Showing results by narrator "Lyle Blaker" in All Categories

Are you tired of religion that feels dry, rigid, or lifeless? In Dead Orthodoxy, Ryan Denton delivers a piercing yet hopeful call for Christians to rekindle their love for the Lord and revive their spiritual vitality. Drawing from Scripture, church history, and personal insight, Denton confronts the suffocating effects of a Christianity that is merely formal, complacent, and intellectual.

The Bible calls Jesus the friend of sinners, but it's hard to imagine what friendship with Jesus really looks like. We so often don't even know how to do friendship with the people around us, despite all the options we have to connect. So how are we supposed to feel that close to a holy, perfect, and invisible God? How do we see Jesus as the real person he is? And how do we experience true friendship with him when we struggle to maintain true friendship on earth? Join author Jared C. Wilson as he explores what it means to be a friend of Jesus.

For those readers of his poetry and inspired by his increasingly vital work as advocate for rational land use and the right-size life, these stories of Wendell Berry's offer entry into the fictional place of value and beauty that is Port William, Kentucky. Berry has said it's taken a lifetime for him to learn to write like an old man, and that's what we have here, stories told with grace and ease and majesty. Wendell Berry is one of our greatest living American authors, writing with the wisdom of maturity and the incandescence that comes of love.

As part of Counterpoint's celebration of beloved American author Wendell Berry comes this reissue of his 1986 classic, The Wild Birds: Six Stories of the Port William Membership. Those stories include "Thicker Than Liquor," "Where Did They Go?," "It Wasn't Me," "The Boundary," "That Distant Land," and the titular "The Wild Birds." Spanning more than three decades, from 1930 to 1967, these wonderful stories follow Wheeler Catlett, and reintroduce listeners to the beloved people who live in Berry's fictional town of Port William, Kentucky.

Nestled in a few verses in Luke's Gospel is a Jesus who would not have been tolerated today: He was not politically correct and He certainly did not try to save people's feelings. Steven Lawson unpacks these few verses, looking at the unashamed honesty, passion, and urgency with which Jesus explains the life-long cost involved in choosing to follow Him. True Christianity is the biggest sacrifice any person ever makes...but it is in pursuit of the most precious prize ever glimpsed.

Just over half a century since Neil Armstrong first stepped foot on the lunar surface, a new space race to the Moon is well underway and rapidly gaining momentum. Laying out a vision for the next fifty years, Back to the Moon is astrophysicist Joseph Silk's persuasive and impassioned case for putting scientific discovery at the forefront of lunar exploration.

With the seizure of an advanced freighter and its strategic cargo, James Van Wert is assigned to a combat vessel that possesses a groundbreaking new technology which the Fleet hopes will stop the insurgency. But James must first battle command infighting and the technological challenges of getting an untried ship ready for action, while the freighter captives travel to the heart of the enemy cabal to fight for their very lives.

Suspenseful military space fleet adventure and hard science fiction come together in this series of future space colonization in the Alpha Centauri star system. With a successful test of his new ship behind him, Van Wert sets out to explore a secret base that reveals a spy ring operating in the fleets backyard, and sends the crew in an unexpected direction. Meanwhile, the hideous nature of the insurgency is revealed as the Malabar passengers and crew are pressed into forced labor on a remote planet, or find themselves the victims of a sordid entertainment for the cabal masters.

Do we have anything in common with the bad guys of the Bible? The sins of wrath, idolatry, and abuse of power are closer to us than we think. How do we guard against them? We learn not only by following moral exemplars; we also need to look at the warnings of lives gone wrong. In this fictionalized narrative, JR. Forasteros reintroduces us to some of the most villainous characters of Scripture. He shows us what we can learn from their negative examples, with figures such as Cain, Jezebel, and even Satan serving as cautionary tales of sin and temptation.

Johnnie Moore, like many American Christians, didn't fully appreciate the extent of Christian persecution in other parts of the world - until he witnessed the graduation of theology students in India. Unlike graduation ceremonies in America - where feel-good speeches made by visiting celebrities are common - this one featured a remarkable oath. It wasn't an oath to excel or succeed. It was an oath to be willing to die, if necessary, for the cause of Christ. This was no empty promise. This was a choice, choosing the eternal over the temporal.

The percentage of adolescents who suffer from significant anxiety is currently close to one-third, and this number has been steadily rising over the past few years. The experience of living with anxiety can make a teen feel cut off from others and frightened.

Have you ever wondered if there was a more fearsome prehistoric carnivore than the T-rex, or what the Triceratops's close genetic relatives were? Maybe you've wondered what the fastest family of dinosaurs was, or how much an ankylosaurus's club-tail weighed. Well if you have, then we have you covered!

Whether there's a kid in your life with a budding interest in the smaller-scale world of life around them or a strong interest in bugs of all shapes and sizes, this audiobook is sure to entertain and educate with the most important and exciting bug facts that there are to know! So, what are you waiting for? Let's dive in!

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.

Reconciling the existence of God and evil has been a long-standing conundrum in Christian theology, yet a philosophical approach—rather than a theological one—dominates the discussion. Turning to the Bible's grand storyline, Scott Christensen examines how sin, evil, corruption, and death fit into the broad outlines of redemptive history. He argues that God's ultimate end in creation is to magnify his glory to his image-bearers, most notably by defeating evil through the atoning work of Christ.

This book is a comprehensive study on the subject of prayer, and will show you that there are nine elements which are essential to true prayer

"I have learned to kiss the wave that throws me against the Rock of Ages." These words, often attributed to 19th-century British preacher Charles Spurgeon, provide a unique perspective on suffering. What if God intends to work through our suffering rather than simply take it away? After living for more than a decade with a debilitating nerve condition in both arms, Dave Furman wants to expand our view of suffering by demonstrating that God, in his grace, always designs and uses trials for our good.

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.

During the past five decades, the Second Vatican Council has been alternately celebrated or maligned for its supposed break with tradition and embrace of the modern world. But what if we've gotten it all wrong? Have Catholics—both those who embrace the spirit of Vatican II and those who regard it with suspicion—misunderstood what the council was really about? Fr. Blake Britton discovered the truth and beauty of the council while he was in seminary and he has witnessed firsthand the power of its teachings

In Letters to an American Christian, Bruce Riley Ashford, author of One Nation Under God, addresses overarching issues of the relationship of Christianity and politics, speaks to the way historic Christian belief informs specific hot-button political issues, and challenges listeners to take seriously both our heavenly and earthly citizenships. Written as a series of letters to "Christian" - a young college student who is a new believer - Letters to an American Christian will help every listener think about how Christianity informs what it means to be an American.