, expressed a spiritually and hygienically motivated preference for extremely simple burial ceremonies, for burial outside the confines of the church building, and for leaving their earthly goods to charity. Claiming that these changes mirrored a larger shift from an external, corporate Catholicism to a more interior piety, she demonstrates how this new form of Catholicism helped to initiate a cultural and epistemic shift that placed the individual at the center of knowledge. Breaking with the traditional historiography to argue that Mexican liberalism had deeply religious roots, Alone Before God will be of interest to specialists in Latin American history, modernity, and religion.

Noted theologian and teacher, R.C. Sproul, provides us with a daily guide for living based on the teachings of Ephesians, Hebrews, and James. The very different messages in these three books have a common purpose--to introduce Christians to the deep wisdom of God.

Suppose you could ask God any question and get an answer. What would it be? Young people all over the world have been asking those questions. So Neale Donald Walsch, author of the internationally bestselling Conversations with God series had another conversation. Conversations with God for Teens is a simple, clear, straight-to-the-point dialogue that answers teens questions about God, money, sex, love, and more. Conversations with God for Teens reads like a rap session at a church youth group, where teenagers discuss everything they ever wanted to know about life but were too afraid to ask God. Walsch acts as the verbal conduit, showing teenagers how easy it is to converse with the divine. When Claudia, age 16, from Perth, Australia, asks, "Why can't I just have sex with everybody? What's the big deal?", the answer God offers her is: "Nothing you do will ever be okay with everybody. 'Everybody' is a large word. The real question is can you have sex and have it be okay with you?" There's no doubt that the casual question-and-answer format will help make God feel welcoming and accessible to teens. Conversations with God for Teens is the perfect gift purchase for parents, grandparents, and anyone else who wants to provide accessible spiritual content for the teen(s) in their lives.

More than 190,000 copies of Elizabeth George's Growth and Study Guides have been sold! Her newest one, based on her encouraging book Loving God with All Your Mind (more than 200,000 copies sold), provides insights and thoughtful questions to help women— focus on God and His principles for life turn daily struggles over to God apply God's truths to everyday life recognize and live God's purpose for their lives find peace in all circumstances Drawing on biblical wisdom, Elizabeth helps women sort through their emotions and find inner strength and peace by focusing on what is true and godly. For group or personal study.

Experience the Bible as a singular, powerful story and prepare to be swept away by Scripture as never before! Wangerin's "Bible storybook for adults" features brilliant settings, dramatized scenes, and added dialogue—all gleaned from extensive research. The Book of God reads like a novel, dramatizing the sweep of biblical events, bringing to life the men and women of this ancient book in vivid detail and dialogue. From Abraham wandering in the desert to Jesus teaching the multitudes on a Judean hillside, this award-winning bestseller follows the biblical story from start to finish. Priests and kings, apostles and prophets, common folk and charismatic leaders—individual stories offer glimpses into an unfolding revelation that reaches across the centuries to touch us today. The Book of God: Follows the biblical story in chronological order Filled with carefully researched cultural and historical background Includes biblical events viewed through the eyes of minor characters Master storyteller Walter Wangerin Jr. shares the story of the Bible from beginning to end as you've never read it before, retold with exciting detail and passionate energy. Experience the Bible in a beautiful new way!

Sproul's sermons at St. Andrew's Chapel are the foundation of these never-before-published expositions on Paul's epistle to the Romans. Chrysostom had it read aloud to him once a week. Augustine, Luther, and Wesley all came to assured faith through its impact. The Reformers saw it as the God-given key to understanding the whole of Scripture. Throughout church history the study of the book of Romans has been pivotal to understanding Christian life and doctrine. Convinced that "Paul's fullest, grandest, most comprehensive statement of the gospel" is just as vital today, R. C. Sproul delivered nearly sixty sermons on Romans from October 2005 to April 2007 at St. Andrew's Chapel, where he has pastored for more than a decade. These never-before-published, passage-by-passage expositions will enrich any study of this weighty epistle. Part of the St. Andrew's Expositional Commentaries series.