At a more rapid pace than ever, we are all journeying through this treacherous life and sometimes we lose sight of God’s goodness and the redemptive grace God has for each of us. Finding God’s Grace in This Messy World is a Bible study that helps the reader dig into the Bible and study the life of a deceptive man named Jacob who found God’s beautiful grace even though he made so many mistakes. Read and discover that God’s saving grace is waiting for each of us, as well. Join Angela Banae Patterson in this four week study as you learn how to study the Bible. Through Angela’s wit and her personal stories, you’ll see the beauty of God woven in her life and though she has fallen short time and time again, she has always felt the forgiveness of her Father. Throughout this book, you’ll: • Study how God richly displayed His grace to a deceptive man, Jacob. • Reflect on your own memories and see how God is working in your life. • Learn how God’s grace and forgiveness is readily available to each of us, no matter what tarnished past we may have. • Discover how God can change us to live a life more boldly for Him as we draw closer to Jesus.

Walking the tightrope of home and parish life for clergy parents is notoriously difficult in all the mainline Protestant denominations, but most books on ordination and vocation ignore the question of family life. The ordination of women, the prevalence of two-career marriages, the increasing need to care for aging family members, and the recognition of non-traditional families have shed new light on clergy family dynamics within the family and the church. This book uses accounts of experiences gathered through interviews and surveys of clergy and their family members, primarily in the Episcopal Diocese of Newark. Its ultimate goal is to develop a holistic theology of vocation that has implications for the church, the clergy, and all families and nourishes and protects faith and family life.

Jesus gave us the Lord's Prayer to teach us how to live a life of prayer – with our identity as a child of God, a vision to bring God's Kingdom on earth and the mission to do God's will as it is done in heaven. We are to pray for God's daily providences, pardon and protection from evil so that God's Kingdom, power and glory will be seen in our lives and in the world.The best way to live the Lord's Prayer in our daily lives is to enthrone Jesus as Lord so that He will be our Shepherd. We can then be S.H.E.E.P. - Seeing Heaven Everyday in Every Person as our eyes are opened to see God's abundance. God wants us to live our lives out of love and not out fear. To do so we address the myths of scarcity – False Evidence Appearing Real. We are living in a meritocratic, materialistic and goal centred society. Jesus came, died and rose from the dead to be our Good Shepherd so that we can live peaceful and joyful N.A.T.O. lives – lives that are Not Attached To Outcomes. Jesus came to give us the perfect rest in a busy world. Discerning God’s guidance for our lives is not a tedious journey when we learn to dance with God. We can seek God’s perfect will through the guidance of the Holy Spirit when we see GUIDANCE as God-U-I-Dance. Our relationship with God determines the way we pray. When we see Jesus Christ as our Divine Lover, the disciplines of surrender, repentance, self-examination and confession become a rhythm of God’s grace.The Christian journey is not a walk through a rose garden for we need to face the reality of suffering, death and evil. Death is inevitable but in Christ we can have the L.A.T.E. (Love Always Trumps Evil) faith. Jesus guides us with His rod of discipline and leads us out of temptation so that we can live a life without fear of evil.Our Shepherd of Love came not only to lead us out of the valley of the shadow of death – He came to be the sacrificial Lamb of God to set us free from the prison of guilt. Heaven is not just a place we go after we die. When Jesus is our Good Shepherd, heaven is the celebration feast of our restored and redeemed fellowship with God. Jesus came to give us the Holy Communion as God’s means of grace. God’s G.R.A.C.E. is free but not cheap – it is sacrificial for it is God’s Riches At Christ’s Expense. Living in crazy and capricious times lead us to F.A.I.L. – Find Answers In Life. It is folly to expect the right answers when we are asking the wrong questions. Even when we are asking the right questions, wrong answers can be the runways to find the right answer. To F.A.I.L. (Find Answers In Life) is to live out the answers to the questions that life throws at us through spiritual discipline that keeps us close the our Shepherd of Love. As we learn to rest in the Lord, we will SeeHis EternalPlanHelping Everyone Rest toDiscover peace in His everlasting HandsWith Jesus as our Shepherd of Love, we can live a life of prayer that is rooted in our identity as a child of God, filled with a vision to bring God’s kingdom on earth and a passion for the mission to do God’s will on earth as it is done in heaven. And we will be filled with the blessed assurance that goodness and mercy will follow us all the days of our lives and we will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

Moore draws on both Scripture and his extensive experience with other cultures and religions to show how the God of the Bible is unique in his willingness to be near us in all of our messiness.

Many times in life, the unexpected happens to us, or to someone else, and many times it is a tragic incident. In 2017 our youngest son took his own life. It was unexpected. It was a complete surprise. To us, he seemed to be living a full, God-honoring life. How do you explain such a tragedy? How do you explain that unexpected tragedy in your life? There is a reason for that, which is explained in the Bible. This book will help you make sense out of things, which ordinarily, in your human understanding, makes no sense. Using the Bible as our guide, we will pull back the curtain of the unexpected and find not only answers, but hope that will help you to cope with your shock and grief. This book contains answers to questions about life's incidents and tragedies we can't explain in human terms. We will draw the curtain back on God's perspective and plan, and the spiritual warfare that is at play in all our lives. We cannot always see behind the scenes when events happen, but this book will give you hope and healing in knowing that God is in control and has a plan in it all.

Suffering engulfs our lives in an unavoidable darkness, leaving answers and explanations obscured like a sorrowful fog. The gospel of Christ, however, gives us something infinitely more valuable than answers or explanations. Finding God in the Darkness: Hopeful Reflections from the Pits of Depression, Despair, and Disappointment is not an attempt to decode or decipher every nook and cranny of sorrow and suffering. It is a journey wherein faith, hope, and love are unexpectedly found along the way, in the midst of darkness. Much to our surprise, that' s where God shows up, too.

How should Christians relate to the difficult and contradictory messages of modern movies? In Useless Beauty, Robert K. Johnston presents the bold position that films can be our "eyeglasses and hearing aids" in understanding the Book of Ecclesiastes. Taking up movies such as American Beauty, Magnolia, and About Schmidt, he addresses such biblical issues as life and death, chance and choice, loneliness and connection, and God's presence and absence to deepen our understanding of life's beauty amid its confusion and pain. Christian filmgoers, pastors, and youth leaders will find Johnston's book a valuable source of insight into the relationship between Christianity and popular culture.

Morality based on natural law has a long tradition, and has proven to be quite resilient in the face of numerous attacks and challenges over the years. Those challenges are no less serious today, which leads one to ask if natural law is still a viable foundation for ethics. Craig Boyd provides a contemporary defense of natural law theory against modern challenges from the arenas of science, religion, culture, and philosophy. In his analysis, he defends many of the classical elements of natural law, but also takes into account the contributions of scientific discoveries about human nature. He concludes that natural law is a necessary but not sufficient basis for ethics that must be accompanied by a theory of virtue.

Black Diamond is a southern girl growing up with two addicted parents who is lonely, lost, angry, and confused but ambitious and determined to become a better person and do better in life and with a great love for God through faith, prayers, and hard work despite Diamond's struggles, upbringing, failures, great losses, and many years of physical, mental, and sexual abuse. God showed her grace for being faithful and pure at heart, changing her life from victim into victor and helping Diamond to overcome every adversity. This book is based on a true story, showing us how God can take our lives from a mess and turn it into a miracle, making the impossible possible as long as we don't give up on ourselves. This heartwarming story is sure to help those in need of a miracle to keep hope over helplessness when facing hard times, to offer generosity instead of judgment, and to keep God first in everything. House Full of Prayers is a book to motivate, uplift, and encourage all of God's children who are struggling with something to never give up no matter where they come from, what they have done in the past, their race, size, or gender. Showing us that, through prayer, hard work, and faith in God, dreams really do come true. We can achieve anything with God. Nothing is impossible. With God at the head of our lives, we should be happy with who he has created us to be and enjoy each day as a gift given by God himself, because faith in God gives us peace, freedom, and confidence. Without faith, it is impossible to do what God's standards demand because our human nature is weak. God has placed each of us in a prison of our own disobedience so that he may be merciful to, us because his riches, wisdom, and knowledge are so deep that it is impossible to explain his decisions or to understand his ways, but one thing is for sure; everything is from God, by God, and for God. Glory belongs to him forever, so we should dedicate our lives to God.