Taking Up The Cross

* Fresh insights into the power of New testament imagery to promote life as well as to perpetuate suffering * Close readings of New Testament narratives and metaphors for the suffering of Jesus

Does your church make you uncomfortable? It’s easy to dream about the “perfect” church—a church that sings just the right songs set to just the right music before the pastor preaches just the right sermon to a room filled with just the right mix of people who happen to agree with you on just about everything. Chances are your church doesn’t quite look like that. But what if instead of searching for a church that makes us comfortable, we learned to love our church, even when it’s challenging? What if some of the discomfort that we often experience is actually good for us? This book is a call to embrace the uncomfortable aspects of Christian community, whether that means believing difficult truths, pursuing difficult holiness, or loving difficult people—all for the sake of the gospel, God’s glory, and our joy.

"Revealing a biblical picture of what it means to truly be a Christian, Follow Him explores the gravity of what we must forsake in this world, as well as the indescribable joy and deep satisfaction to be found when we live for Christ"--

In this book, you will learn the essentials of what it truly means to take up your cross and follow Christ daily in your everyday life through the Holy Spirit. You will learn everything from being lights to the world, forgiving others, how Christianity is not a religion but a faith, walk, and a relationship. You will learn how to deal with giants, trials, and seasons of storms in your life, persevering through persecution, being a new creation in Christ and leaving your life of sin, the importance of daily repentance, the power of praying scripture to God, and finally, the gift of praying in the Holy Spirit and how He works in your life and in the church today. This book will guide you on how to live your everyday life for Christ and with Christ in a very simple but also deep read. I pray that everyone who reads this book will learn how to walk with Christ every day in every situation, no matter what may come your way through the love and power of the Holy Spirit.

There's Good News for the Weary Call it burnout, a spiritual breakdown, or a personal crisis, the toll of Bill Tell's decades of successful ministry finally caught up with him. Incapacitated and depressed, he found that the road to recovery began at the cross. To his delight, healing opened new freedoms as he embraced the gospel in new ways. Lay It Down: Living in the Freedom of the Gospel is a bold declaration of the overwhelming grace of God. More than merely saving us in our sin, by grace God delivers us from it, making us new creations and treating us accordingly--no matter what. For a generation of Christians who have learned a gospel of performance and striving, Lay It Down offers the good news of the grace that is already ours in Christ.

Think about sin and the cross—the way that salvation changes who we are and how God sees us. It’s a central part of our faith, and yet it’s one of the most confusing and difficult things to teach. Especially to a room full of teenagers. In Taking the Cross to Youth Ministry, Andrew Root invites you along on a journey with Nadia—a fictional youth worker who is wrestling with how to present the cross to her own students in a meaningful way. Using Nadia’s narrative, along with his own insights, Root helps you reimagine how the cross, sin, and salvation can be taught to students in a way that leads them to embrace a lifestyle that chases after Jesus, rather than creating teenagers who just try to “be good.”

Jesus said, "If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me." This great statement in the gospel of Matthew commands our attention by setting before us an ultimatum of the utmost importance. Have I denied myself and taken up my cross? Will I come after Him? If we take Jesus' words seriously and we are honest with ourselves we would rather avoid this great statement. Since when does self-denial and suffering determine whether or not we come after Jesus? Christians are being told that if they want to be a true disciple of Jesus then they must deny themselves and take up their cross. Yet, Jesus requires an absolute denial and death of self. Jesus has not made room for half measures or for a mere willingness to make the ultimate sacrifice. To misrepresent and misunderstand Jesus' great statement is as serious as the teaching is great. The purpose of this book is to exchange burdening error for the empowering truth of Jesus' great statement. By explaining the context and showing how Paul the apostle applied the teaching we provide the correct understanding, thereby, exposing the leaven of the Pharisees. Be refreshed by the truth of the gospel as you gain the correct understanding of Jesus' great statement. Jesus' cross is our only power to live and walk by the Spirit. This is essential reading for all Christians so that we might come after Jesus by the power of the cross and might know how to walk by the Spirit. Steven and his wife, Alison, live in Boise, Idaho, and have five children. He has authored Recanting Calvinism and has an Australian Bachelor of Theology, which is equivalent to a Masters of Divinity in the U.S.A. Visit traditionalbaptistchurch.com for information.