Saddleback Church

A renowned teacher and writer of the acclaimed The Spirit of the Disciplines, Dallas Willard, one of today's most brilliant Christian thinkers now offers a timely and challenging call back to the true meaning of Christian discipleship. In The Divine Conspiracy, Willard gracefully weaves biblical teaching, popular culture, science, scholarship, and spiritual practice into a tour de force that shows the necessity of profound changes in how we view our lives and faith. In an era when many Christians consider Jesus a beloved but remote savior, Willard argues compellingly for the relevance of God to every aspect of our existence. Masterfully capturing the central insights of Christ's teachings in a fresh way for today's seekers, he helps us to explore a revolutionary way to experience God—by knowing Him as an essential part of the here and now, rather than only as a part of the hereafter.

"The most telling thing about the contemporary Christian," Willard writes, "is that he or she has no compelling sense that understanding of and conformity with the clear teachings of Christ is of any vital importance to [their] life, and certainly not that it is in any way essential . . . Such obedience is regarded as just out of the question or impossible." Christians, he says, for the most part consider the primary function of Christianity to be admittance to heaven. But, as Willard clearly shows, a faith that guarantees a satisfactory afterlife, yet has absolutely no impact on life in the here and now, is nothing more than "consumer Christianity" and "bumper-sticker faith."

Willard refutes this "fire escape" mentality by exploring the true nature of the teachings of Jesus, who intended that His followers become His disciples, and taught that we have access now to the life we are only too eager to relegate to the hereafter. The author calls us into a more authentic faith and offers a practical plan by which we can become Christ-like. He challenges us to step aside from the politics and pieties of contemporary Christian practice and inspires us to reject the all too common lukewarm faith of our times by embracing the true meaning of Christian discipleship.

Is an imposter robbing you of God's love? Many of us live with an awareness that our lives are ridden with anxiety, guilt, and a lack of joy and passion. Our relationship with God and our relationships with others fall far short of our expectations and hopes. In a desperate attempt to make ourselves acceptable before God and others, we hide our true selves and present an imposter to the world—someone we hope will be accepted. The liberating message of this book is that God longs for us to know in the depths of our being that He loves and accepts us as we are. God is our "Abba," our loving Father, who knows us far better than we know ourselves. The shocking revelation of this book is two-fold. Sin has a far greater grip on our hearts and lives than we imagine. And God, who knows this full well, loves us far more than we can imagine, and longs to bring us into deeper, more joyful, passionate fellowship with Himself. This is a book for people who are tired of the shallowness and hollowness of superficial relationships—relationships that require them to keep up pretenses. It is for those who are willing to risk being exposed for who they really are and to be loved by a God who doesn't want them to pretend they are something they are not.

What caused a former Dallas Seminary professor to believe that the miraculous gifts of the Holy Spirit are being given today? What convinced someone skeptical about miracles that God still speaks and heals? A dramatic change took place in Jack Deere's life when he took a fresh look at the Scriptures. He discovered that his arguments against miraculous gifts were based more on prejudice and lack of personal experience than on the Bible. As soon as Deere became a seeker instead of a skeptic, the Holy Spirit revealed himself in new and surprising ways.

In Surprised by the Power of the Spirit, Deere provides a strong biblical defense for the Spirit's speaking and healing ministries today. He also describes several reliable cases of people who were miraculously healed or who heard God speak in an unmistakable way. Finally, he gives sound advice for using spiritual gifts in the church. Written in a popular style, with the care of a scholar but the passion of personal experience, this book explores: the real reason Christians do not believe in miraculous gifts, responding to charismatic abuses, whether miracles were meant to be temporary, and why God still heals.

John Piper's Let the Nations Be Glad! has provided thousands of missionaries, pastors, and church leaders with a biblical basis for missions. Piper now offers a revised and expanded tenth anniversary edition of this sound, readable, and passionate defense of God's supremacy in all things.

Drawing on biblical texts, Piper demonstrates that worship is the ultimate goal of the church and that proper worship drives missionary outreach. Among the topics addressed are the role of prayer, suffering and sacrifice, universalism, the incentives of sovereign grace for world evangelization, and the task of reaching new peoples.

This new edition contains updated references to contemporary literature and debates and new illustrations and quotations. This edition also boasts a new preface and two new chapters, the first encouraging passion for God's supremacy and compassion for man's soul and the second providing reflections on the New Testament and its cross-cultural vision for missions.

Jesus swept onto the scene declaring that the Kingdom of God had arrived! He proclaimed that we would experience life at its fullest only when we organize our lives around the Kingdom. E. Stanley Jones suggests that life in any other way is a muddled, maddening, and impossible way to live. Throughout the centuries we have lost the Kingdom as a clearly defined and workable system for order and influence in our daily lives. We have reduced the Kingdom by putting it into narrower molds, a refuge now, a present security, a future hope, anything but the Kingdom as Jesus preached it —"God's total answer to man's total need now." Dr. Jones shows us how to claim our spiritual heritage and the abundant life promised us by embracing the Kingdom and person of Jesus. He suggests how our experience with God and His Kingdom should be taught and shared in the life of the individual, in the life of the church and in the nations of the world.

People today reject Christianity not because they think it is false but because they believe it is irrelevant. John Stott knows otherwise. In this book, he challenges all of us to move with the times while standing firmly on the truth of God's Word. "To be 'contemporary' is to live in the present," Stott writes. "To be a 'contemporary Christian,' however, is to ensure that our present is enriched both by our knowledge of the past and by our expectation of the future." The challenge, then, is to be both conservative and radical—conservative in guarding God's revelation and radical in applying that revelation to the realities of the contemporary world: space travel, homelessness, genetic engineering, pollution, war, health care, gang violence, education and more.

Opening our eyes to the Word and the world, Stott shows how Christianity can speak effectively and relevantly to the contemporary world. He includes chapters on the human paradox, authentic freedom, mind and emotions, evangelism and social action, the pastoral ideal and dimensions of renewal. For those familiar with Stott, The Contemporary Christian is a "must-read" book. For those who have not yet benefited from his insight and passion, The Contemporary Christian affords the perfect opportunity to get acquainted with one of the most widely read and respected Christian thinkers at work today. Recipient of a Christianity Today 1994 Critics Choice Award.

Arguably the 20th century's most influential Christian writer, C.S. Lewis sought to explain and defend the beliefs that nearly all Christians at all times hold in common. His simple yet deeply profound classic, originally delivered as a series of radio broadcasts, is a book to be thoroughly digested by believers and generously shared with skeptics.

The God who saves is also a God who woos His own to a relationship primarily of the heart. As we draw closer to Him, we must choose to let go of other "less-wild lovers," such as perfectionism, ambition, and self-indulgence. Eldredge and Curtis identify the lies offered by "false loves" and instruct us on the journey back to the Lover of our souls. In carefully crafted words and images, the authors entice the reader to his or her own journey of the heart, promising, "It is possible to recover the lost life of our heart and with it the intimacy, beauty, and adventure of life with God."

What Tozer calls ''personal heart religion'' can grow only from reverent meditation on God. And Tozer's own best selling classic, The Knowledge of the Holy is immensely encouraging. In straightforward and readable language, Tozer describes the attributes of God and shows how understanding them (''knowing the holy'') can help you grow in the Christian life.