Chris Castaldo, director of Ministry of Gospel Renewal for the Billy Graham Center, writes about religious freedom and Cardinal Timothy Dolan, author of an original eBook by our sister imprint Image Books. The article can be read here.
Worship is simply about value. The simplest definition I can give is this: Worship is our response to what we value most.
That’s why worship is that thing we all do. It’s what we’re all about on any given day. Because worship is about saying, “This person, this thing, this experience (this whatever) is what matters most to me it’s the thing I put first in my life.”
That “thing” might be a relationship. A dream. Friends. Status. Stuff. A name. Some kind of pleasure. Whatever name you put on it, this thing or person is what you’ve concluded in your heart is worth most to you. And whatever is worth most to you isyou guessed itwhat you worship.
Worship tells us what we value most. As a result, worship determines our actions, becoming the driving force for all we do… [ … ]
Historical fiction writer Jane Kirkpatrick, author of Where Lilacs Still Bloom, is featured in the Oregonian. To learn more about Kirkpatrick’s own real-life history and how she started writing novels, click here.
The Widow of Saunders Creek, by Tracey Bateman, was featured on USA Today’s “Happily Ever After” blog. Go here to read why this book is “fresh, compelling, romantic and a little bit scary.” The book was also reviewed on BookReporter.com, available here.
Whenever goal keeping characterizes my day, I find that I am intense and joyless. Goals make my life hard. They often become an end in themselves instead of useful tools. Goal keeping even becomes a way that I measure my worth; it keeps me focused on the destination instead of the journey.
I’ve learned the hard way that goal obsession is not freedom. Jesus came that I might live a very different way. His purpose for my life is characterized by hopes, not goals. Hopes are not demands, not measurements, not burdens; they reveal direction for my life and show me what to long for. Yet, unlike goals, hopes demand nothing of me.
Living a life set free to hope is living a life of joy.
Excerpted from 101 Cups of Water by CD Baker
Daily Reflection:
How [ … ]
Canada’s only national weekly current affairs magazine MACLEANS, reaching 2.4 million readers, featured Cleaning House author Kay Wills Wyma. Click here to read!
If I fail to live as I’m instructed, I undermine my own credibility to remind or teach my family to live as they’re instructed. How can I credibly teach others to obey God if I don’t? You and I need to make sure we are obeying as well, and that we are providing a climate where obedience can flourish.
Such a climate begins with our own respect for and adherence to Scripture. We cannot take our cues from our culture. We must return to drink deeply from the headwaters. Christian thought springs directly from the nature of God and its revelation in His Word. Every major tenant of our faith is a matter of revelation not explanation. Each is a mystery to be learned no way other than by revelation. We know what we know by taking Him at [ … ]
The signature of Jesus, the Cross, is the ultimate expression of God’s love for the world. The church is the church of the crucified, risen Christ only when it is stamped with his signature; only when it faces outward and moves with him along the way of the Cross. Turned inward upon itself in bickering and theological hairsplitting, the church loses its identity and its mission.
Excerpted from The Signature of Jesus by Brennan Manning
Daily Reflection:
Is the signature of Jesus stamped on your life?
In her debut book, Katie Gansherts rich modern characters grapple with the questions of life over death, happiness over grief, and God over self. These questions confront heroine Bethany Quinn most as she loses her worldly security and has to find out whether giving up her life can lead to true freedom and love.
In the silence I heard two sentences. The first was “Why don’t you let the church relax and be who I made her to be?” The second was “Why don’t you relax and be who I made you to be?” That was it. As fast as the moment had come, it was over.
I began to cry again. Other than the first moment when I knew I was forgiven and accepted by God, when I was seven years old, I had never heard more liberating words. How simple. How profound. How consistent with all that I knew about God and his love for me. If God had indeed
created me, then why didn’t I trust how God intended to use me? Doesn’t it make sense that with God, the Ultimate Designer, form and function would be totally aligned?
Excerpted [ … ]
Chris Castaldo, director of Ministry of Gospel Renewal for the Billy Graham Center, writes about religious freedom and