Live Hard

Drawing from an extensive study of 246 direct references to the Holy Spirit in the New Testament, It Doesn't Have to Be This Hard reveals in-depth what God’s Spirit does—and what’s left for you to do. (Hint: It’s not what you think!) If you want to live your Christian faith with joy, power, and passion, then right here is where your new life begins.

John Sand, former MI6 agent, is keeping a secret from his new bride, Stacey – he has been tracking the supposedly dead Jake Lonestarr, her Texas oil tycoon father's traitorous business partner. When Stacey disappears, is Lonestarr or Las Vegas godfather Anthony Morello responsible? Is it the shadowy figures at the new international spy agency trying to recruit John Sand?

If life hasn't turned out the way you planned, you're not alone. Cancer comes. Loved ones die. Spouses leave. Dreams slip through our fingers. Anxiety and depression steal precious seasons. But what if you knew you weren't alone in your pain and that sorrow isn't in the end of the story? In this 100-day devotional, the (in)courage community comes alongside you when your heart is grieving, your faith is shaking, or it's just one of those mundane hard days. In these vulnerable stories, you won't find tidy bows or trite quick fixes, but you will find arrows pointing you straight to Jesus.

Right now, all across the world, many people are losing hope. It is being replaced by fear - fear of the unknown, fear of poverty, fear of a global pandemic; fear of death and violence, fear of turmoil and social upheaval. We are in the middle of transition, and change frightens people. My primary purpose for writing this book was to rekindle hope within the hearts and minds of humanity, especially my fellow Christians, because we are the ones who harbor the ultimate hope of the universe.

A local church should be a place of true community and connection—where people belong to God and one another. But in our individualistic culture, many Christians end up struggling with social isolation and loneliness. Lacking a sense of authentic belonging within the church, some eventually stop attending or question their faith altogether. How can believers overcome these negative cultural effects and restore the biblical vision of belonging in their churches today?

Learn from some of the greatest thinkers in history. Study their patterns and stand on the shoulders of giants.

Life hit Pat and Tammy McLeod hard when their son Zach collapsed on a high school football field; he had sustained a severe brain injury. Facing the devastating possibility that things would never be the same for their beloved son, they committed to staying strong as a family and finding a way to maintain their footing. But the journey would reshape their faith, their family, and their future in ways they never saw coming.

God is not distant when we’re facing difficult days. In fact, it is precisely when we struggle to see and hear him, when we’re crushed under life’s disappointments, that God is nearer than you know.

It was the biggest job she had ever had, 10 times bigger in fact! And she thought she was ready. Ten days after accepting the job offer, Doe Hentschel smashed both her elbows in a bicycle accident. Six months with both arms in casts presented incredible challenges, generating numerous stories that Doe, a natural storyteller, recounts in Look Ma! No Hands!

Pastor Bryan Loritts reveals the astonishing truth that God doesn’t want your spiritual scorekeeping. He simply wants your surrender. The punchline of the gospel of Matthew is just that—a message of grace and performance-free love to do-good, try-harder Jews who thought they had to earn their way into God’s favor. It’s an ancient message, yet it can be a lifeline to us today as we live in a world of performance metrics.

Do you ever feel your life could be more? There are so many reasons we might hide ourselves, hold back, or accept patterns we’re caught in. If you find you’re ready for change and are looking for ways to level up in your life, Andrea Owen offers wisdom drawn from her own lived experience, with a savvy outlook and the authentic voice she’s known and loved for.

Tine to Table is a fascinating look at white-tailed deer hunting and wild-game cooking through the eyes of a wildlife biologist, veteran traditional bowhunter, and award-winning author.

If you think it takes long hours of stress-inducing, brain-numbing, back-breaking work to build a successful career or business, this book will change your mind. The simple truth: Once you put your mind to it, you can do just about anything. You can build a business that is not only profitable but sustainable, too. You can take your career to higher and higher levels, grow your profits quarter by quarter, increase your income year after year. And the best part: You can do it with ease!

What is your purpose in life? This is the question we ask ourselves far too often. In Lean Forward Into Your Life, author Mary Anne Radmacher invites you to find a new way to live: by leaning forward. When you’re trying to see something better, you lean toward it. When you are listening to someone and can barely hear, you lean in. When the really exciting part of a basketball game comes, you lean forward in your seat. When you’re trying to catch, to see, to listen to the best bits—you lean forward.

With honesty and humor, Kathi Lipp and Cheri Gregory will help you take a breather and find reassurance as you face the bullies of perfectionism, performancism, people-pleasing, and procrastination. Self-assessments and personal stories will guide you from panic to peace as you learn to pick battles worthy of your time and energy; embrace the freedom of a carefully considered "no"; recognize your strengths and weaknesses in the quest for balance; use authenticity as a weapon to battle bullies; and release yourself from the endless pressure of pleasing others.

In Hustling God, Craig Barnes invites hard-running, stressed-out, burned-out people to simply stop. Stop running—long enough to realize we’re lost. Stop—and encounter the God who has climbed down the ladder from heaven to earth to find us. Stop—so we can at last receive all the blessing that, in Jesus Christ, God was dying to give us.

If you think it takes long hours of stress-inducing, brain-numbing, back-breaking work to build a successful career or business, this book will change your mind. The simple truth: Once you put your mind to it, you can do just about anything. You can build a business that is not only profitable but sustainable, too. You can take your career to higher and higher levels, grow your profits quarter by quarter, increase your income year after year. And the best part: You can do it with ease!

Crafted in the early days of the pandemic of 2020, the words of the poet-King David speak directly to the anxiety, fears, and troubles of our own day. And as the psalm leads to green pastures, still waters, and pathways ahead, the listener will find their confidence and faith in God renewed and refreshed. When the Lord is My Shepherd makes the ancient psalm sing a new song in our own day.

This beloved classic by A.W. Tozer is for the spiritually dissatisfied, for the passionate, for the hungry. If your hunger and thirst can only be satisfied by God himself, and the desire for the piercing sweetness of the love of Christ overrides all competing desires, then Pursuit of God will intoxicate you. You cannot afford to not listen to this book. Chapters include discussions on the bliss of following hard after God, the sacrament of living, the blessedness of possessing nothing, as well as the paradox of the simultaneous pursuit of God while being pursued by Him.

Party-girl Katie Hawkins doesn’t really contemplate religion and God much—until a needed teaching job falls in her lap. Katie begins working at a private school, where she teaches hungover, smokes in the teachers’ lounge, and makes up her own answers to her students’ questions about Jesus. She would never have imagined that she would soon become a Spirit-filled follower of Jesus with a passion for glorifying God.