Heaven Is Empty

Offers a new perspective on the relationship between religion and the creation of the first Chinese empires. Heaven Is Empty offers a new comparative perspective on the role of the sacred in the formation of China’s early empires (221 BCE–9 CE) and shows how the unification of the Central States was possible without a unitary and universalistic conception of religion. The cohesive function of the ancient Mediterranean cult of the divinized ruler was crucial for the legitimization of Rome’s empire across geographical and social boundaries. Eventually reelaborated in Christian terms, it came to embody the timelessness and universality of Western conceptions of legitimate authority, while representing an analytical template for studying other ancient empires. Filippo Marsili challenges such approaches in his examination of the reign of Emperor Wu of the Han (141–87 BCE). Wu purposely drew from regional traditions and tried to gain the support of local communities through his patronage of local cults. He was interested in rituals that envisioned the monarch as a military leader, who directly controlled the land and its resources, as a means for legitimizing radical administrative and economic centralization. In reconstructing this imperial model, Marsili reinterprets fragmentary official accounts in light of material evidence and noncanonical and recently excavated texts. In bringing to life the courts, battlefields, markets, shrines, and pleasure quarters of early imperial China, Heaven Is Empty provides a postmodern and postcolonial reassessment of “religion” before the arrival of Buddhism and challenges the application of Greco-Roman and Abrahamic systemic, identitary, and exclusionary notions of the “sacred” to the analysis of pre-Christian and non-Western realities. Filippo Marsili is Associate Professor of History at Saint Louis University.

Author and minister Asfaw Berhane shares his supernatural experiences, including visitations from Jesus and angelic beings, that gave him a revelation into heaven and hell. He not only shares his personal testimony but discusses the supernatural topics of dreams, visions, and the Tribulation. Throughout the book, Scripture references are given to support the visions and visitations. This is not a scare tactic but rather solid teaching on heaven and hell that will inspire readers toward righteousness and the pursuit of a tangible relationship with Christ. The purpose of the message is to show heaven is a reality and that living purely is not an option but a must.

Every day, millions of people who don't know Jesus Christ as their Savior move farther down the dark road to destruction. But as international evangelist Reinhard Bonnke says, hell was never designed for people, and heaven is expecting them! Tens of millions of people have come to know Christ through Reinhard's ministry. In this book, he shares his contagious passion for bringing the gospel to the lost. Each chapter in Hell Empty, Heaven Full discusses biblical stories that highlight how God's priority is saving people and how He wants us to join Him in that process. As Reinhard says, "Our calling is to put a kind hand on the shoulder of the world and turn it round to see God. It will adore Him. The Lord is the Savior.... He loves because to love gives Him joy. He loves beyond all the parameters of human affection and makes even the assault of the cross an expression of His love. His pain asserts it. He finds satisfaction in giving, pouring Himself out to us, surrounding us with wonders, making His redeemed the garden of delight in which He walks. To proclaim the gospel is to move for Him, act with Him, love in Him, and delight in His joy as the privilege, meaning and purpose of all life." Filled with vivid illustrations, this book is designed to show you how to reach the lost as Jesus did: with the passion and compassion of the heavenly Father.

Every day, millions of people who don’t know Jesus Christ as their Savior move farther down the dark road to destruction. But as international evangelist Reinhard Bonnke says, hell was never designed for people, and heaven is expecting them! Tens of millions of people have come to know Christ through Reinhard's ministry. In this book, he shares his contagious passion for bringing the gospel to the lost. Each chapter in Hell Empty, Heaven Full discusses biblical stories that highlight how God’s priority is saving people and how He wants us to join Him in that process. As Reinhard says, “Our calling is to put a kind hand on the shoulder of the world and turn it round to see God. It will adore Him. The Lord is the Savior.… He loves because to love gives Him joy. He loves beyond all the parameters of human affection and makes even the assault of the cross an expression of His love. His pain asserts it. He finds satisfaction in giving, pouring Himself out to us, surrounding us with wonders, making His redeemed the garden of delight in which He walks. To proclaim the gospel is to move for Him, act with Him, love in Him, and delight in His joy as the privilege, meaning and purpose of all life.” Filled with vivid illustrations, this book is designed to show you how to reach the lost as Jesus did: with the passion and compassion of the heavenly Father.

Berhane retells a stunning personal experience of how he saw the living Christ 11 times, went to Heaven four times, and was visited by angels six times. (Practical Life)

It's amazing how heavy the weight of emptiness can feel, how much room it can take up in our souls, how much pain can be caused by something that isn't even there.But while we may see the emptiness of our lives as our greatest problem, that's not how God sees it. When God looks into the empty places of our lives, He sees His greatest opportunity. God does His best work in the emptiness of our . . . Insatiable craving for things that don't satisfy Relational disappointments and loneliness Frustrated search for purpose and meaning Relentless desire for comfort and security Ongoing struggle to live with loss and unfulfilled dreams Join Nancy Guthrie in discovering why emptiness has never been, and never will be, a problem to God. As Nancy pulls back the curtain on God's work to fill up emptiness as revealed throughout the Bible, you'll experience page after page of grace and hope that your emptiness can and will be filled. You'll begin to see that God really does do His best work with empty--as he fills it with Himself.

In The Better Part of Heaven , Ken Norris deepens and extends both the form and content of his expanding body of work. A poetic journal of a journey through the South Pacific, it builds on both the Japanese and Canadian traditions of the travel poem/text, establishing the earthly journey as a metaphor for both a spiritual & an emotional quest.