Explaining how to become a Christian hedonist, a bestselling author offers guidance on how to find spiritual joy to readers who are unsure of where to seek it.

for every healthy tree bears good fruit --; Demand #28 : love your enemies--lead them to the truth --; Demand #29 : love your enemies--pray for those who abuse you --; Demand #30 : love your enemies--do good to those who hate you, give to the one who asks --; Demand #31 : love your enemies to show that you are children of God --; Demand #32 : love your neighbor as yourself,

True faith is hard. More than mere sentimentalism, faith often calls for a deep and resilient trust in God—especially when the going gets tough and the road is dark. In Things Not Seen, author Jon Bloom encourages readers with 35 imaginative retellings of stories from the Bible that illustrate the importance of living by faith. A follow-up to the author's previous book, Not by Sight: A Fresh Look at Old Stories of Walking by Faith, this inspiring volume explores the lives of Abraham, Moses, Saul, John the Baptist, and more—helping readers remember God's promises, rely on his grace, and follow his leading regardless of the circumstances. The book includes a foreword by popular author and blogger Ann Voskamp.

Trusting Jesus is hard. It requires following the unseen into an unknown, and believing Jesus's words over and against the threats we see or the fears we feel. Through the imaginative retelling of 35 Bible stories, Not by Sight gives us glimpses of what it means to walk by faith and counsel for how to trust God's promises more than our perceptions and to find rest in the faithfulness of God.

"Besides Jesus, no one has kept me from despair, or taken me deeper into the mysteries of the gospel, than the apostle Paul." —John Piper No one has had a greater impact on the world for eternal good than the apostle Paul—except Jesus himself. For John Piper, this impact is very personal. He does not just admire and trust Paul. He loves him. Piper gives us thirty glimpses into why his heart and mind respond this way. Can a Christian-killer really endure 195 lashes from a heart of love? Can a mystic who thinks he was caught up into heaven be a model of lucid rationality? Can an ethnocentric Jew write the most beautiful call to reconciliation? Can a person who lives with the unceasing anguish of empathy be always rejoicing? Can a man's description of the horrors of human sin be exceeded by his delight in human splendor? Can a man with a backbone of steel be as tender as a nursing mother? If we know this man—if we see what Piper sees—we too will love him. Paul's testimony is a matter of life and death. Piper invites you into his relationship with Paul in the hope that you will know life, forever.

In his two previous books translated into English, Patience with God and Night of the Confessor, best-selling Czech author and theologian Tomáš Halík focused on the relationship between faith and hope. Now, in I Want You to Be, Halík examines the connection between faith and love, meditating on a statement attributed to St. Augustine—amo, volo ut sis, “I love you: I want you to be”—and its importance for contemporary Christian practice. Halík suggests that because God is not an object, love for him must be expressed through love of human beings. He calls for Christians to avoid isolating themselves from secular modernity and recommends instead that they embrace an active and loving engagement with nonbelievers through acts of servitude. At the same time, Halík critiques the drive for mere material success and suggests that love must become more than a private virtue in contemporary society. I Want You to Be considers the future of Western society, with its strong division between Christian and secular traditions, and recommends that Christians think of themselves as partners with nonbelievers. Halik’s distinctive style is to present profound insights on religious themes in an accessible way to a lay audience. As in previous books, this volume links spiritual and theological/philosophical topics with a tentative diagnosis of our times. This is theology written on one’s knees; Halik is as much a spiritual writer as a theologian. I Want You to Be will interest both general and scholarly readers interested in questions of secularism and Christianity in modern life.

Based on Kurt Bennett's popular-ish blog God Running, Love Like Jesus begins with the story of how after a life of regular church attendance and Bible study, Bennett was challenged by a pastor to study Jesus. That led to an obsessive seven-year deep dive. After pouring over Jesus' every interaction with another human being, he realized he was doing a much better job of studying Jesus' words than he was following Jesus' words and example. The honest and fearless revelations of Bennett's own moral failures affirm he wrote this book for himself as much as for others. Love Like Jesus examines a variety of stories, examples, and research, including: -Specific examples of how Jesus communicated God's love to others. -How Jesus demonstrated all five of Gary Chapman's love languages (and how you can too). -The story of how Billy Graham extended Christ's extraordinary love and grace toward a man who misrepresented Jesus to millions. -How to respond to critics the way Jesus did. -How to love unlovable people the way Jesus did. -How to survive a life of loving like Jesus (or how not to become a Christian doormat). -How Jesus didn't love everyone the same (and why you shouldn't either). -How Jesus guarded his heart by taking care of himself--he even napped--and why you should do the same.-How Jesus loved his betrayer Judas, even to the very end. With genuine unfiltered honesty, Love Like Jesus, shows you how to live a life according to God's definition of success: A life of loving God well, and loving the people around you well too. A life of loving like Jesus.