Showing results for "The Stranger" in Christian Living

Abraham is a foundational figure in the history of the church. But he is at the same time profoundly human, raw and real. Isolated in an unbelieving world, his story shows what it means for the Lord to take hold of a sinner, privilege him with promises, use him in his service and sustain him to the end.

You are Invited to a Dinner with Jesus of Nazareth The mysterious envelope arrives on Nick Cominsky’s desk amid a stack of credit card applications and business-related junk mail. Although his seventy-hour workweek has already eaten into his limited family time, Nick can’t pass up the...

The days of cultural Christianity are fading. It's time to rethink normal. Suffering and exclusion are normal in a believer's life. At least they should be. This was certainly Jesus' experience. And it's the experience of countless Christians around the world today. No matter your social location or set of experiences, the biblical letter of 1 Peter wants to redefine your expectations and reinvigorate your hope.

Being a know-it-all isn't a fruit of the Spirit. But the ancient call of Jesus beckons us to "love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength" (Matt. 22:37). How do we love God with our mind? In A Teachable Spirit, A.J. Swoboda helps followers of Jesus develop the discipline...

Is the Holy Spirit a stranger in your faith? Have you ever felt there's a gap between the life promised in the Bible and the one you're living? For many followers of Jesus, the Holy Spirit is a familiar stranger—a rumored figure we know of, but don't truly know. We hear stories of God's power...

There will be pain ahead, and trouble and problems that I won’t be able to fix on my own. But in them all, I know God will be there, calling me to look to him. Inviting me to take the next step toward his open arms. And I will say yes. And yes. And yes. Annahita Parsan was born into a Muslim...

After meeting Jesus in person under amazing circumstances six years ago, Nick Cominsky figured life would be smooth sailing, not coasting downhill. Why didn’t Jesus tell him how to make the Christian life work? Just when Nick is stopped dead in his tracks - stranded on the side of the highway with an empty gas tank and miles to go - he finds himself in rich company once more. Jesus has returned to give Nick the refueling he desperately needs. And like their first meeting, it’s not at all what he expects.

In this audiobook, World Relief immigration experts Matthew Soerens and Jenny Yang move beyond the rhetoric to offer a Christian response to immigration. They put a human face on the issue and tell stories of immigrants' experiences in and out of the system. With careful historical understanding and thoughtful policy analysis, they debunk myths and misconceptions about immigration and show the limitations of the current immigration system. Ultimately, they point toward immigration reform that is compassionate, sensible, and just.

The story of a girl's struggle to accept her disabilities and how she came to understand God's Word and to live her life for Him.

A gripping tale of escape from Egypt, The Stranger at Our Shore is the true story of one young man’s journey out of Islam into new life in Christ. Through his remarkable testimony, Chicago pastor Joshua Sherif calls on the Western Church to reconsider the plight of the modern-day sojourners in our land—the strangers at our shore and the ones living right next door—and to return wholeheartedly to its first charge: making disciples. Any believer will walk away from this book feeling less intimidated and better equipped to disciple people who are different than them.

The way Jesus tells it, if we give up on belonging in order to follow him, we'll find ourselves belonging anyway. We might not belong the way other people do, with normal homes and normal families and normal ways of fitting in. But we'll belong in a way that's a hundred times better. We'll be fully in place because we know we are out of place. We'll belong like aliens.

We live in a world of oppositional relationships and increasing in-group/out-group divisions. Christian sociologist Matthew Vos explains how the problem of the stranger lies at the root of many problems humanity faces, such as racism, sexism, and nationalism. He applies classic sociological theory on "the stranger" to matters of faith and social justice, showing that an identity in Christ frees us to love strangers as neighbors and friends. The book also includes two guest chapters, one on intersex persons and the church and one on stranger-making in the "correctional" system.

When his truck slammed into a telephone pole and burst into flames, the seventeen-year-old became pinned in the driver seat. Moments before the vehicle was consumed by fire, Mike was pulled from the burning wreckage of twisted metal as his body burned. After his guitar was incinerated in the blaze, Pete Townsend from The Who, a musical inspiration, sent him a new guitar, offering, “This is the Phoenix.” In the wake of his Phoenix moment of rising from the ashes, Mike wanted to believe that his life had been saved for a unique purpose.

In 2012, Mohammad fled his Syrian village along with his wife and four sons, escaping to Jordan through the wilderness. Four years later, he sat across from Shawn Smucker in a small conference room in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Though neither of them knew it, Mohammad had arrived in Shawn's life just in time. This is the story of a friendship. It's the story of two fathers hoping for the best, two hearts seeking compassion, and two lives changed forever.

Migration is a global phenomenon that is growing in scope and complexity, affecting almost every aspect of human life. What does the Bible say about this pressing issue and unrelenting crisis of our time? The Bible is basically a tapestry woven together from the stories of one gigantic migrant family. Since it was written by, for, and about strangers, migrants, and refugees, the Bible is essentially pro-immigrant.

Pastor Bryan Loritts dives deep into what it's like to be a person of color in predominantly white evangelical spaces today and where we can go from here. God boldly proclaims throughout the book of Acts that there is no "ethnic home team" when it comes to Christianity. But the minority...

Jesus commands us to love our neighbors. So why are so many Christians taught to fear their neighbors? The American church is known as a people who are afraid, who have been nurtured through fear into hatred, and who have moved from hatred to violence - or at least to neglect. This fear, too often lived out boldly in the name of Jesus, is a false religion.

When Lynda MacGibbon moved from a small city in eastern Canada to a high-rise apartment in Toronto, she decided to follow Jesus' famous commandment to "love your neighbor" a bit more literally. In the past, she would have looked first for friends at her new job or her new church. This time, though, she decided to look for friends among the strangers who shared her apartment building - her actual neighbors in her new "vertical neighborhood".

Refugee is an urgent call to action. It is a book to help Christian's untangle themselves from arguments on topics, such as politics and immigration, and truly release the Kingdom of God which is within every believer. Born out of a personal frustration of apathetic Christianity, the book will help guide people into a better understanding of their refugee assignment from heaven for immediate impact.