Showing results by narrator "Lyle Blaker" in All Categories

From Genesis to Revelation, the theme of the royal priesthood runs through the biblical story from the garden of Eden through the priesthood of Israel to Jesus Christ―the true and better high priest. It culminates with the creation of God’s new covenant people, called out of the nations to be his priests to the nations. In this concise treatment, David Schrock traces this theme of priesthood throughout the Bible and displays to readers how Jesus, the great high priest, informs the worship, discipleship, and evangelism of the church.

In Wondrous Love, world-renowned evangelist Dwight L. Moody delivers a series of powerful gospel messages originally preached in London during his late 19th-century evangelistic campaigns. With heartfelt urgency and Christ-centered compassion, Moody speaks directly to the lost, the backslider, and the spiritually hungry, calling all to experience the life-transforming love of God through Jesus Christ.

In The Four Ages of American Foreign Policy, Michael Mandelbaum offers a new framework for understanding the evolution of the foreign policy of the United States. He divides that evolution into four distinct periods, with each defined by the consistent increase in American power relative to other countries. His history of the four periods features engaging accounts of the major events and important personalities in the foreign policy of each era.

To find important life answers in your 20s, you need to start with good questions. Author, speaker, and blogger Paul Angone has dedicated the last 12 years to helping twentysomethings and captures the hilarious, freakishly accurate assessment of life as a modern-day twentysomething (and thirtysomething) facing real millennial problems to give listeners wisdom through major life questions.

The heart of man is his worst part before it is regenerated, and the best part afterward. It is the seat of principles, and the fountain of actions. The greatest difficulty in conversion is to win the heart to God. The greatest difficulty after conversion is to keep the heart with God. For out of it [the heart] are the issues of life. In other words, the heart is the source of all vital operations; it is the origin of both good and evil, just as the spring in a watch that sets all the wheels in motion.

As both a pastor and a parent, Cameron S. Shaffer is alarmed by the mass exodus of young people from the church over the past couple decades. The rise of the Nones and exvangelicals is clear evidence that our current children's and youth ministry practices are ineffective and must change if we want to stem the tide of dechurching. Whatever we're doing now is not creating lifelong disciples.

Created for the next generation of believers, the dynamic new Holy Spirit Essentials series introduces foundations of faith for living a Spirit-empowered life. Taken from the trusted teachings of leading Christian voices, these updated, concise, accessible overviews include real-world applications, related Scriptures, and prayers.

Creativity is the key driver of innovation, but too many teams and projects are organized in ways that stifle new ideas. It's your job as a manager to create the right conditions for creativity to thrive—and to be part of the process yourself.

Praying should be as urgent and necessary to us as breathing—yet all too often we're bored by it, distracted from it, or uncertain of its purpose. Yet we have many reasons to be excited about prayer. It is the glue that bonds our hearts to the Lord. God commands us to pray, and he graciously answers our prayers. As we pour out our hearts to him, we and the world around us will be changed. Informative, encouraging, and practical, this brief book will serve as a primer for pastors, elders, study groups, and Christians who seek encouragement and instruction on prayer and its blessings.

What do you do when it feels like God isn’t there―when the state of the world, our own suffering, or the struggles of those we know suggest that God is absent? When you’ve experienced soul-crushing silence from heaven, despite your fervent supplications? Looking at Habakkuk, Job, David, and Jesus, as well as reflecting on his own experience of deep suffering, Adam Mabry examines the art of lament―how to cry out to God in desperation from a place of faith and hope. At the end, there are practical suggestions for what you can do to keep faith even in times of darkness and doubt.

Suspenseful military space fleet adventure and hard science fiction come together in this series of future space colonization in the Alpha Centauri star system. Captain James Van Wert leads a team into the very heart of the insurgency in a desperate attempt to tip the scales in favor of the fleet, and comes face-to-face with the separatist leaders. Meanwhile, CPF leader Rusla Skjaldmaer makes a rash decision to bolster the strength of the insurgency for the looming confrontation with the fleet.

Why do we buy what we buy, vote the way we vote, eat what we eat, and say what we say? Why do we have the friends we have, and work and play as we do? It's our choice? Yes, but there are forces, often unseen, that shape every decision we make and every action we take. These hidden, life-shaping values and ideas are not promoted through organized religions or rival philosophies but fostered by cultural habits, lifestyles and the institutional structures of society. 

When student Tim Journeyman first wrote to family friend Dr. Paul Woodson, he didn't know it would start a fifteen-year mentorship that would shape his life and Christian faith. Within their candid letters are words of real-world wisdom—from a "senior saint" to a "junior saint"—covering various areas of living, from the theological to the everyday. Written as fictional correspondence between two men at different stages of life and faith, the novel Letters Along the Way provides important biblical perspectives.

As a spiritual pilgrim for more than half a century, Jon Sweeney has practiced with teachers of many religious traditions. He's gone looking for wisdom, beauty, and truth wherever it can be found. But recently he's found himself learning closer to home—from the teacher-cats he lives with. What he discovered is that our greatest spiritual teachers are at our feet. Literally. They are the cats we love and treasure.

This volume of six linked stories and the novella from which the book derives its title is set in Port William from 1908 to the Second World War. Here Wendell Berry introduces two of his more indelible and poignant characters, Ptolemy Proudfoot and his wife Miss Minnie, remarkable for the comic and affectionate range that—with the mastery of this consummate storyteller working at the height of his powers—here approaches the Shakespearean.

From John Calvin until today, Reformed theology and worship have acknowledged Word and sacrament as central to its Christian identity. By exploring key liturgies, confessions, directories for worship, and theological movements, this book examines common theological themes and commitments that have undergirded worship as well as ways that our understandings and practices have developed in light of new contexts and challenges.

Many listeners have heard C. S. Lewis's logical arguments for the Christian faith. Yet throughout his wide-ranging study and writing, Lewis often began with experience, intuition, and religious feeling rather than dogmatic assertions. The most profound questions of Lewis's own life, argues theologian and literary critic Jeffrey Barbeau, can be seen in his quest to understand the relationship between personal experience and the truth about the world around him.

Following the Front is a compilation of WWII dispatches written by Sidney A. Olson for TIME and LIFE magazines, 1944-1945. Olson, who joined Time Inc. in 1939 and served as a senior editor there, asked to be assigned overseas as a war correspondent. In mid-December, 1944, he received his accreditation from the War Department and sailed for London. Attached to the European Theater of Operations (ETO), Olson followed the Allied Forces as they pushed the Nazis back into Germany. He typed up his reports and cabled them to his editors in New York.

Money issues are a frequent source of conflict in any marriage. But blended families are a monetary minefield. Debts, bills, and child support payments from previous relationships often influence the finances of a blended family. And planning for college expenses, retirement, and inheritance gets even more complicated in stepfamilies. 

Despite growing secularization, our culture still pays a lot of attention to the devil. He shows up everywhere from movies to music and is blamed for all sorts of crimes, natural disasters, and the policies of politicians we don't like. Yet in the Bible, Satan is barely present, barely speaks, and is subject to God's authority. So how has he gotten so much airtime in the lives of Christians and the wider culture? Award-winning biographer Jared Brock sorts through the myths and misinformation about the devil, revealing a biblical adversary we need to know.