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Books > Religion & Spirituality > Christianity > Christian life & practice > General
Finding your heart’s true home - This 365-day devotional carefully unpacks the meaning of each part of the Serenity Prayer and how to apply it to our lives.
We live helter-skelter lives; each day we are pulled here and there by circumstances, both good and bad. We feel as if we are living at the mercy of events beyond our control. We long for peace, for a safe, serene and secure place where we can be at rest. In response to this search for peace, beloved author and minister Trevor Hudson reminds readers of the Serenity Prayer—a simple prayer that most of us know by heart:
God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference.
This 365-day devotional carefully unpacks the meaning of each part of the prayer and how to apply it to our lives. As we let the Serenity Prayer show us how to live each day in friendship with our Lord and Creator, God’s gift of peace will grow and fill us to overflowing. “Seeking Serenity”—a practical suggestion at the end of each day’s devotion—will also help the reader put this prayer into practice, and begin to develop the clear life-focus that brings the peace our hearts long for.
Trevor Hudson is a Methodist minister, currently seconded to The Institute for Creative Conversations at the Northfield Methodist Church, South Africa. He exercises a ministry of teaching and lecturing around the country and internationally, and is the author of several books including The Serenity Prayer, Questions God Asks Us, Holy Spirit Here and Now, Friendship with God and Towards a Closer Walk with God.
40 Days with the Holy Spirit will inspire you to encounter God in
fresh and surprising ways. You'll develop stronger spiritual
muscles as you breathe, read, reflect, and pray-all with an eye to
cultivating a relationship with the least familiar member of the
Trinity. The book is interactive, offering the opportunity to write
and pray each day; intelligent, rooted in a rigorous study of
scripture, from Genesis to Revelation; and inviting, with 40
insightful, well-planned 20-30 minute daily exercises; and
prayerful, with 40 original prayers that capture each day's insight
into the deep, spiritual work of the Holy Spirit.
What does it mean to be a Christian citizen of the United States
today? This book challenges the argument that the United States is
a Christian nation, and that the American founding and the American
Constitution can be linked to a Christian understanding of the
state and society. Vincent Rougeau argues that the United States
has become an economic empire of consumer citizens, led by elites
who seek to secure American political and economic dominance around
the world. Freedom and democracy for the oppressed are the public
themes put forward to justify this dominance, but the driving force
behind American hegemony is the need to sustain economic growth and
maintain social peace in the United States.
This state of affairs raises important questions for Christians.
In recent times, religious voices in American politics have taken
on a moralistic stridency. Individual issues like abortion and
same-sex marriage have been used to "guilt" many Christians into
voting Republican or to discourage them from voting at all. Using
Catholic social teaching as a point of departure, Rougeau argues
that conservative American politics is driven by views of the
individual and the state that are inconsistent with mainstream
Catholic social thought. Without thinking more broadly about their
religious traditions and how those traditions should inform their
engagement with the modern world, it is unwise for Christians to
think that pressing single issues is an appropriate way to
actualize their faith commitments in the public realm.
Rougeau offers concerned Christians new tools for a critical
assessment of legal, political and social questions. He proceeds
from the fundamental Christian premise ofthe God-given dignity of
the human person, a dignity that can only be realized fully in
community with others. This means that the Christian cannot simply
focus on individual empowerment as 'freedom' but must also seek to
nurture community participation and solidarity for all citizens.
Rougeau demonstrates what happens when these ideas are applied to a
variety of specific contemporary issues involving the family,
economics, and race. He concludes by offering a new model of public
engagement for Christians in the American Empire.
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