The enlightenment you seek in other religions has been present in Christianity from the beginning. Richard Rohr, a global leader in spiritual awakening, helps you recognize the forces (such as ego resistance and dual thinking) that separate you from your deeper self. Then, drawing from Gospels and the greatest Christian contemplatives, he shows you what it means to be spiritually awake. You will learn why your ego resists change and growth, what is useful about popular ideas such as the law of attraction, what Jesus, the first mythical leader in the West, can teach you.

After enjoying this insightful series of contemplative talks, your experience of the Lord's Prayer will be forever enriched. When asked for a teaching on prayer, Jesus did not respond with a method or technique. Rather, he responded with words that captured the essence of his teaching and lifestyle. Known as the Our Father or the Lord's Prayer, his response is one of the most cherished prayers in the Christian tradition.

The Bible is meant to be about transformation, not merely information. In Things Hidden, Richard Rohr invites you to experience Scripture as spirituality - as a living text that can breathe new life into your relationship with God and change your way of seeing the world.

In 1972, a young Franciscan friar named Murray Bodo wrote a unique book about the life of St. Francis of Assisi. Francis: The Journey and the Dream offered people a unique combination of lyrical prose and brief, absorbing vignettes that inspired hundreds of thousands of people all over the world to contemplate the life of the famous saint and see him in a new way. Fifty years and over 200,000 copies later, this book still captivates people everywhere, and Fr. Bodo is still writing about St. Francis and the Franciscan way of life.

You are invited into the classroom in which Thomas Merton delivered some of his most impassioned lectures on a timeless topic. In 1962 at Gethsemani Abbey, Thomas Merton taught an extraordinary course on the heart of Benedictine spirituality.

The path of following Jesus is an ancient and storied spiritual tradition. Yet many believers are not familiar with the three major forms of prayer and the three stages of spiritual growth that exist to bring them closer to God. In his most personal book yet, Brant Pitre, PhD, draws on the riches of the Bible, the words of Jesus, and the writings of mystics across the centuries to shed light on the mystery - and wonder - of the spiritual life.

Leading with heart, authenticity, and purpose, Thomas Vozzo provides a clear path to a new bottom line—including 55 rules to break—bringing The Homeboy Way to life as the perfect antidote to the massive tidal currents of social injustice and inequities. By every traditional measurement of success, Vozzo was a clear winner. Then, through a series of fateful events, Vozzo landed as CEO of Homeboy Industries, the most successful gang intervention, rehabilitation, and reentry program in the country, founded by Jesuit priest Greg Boyle.

Working from existing translations, Thomas Merton composed a series of his own versions of the classic sayings of Chuang Tzu, the most spiritual of Chinese philosophers. Chuang Tzu, who wrote in the fourth and third centuries BC, is the chief authentic historical spokesperson for Taoism and its founder, Lao Tzu (a legendary character known largely through Chuang Tzu’s writings).

Over the past hundred years, scholars have attacked the historical truth of the Gospels and argued that they were originally anonymous and filled with contradictions. In The Case for Jesus, Brant Pitre taps in to the wells of Christian scripture, history, and tradition to ask and answer a number of different questions, including: If we don't know who wrote the Gospels, how can we trust them? How are the four Gospels different from other Gospels, such as the lost Gospel of "Q" and the Gospel of Thomas?

In this revised best-selling book, Peter Scazzero outlines a road map for discipleship with Jesus that is powerfully transformative. He unveils what's wrong with our current definition of "spiritual growth" and offers not only a model of spirituality that actually works, but seven steps to change that will help you experience authentic faith and hunger for God.

In this groundbreaking devotional book, Emotionally Healthy Spirituality Day by Day, Peter Scazzero introduces the ancient spiritual discipline of the Daily Office. The basic premise is simple: We need to stop intentionally, to be with God more than once a day so that we truly practice of the presence of God.

As we walk through this life, the way will not always be easy and well-marked. In fact, we can expect lots of ups and downs and setbacks along the way. Sometimes we'll find ourselves face-to-face with a mountain that threatens to stop us in our tracks. We know that Jesus tells us we can move these mountains - but how?

In Jesus in Me, Anne Graham Lotz draws on her rich biblical knowledge as well as her personal story - including her recent cancer diagnosis - to help us understand that the Holy Spirit is not a magic genie, a flame of fire, or a vague feeling. He is a person who prays for us, guides us in our relationships and decisions, comforts us in pain, and stays by our side at all times. In this seminal teaching, she explores seven key aspects of the Holy Spirit that will revolutionize how you understand and relate to this vital third person in the Trinity.

Life's inconveniences, disappointments, and trials can leave us confused, cynical, and eventually bitter. But the apostle Paul traces out the path of dying and rising with Jesus — what Paul Miller calls the “J-Curve” — as the normal Christian life.

Is God a wrathful judge? A gentle healer? A father? Brother? Friend? In The Relentless Tenderness of Jesus, Brennan Manning brings you to a deeper understanding of the true nature of God. Through poignant and unforgettable stories and challenging observations, Manning helps you stretch your mind and reject simplistic explanations of who God really is.

Is God a wrathful judge? A gentle healer? A father? Brother? Friend? In The Relentless Tenderness of Jesus, Brennan Manning brings you to a deeper understanding of the true nature of God. Through poignant and unforgettable stories and challenging observations, Manning helps you stretch your mind and reject simplistic explanations of who God really is.

Many believers feel stunted in their Christian growth. We beat ourselves up over our failures and, in the process, pull away from God because we subconsciously believe He tallies our defects and hangs His head in disappointment. In this new edition - now with a foreword by Michael W. Smith, testimony by Rich Mullins and the author's own epilogue, "Ragamuffin Ten Years Later," Brennan Manning reminds us that nothing could be further from the truth.

This runaway best seller shows both the basic logic of the Enneagram and its harmony with the core truths of Christian thought from the time of the early Church forward. Experience author Richard Rohr's expertise and advanced thought on the subject, easily laid out for all audiences.

When we live with unresolved anger or hurt, the result is nearly always bitterness, broken relationships, and unhealthy behaviors. Unforgiveness not only sabotages our interactions with those around us, it impedes our own spiritual growth and inner peace. And it can happen to anyone. In her most vulnerable writing yet, Ruth Graham reveals how a visit to Angola Prison inspired her to release the unforgiveness lurking in her own heart - toward others, herself, and even her heavenly Father and her earthly father, evangelist Billy Graham.

Why are modern Christians so indistinguishable from everyone else? How come Christians who lived in times of bloody persecution were so heroic, while we who live in safety are not? How could the first Christians fast valiantly, but we feel deprived without dessert? How did New Testament believers pray without ceasing? How could the early Christian martyrs actually forgive their torturers? What did the Christians of the first centuries know that we don't? This book explores these questions.

Listeners will be fully engaged in a unique and altogether fascinating discussion of Christian spirituality. Rolheiser seeks to reconcile the rift between a smorgasbord of spiritual voices and an authentic Christian discipleship by the use of anecdotes, personal examples and a wide range of literary and cultural references. His starting point is the desire within us that longs irresistibly for fulfillment.

In Wrestling with God, Ronald Rolheiser offers a steady and inspiring voice to help us avow and understand our faith in a world where nothing seems solid or permanent. Drawing from his own life experience, as well as a storehouse of literary, psychological, and theological insights, the beloved author of Sacred Fire examines the fears and doubts that challenge us. It is in these struggles to find meaning, that Rolheiser lays out a path for faith in a world struggling to find faith, but perhaps more important, he helps us find our own rhythm within which to walk that path.

In this revised best-selling book, Peter Scazzero outlines a road map for discipleship with Jesus that is powerfully transformative. He unveils what's wrong with our current definition of "spiritual growth" and offers not only a model of spirituality that actually works, but seven steps to change that will help you experience authentic faith and hunger for God.

Is real friendship too risky? We live in a world where real friendship is hard to find. Suspicious of others and insecure about ourselves, we retreat into the safety of our small, self-made digital worlds. Tragically, even the church can become a place that reinforces this isolation. Jesus models a much richer vision of friendship. Scott Sauls, pastor and teacher, invites you to see the breadth of Christ's love in this audiobook, Befriend.

Popular Bible teacher Chuck Swindoll invites you on a journey through Scripture, exploring the hope the Bible offers to those who are dealing with life’s unexpected detours. Life can be humming along as usual, and then in a matter of seconds, everything falls apart. Maybe you have experienced sudden loss. Perhaps there is a heart-breaking betrayal. Maybe you are taking care of a family member with a disability and you never imagined in a million years that you would be doing such a thing.

First published in 1992, Prayer: Finding the Heart's True Home has become a classic on its eponymous subject. Awarded Christianity Today's Book of the Year award and the Evangelical Christian Publishers Association's Gold Medallion award, Prayer continues to receive widespread acclaim as one of the most thorough and insightful treatments of this central spiritual practice.

In his acclaimed books, renowned writer, speaker, and philosophy professor Dallas Willard explored the nature of Christian life in God's Kingdom. Yet one topic remained undisclosed: Willard's understanding of heaven and eternal life. In the months before his death, Willard engaged in moving and insightful conversations about the meaning of life and the life to come with close friend and theologian Gary Black, Jr. These inspiring dialogues were steeped in biblical theology as well as practical wisdom grounded in the here-and-now.

There are never quick fixes or easy answers when it comes to suffering. But even when we can’t immediately see God’s hand - when the struggle is hard and painful - he is working. Weaving together Scripture, personal stories, and the words of the classic hymn “How Firm a Foundation”, David Powlison brings an experienced counselor’s touch to exploring how God enters into our sufferings, helping us see God working in our own particular struggles - and discover how God’s grace goes deeper than we could ever imagine.

Who was medieval Italy's Francis of Assisi? Millions knew him as the saint who first received the stigmata of Christ, as a champion of the poor, and as a mystic who possessed a divine rapport with the natural world. But few know that Saint Francis also created an extraordinary system of practices to radiate a joyfulness of spirit inward to the soul and outward to the world. On The Way of Saint Francis, scholar and friar Murray Bodo reveals the life of this celebrated saint and shares specific meditations, prayers, and teachings to cultivate the 5 great keys of Franciscan spirituality: Silence, how to use inner and outer quietude to prepare a sacred dwelling place within; Purification, true forgiveness, the secret to purifying the heart; Openness, how to embrace your deeper suffering and simpler joys in the manner and spirit of Saint Francis; Response, the way of the Poor Christ, a life made rich through prayer, contemplation, and selfless service; Time, how we enter the state of the timeless divine. You will learn how to use each of these miraculous keys to open the door to the cell within - a sacred inner space of stillness and strength available to you at any time and in any situation - and to transform yourself into a true instrument of peace.

It can be easy to have a heart filled with worship on a Sunday morning as the church band is playing your favorite song. But then comes Monday morning's commute and Tuesday afternoon's pile of laundry. How do we maintain a heart of worship in the daily grind? Darlene Zschech has spent her life thinking and teaching about worship. With wisdom and contagious joy, she shares her thoughts on what worship truly is and how it should invade every facet of our being.