"The best book on divine guidance I have ever read. I recommend it highly." – Richard Foster, author of Celebration of Discipline"This is simply the best book I've ever found on hearing God's voice. It does it all—with nuance, grace, intelligence and spirit." – John Mark Comer, author of The Ruthless Elimination of HurryHow do we hear God's voice?How can we be sure that what we think we hear is not...

Over 250,000 Copies Sold!Train Your Soul to Know the God Jesus Knows"God wants me to try harder.""God blesses me when I'm good and punishes me when I'm bad.""God is angry with me."We all have ideas that we tell ourselves about God and how he works in our lives. Some are true—but many are false. James Bryan Smith believes those thoughts determine not only who we are, but how we live. In fact, Smith declares, the most im...

Unfortunately, in today's world many people fail to experience the freedom and healing power of God's grace. Even Christians too often experience judgement, rather than the love that is the vital essence of Christian life. A visionary guide in the spirit of Celebration of Discipline, Embracing the Love of God calls Christians back to the basics -- to understanding the promise of God's love to transform our most important relationships and fulfill our deepest spiritual needs.Here J...

Finding the Good Life through the Sermon on the MountJames Bryan Smith argues that we've bought into false ideas of happiness and success, pushing us toward self-centered decisions that fuel destructive vices like anger, lying, and judging. Building from Jesus' teachings in the Sermon on the Mount, this compelling follow-up to The Good and Beautiful God invites us to replace these false beliefs with the transformative teachings of Jesus about life in God's...

We are told, "Look out for yourself first" and "Nice guys finish last." But following that path leaves us feeling isolated and anxious, and can even take us to a place of ruin. This is not a magnificent journey.There is a road tolife in the unshakeable kingdom of God, but it's not an easy journey. "We cannot enter into the kingdom unless we take our cross and die to ourselves," writes author James Bryan Smith. "We often assume that this will be painful. And of course it is...

Dallas Willard spent his life making eternal living concrete for his friends. With his unexpected passing in 2013, the world lost a brilliant mind. The wide breadth of his impact inspired friends, family, colleagues, students and leaders of the church to gather their reflections on this celebrated yet humble theologian and philosopher. Richard Foster, a friend for over forty years, writes of Dallas: "He possessed in his person a spiritual formation into Christlikeness that was simply aston...

For over fifteen years, writer Jeff Crosby has been searching for a language of the soul--a way to articulate our deepest longings. Through the years he gathered clues from within global music styles, from different cultures, from his own Christian tradition and its sacred texts--and from deep within himself.A lover of words, he sought not only to translate our longings into words but to understand why these seemingly universal yearnings have long remained unnamed. Now in these pag...

We believe a lot of false narratives about the nature of God, things like "God helps those who help themselves"; "God blesses the righteous"; "God might not be out for your good, and you might be missing something." But pastor and professor James Bryan Smith, author of the Apprentice Series, points us to the truth of who God is, revealed by Jesus: A God who loves to help the helpless. A God who doesn't play favorites, whether righteous or unrighteous. A God who is, in his essence, self-sac...

This beginning workbook for Spiritual Formation Groups features guidelines for starting a group, study plans for the first nine sessions, and a questionnaire that helps map the way ahead. Based upon six major dimensions of the spiritual life found in the life of Christ and Christian tradition: The Contemplative Tradition - The Holiness Tradition - The Charismatic Tradition - The Social Justice Tradition - The Evangelical Tradition - and The Incarnational Tradition, this workbook program pr...

Experience Rich Mullins's Legacy of Joy and Real CompassionBeloved contemporary Christian musician Rich Mullins lived his life with abandon for God, leaving the spotlight to teach music among a Navajo community. An accidentcut his life short in 1997, but his songs and ragamuffin spirit continue to teach many.In honor of the twenty-fifth anniversary of Rich's homegoing, this edition of Rich Mullins: An Arrow Pointing to Heaven delivers an intimate l...

A Deeper Sort of DevotionalWords are powerful. They contain ideas and shape the way we see God, ourselves and all of reality. We're transformed, in particular, by God's Word, and by "the Word," the Logos—Jesus himself—as describedby John in the first chapter of his Gospel.Memorizing and studying a passage in depth can offer a deeper sense of the meaning of each word. In this unique introduction to the hidden life in Christ, James Bryan Smith walks readers through a thirty-...

Make God's Promises Your Daily DeclarationGod has uniquely created each one of us. In the Scriptures, he has a lot to say about who we are and how we can live with fullness of hope.But have we become so informed by the world that we have forgotten we were first formed by the Creator of the world?Claimed by God helps you remember your identity as a daughter of God through thirty statements about the joy, confidence,...