The Poor In Spirit

Jesus' first recorded sermon in the Bible is a blueprint for being happy here on earth. And though His definition contains no prescriptions for acquiring cars, homes, or savings, it does require transformation and obedience. MacArthur examines Jesus' timeless definition of happiness, and explains that our reward for following Jesus' plan is citizenship in the kingdom of God- and an abiding joy that can never be taken away. Study guide and review included for individual or group study.

Written over 400 years ago, Introduction to the Devout Life is still one of the most popular books for those pursuing holiness. St. Francis de Sales explains how to turn that desire for sanctity into resolutions that yield grace-filled results. Themes include: Pursuing a devout life whole-heartedly Incorporating prayer and sacraments into a busy schedule Growing in virtue Battling wisely against temptation Making spiritual progress through daily, monthly, and yearly exercises Whether you are just beginning your spiritual journey or are more advanced in the spiritual life, you’ll be able to apply this timeless wisdom immediately. Let St. Francis de Sales illumine the path to holiness and strengthen your desire to walk that road with the Lord. St. Francis de Sales (1567–1622) was the Bishop of Geneva and a renowned spiritual director. Preaching during the Counter-Reformation, he is estimated to have converted 70,000 Calvinists in his short lifetime. He was a fervent proponent of the universal call to holiness and spent much of his time guiding lay people on the road to sanctity. Declared a Doctor of the Church by Pope Pius IX in 1877, St. Francis is still helping to form saints through his many writings, of which Introduction to the Devout Life is the most famous.

An inclusive language version of the modern spiritual classic, an exquisitely beautiful meditation on the incarnation, on what it means to be fully human, and on finding the face of God hidden in our neighbors.

A popular explanation of the teaching of Jesus in his Sermon on the Mount and the events that follow.

Catholicism in China has had a history of over seven hundred years. Especially since the founding of New China, it has experienced many ups and downs, but its adherents have never disappeared. Especially in some out-of-the-way rural areas, Catholicism represents important spiritual sustenance for many, and penetrates all aspects of daily life.Yang Yankang spent ten years in the Shaanxi countryside creating his exquisite set of works documenting Chinese rural Catholics, The Poor in Spirit. With empathy and humour, he depicts churches and solemn ceremonies rising like apparitions in the remotest countryside; a wall calendar of celebrity photographs written over with a musical score, played by a group of women; dugouts and earth houses used for preaching and ministry; a rural family assembling a Christ figure; the pious faces of children singing; processions through the wheat fields of mourners in traditional Chinese funeral dress, carrying the coffin or shouldering a cross; a priest in ceremonial attire conducting mass for the sick in a maize field, and so on.Documentary photography practice in China started, in the late 1980s and early 1990s, with a focus on people marginalized by the mainstream (psychiatric patients, homosexuals, transgender people, Catholics, free artists, etc.), and on vulnerable groups deliberately neglected by the powerful elites. These images by Yang Yankang demonstrate a courage in facing Chinese social reality - the images themselves have a visual intensity, and the photographer expresses compassion through them.

We all admire humility when we see it. But how do we practice it? How does humility--the foundational virtue of the normal Christian life--become a normal part of our everyday lives? Jerry Bridges sees in the Beatitudes a series of blessings from Jesus, a pattern for humility in action. Starting with poverty in spirit--an acknowledgment that in and of ourselves we are incapable of living holy lives pleasing to God--and proceeding through our mourning over personal sin, our hunger and thirst for righteousness, our experience of persecutions large and small, and more, we discover that humility is itself a blessing: At every turn, God is present to us, giving grace to the humble and lifting us up to blessing.

When Jesus left the most exclusive gated community in the universe to come live with the people he loved and gave his life for, he turned everything we know and believe about life on its head. Jesus said that he came to bring good news to the poor, but most Western Christians remain disconnected and isolated from the poor and their contexts of injustice. Even our churches echo society’s pressure to isolate ourselves from the margins (e.g. by moving to a better suburb) and instead teach us how to be “nice people” who worship a “nice Jesus” and don’t disrupt the status quo. Convinced that Jesus places love for the poor and the pursuit of justice central, Craig Greenfield has sought to follow in Christ’s footsteps by living among people at the edges of society for the last fourteen years. His quest to follow this Subversive Jesus has taken Craig and his young family from the slums of Asia to inner city Canada and back again. This is the story of how Jesus led them to the margins: initiating the Pirates of Justice flash mobs, sharing their home with detoxing crackheads, welcoming homeless panhandlers and prostitutes to the dinner table, and ultimately sparking a movement to reach the world’s most vulnerable children. This book is a strong and potentially controversial critique of the status quo too often found in our churches, but it offers an inspirational and hopeful vision of another way. While readers may not relocate to a slum, they will certainly come to view their lives and ministry through a fresh lens—reconsidering how they are uniquely called by Jesus to subversively love the poor and break down systems of injustice in their sphere of influence.