It says in the Bible that we are to give 10% of our gross income to God which is the tithe. We are to take our tithe to our local church. Many make out their tithe without really giving it much thought, which is the way it should be. Whereas, many others put "too much thought" into tithing which only complicates the "act of tithing." God made "tithing" to be very simple and uncomplicated.

In "Riches to Rags to Riches: The Power of Tithing," author Heidi Guttman tells her story of tithing. Life for Guttman was good. She had material things that would make many people envious: a beautiful townhouse, expensive art, awesome cars, gorgeous furs, expensive jewelry, and a sport yacht, among other things. There was even a leather high chair for the baby. When she lost most of her possessions because she disobeyed God's instructions about tithing, however, Guttman learned the power of material wealth to distance her from God.

"Riches to Rags to Riches: The Power of Tithing" teaches the importance of tithing from God's perspective. Learn about the rewards you can reap from tithing-and the losses you can sustain from not tithing. Guttman learned the difference firsthand. When she began tithing faithfully, God restored her in all ways. This can happen to you. As a result of tithing, you can experience God's love, peace, and abundance-a blessing that so many people long for.

"I believe God will use Karen's story mightily to transform broken lives and to help the rest of us realize how truly blessed we are not to have suffered as Karen did."
- "Carole Lewis
First Place 4 Health National Director"

"What a touching triumph over a difficult childhood. Karen's raw and honest voice immediately draws us into her life. What a tribute to her inner strength to acknowledge her past and use it as a tool to help others who have also been victims of childhood abuse and neglect."
- "Ruthanne Mefford
Director, Child Advocates of Fort Bend"

It begins with Karen's reality: "Bad as home was, I always wanted to go back there, 'cause I belonged " "Home" is an isolated Appalachian barn where poverty, neglect, and abuse go unseen until the children (twelve) reach school age.

At age five and deathly ill from parasites, Karen watches from the welfare agents' back seat as her hysterical mom's image gets smaller while the car speeds away. Terrified, yet determined, she remembers their route; she will get back home. Orphanage memories are horrific, but she thanks God for tricycles and popsicles (her first). Gossip has it the town prostitutes ratted on the family's health. Moving from hating these women to seeing how God uses them to protect the kids is the beginning of Karen's faith.

Running from welfare, moving constantly, Karen knows she's the dirtiest, poorest kid in school. Scenarios change, but chaotic, frightening themes of fear, hunger, abuse and peer ridicule repeat. Then, at age sixteen, Karen senses hope when she marries Terry and prepares her first home, a $4000 trailer, for their child. Could this be stability?

If only Hard work, little pay, parenting and marriage stresses become overwhelming. Acts of ministry from Karen's home church sustain her until a new devastating challenge surfaces: providing for her children, extended family, and husband, Terry, who now has a life-threatening illness. Can she manage this trial? Can she preserve?

Please, put the book down and walk away. You're not ready for everything contained in this book. You're going to get mad, you're going to get sad, and you're face is going to hurt. It's the rollercoaster ride your knuckles will bleed from, for holding on so tight. This book will jerk your chain, ruffle your feathers, smack you around, and leave you pondering.

What can I say? I didn't wait 7 years to write this book so you can forget about it. You'll never forget about it, just like the people that have heard these stories before. This book has every aspect of life compiled into it's pages. Race, drugs, religion, relationships, and sex. Yeah, sex sells, but you may not like the sex in this book. Is that possible? After reading this book, you'll never see sex in the same way. Like I said, you can't handle this book.

The T-bone steak in a world of hamburgers. Put it down.

"Within the Dominican Order, whose motto is Truth and whose mission is the proclamation of that Truth, some proclaim primarily through their contemplative 'tryst' with that Truth. Here some of these women of the Dominican monasteries tell of how they came to embrace this way of life which to many is such a mystery. Each is a story as unique and human as its author."
-Suzanne Noffke, O.P., Translator of the "Dialogue of St. Catherine of Siena"

"The life of the cloistered contemplative nun is one of the most hidden but also one of the most important treasures of the Church. The prayers and sacrifices of these holy women are so crucial to the Church's well-being that it behooves all of us to know them better. The stories in this splendid book help us to do just that, since they are authentic vignettes from the personal lives of 23 different Dominican cloistered nuns."
-Father Michael Monshau, O.P., Prior, Dominican House of Studies, Saint Louis, Missouri

"These remarkable personal testimonies demonstrate the power of God's fruitful invitation to a contemplative and cloistered life in the Dominican tradition. Though each testimony is unique, there is a common link among them that recalls Elizabeth's words to Mary: 'Blessed is she who believed that there would be fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord (Luke 1:45).' These testimonies, then, are not a history of the past rather they give confidence to all in the present who have the courage to accept God's invitation to Himself. Indeed, God has done great things. This book reminds all of us that God is still doing great things."
-Father Dominic Izzo, O.P., Provincial of the Province of St. Joseph

Great art Thou, O Lord, and greatly to be praised; great is Thy power, and Thy wisdom infinite. And Thee would man raise; man, but a particle of Thy creation; man, that bears about him his mortality, the witness of his sin, the witness that Thou resistest

The Life of Peter the Iberian by John Rufus records the ascetic struggle of a fifth-century anti-Chalcedonian bishop of Mayyuma, Palestine. Cornelia Horn presents a historical-critical study of the only substantial anti-Chalcedonian witness to the history of the conflict in Palestine and analyses the formative period of fifth-century anti-Chalcedonian hierarchy, theology, and its ascetic expression. Important themes are pilgrimage as an ascetic ideal and asceticism as source of theological authority. Archaeological data on many places in the Levant and textual sources in Syriac, Coptic, Greek, Armenian, and Georgian are examined. This book contributes to our understanding of the origins of anti-Chalcedonian theology and the influence of asceticism on its development, the Christian topography of the Levant, and the history of the anti-Chalcedonian movement in Palestine.

Taft Quincey Heatley began chasing money at a young age, but he really should have been chasing the Lord. Instead of fully accepting the purpose God had for his life, he concentrated on rising up the ranks of Wall Street as an investment banker. While he earned lots of money, he found that it only brought him unrest.

In "God is the Goal," he shares how he moved from a life with no meaning to one filled with purpose as a pastor and minister. In the process, he shares life lessons and guidance from the Scriptures that will lead you to the Lord. At the end of each chapter, you'll find a truth test-a set of questions that seeks to help you honestly assess your life as you strive for intimacy with the Lord.

When you're honest with yourself, God will begin to move into your life. Heatley learned that he could not live without God, and he is now humbled to be His servant. You too can find the purpose you crave with "God Is the Goal."

On April 19th My life was rearranged On that very day Everything began to change It was God's decision Father knows best In order to build character You must pass certain test I'm still standing My hero is gone Never told the man I loved him For going to work and always coming home ME: My Emotions, a collection of poetry by R.T.J.J., expresses his innermost thoughts and emotions. ME, an abbreviation of "my emotions," describes the turbulence and challenges that the author has faced on his journey to peace and acceptance. By the age of eleven, he had lost both of his patents and had become an alcoholic. At twelve, he went to jail, where he began smoking weed and PCP by the time he was thirteen. He finally put his troubled past behind him and returned to the church and God Almighty for forgiveness and redemption. Come along as his poetry evokes the bleakness of his past and the triumph of the new life that he has begun with Jesus Christ as his guide.

"Whoever Saves a Life, It Is Considered as If He Saved an Entire World"

Dr. Rick Hodes arrived in Africa more than two decades ago to help the victims of a famine, but he never expected to call this extremely poor continent his home. Twenty-eight years later, he is still there.

This Is a Soul tells the remarkable story of Rick Hodes's journey from suburban America to Mother Teresa's clinic in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. As a boy, Rick was devoted to helping those in need, and eventually he determined that becoming a doctor would allow him to do the most good. When he heard about famine in Africa, that's where he went, and when genocide convulsed Rwanda, he went into the refugee camps to minister to the victims. When he was told that Ethiopia was allowing its Jews to emigrate to Israel, he went to help. While there, he was drawn to Mother Teresa's mission in Addis Ababa. It was there that Rick found his calling when he began caring for the sickest children in one of the world's poorest countries. But he did more than that--he began taking them into his home and officially adopted five of them.

This Is a Soul is also a book filled with great joy and triumph. When Rick's kids return from surgery or life-saving treatments, he is exultant. "Seeing these people after surgery is like going to heaven," he says.

Marilyn Berger went to Africa to write about Dr. Hodes, but while there, she became involved with the story. When she came upon a small, deformed, and malnourished boy begging on the street, she recognized immediately that he had the exact disease Rick could cure. She took him to Rick, who eventually arranged for the boy to have a complicated and risky surgery, which turned out to be incredibly successful. The boy's story--intertwined with Rick's, and Marilyn's as well--is unforgettable in its pathos and subtle humor.

This Is a Soul is not just a story of the savior and the saved, it is a celebration of love and wisdom, and an exploration of how charity and devotion can actually change lives in an overcrowded, unjust, and often harsh world.

Journey to Healing for the Brokenhearted is a book about lost love, broken promises, and the long road to understanding and forgiveness. In a deeply personal way, Victoria Wilson Darrah tells the story of her journey through the valley of divorce, and her discovery that God can still use our weakness and our sadness and our tears to bring about healing and restoration in our relationships with those who have hurt us. "The book is inspiring, captivating, provoking, and challenging. At the end of this reading, one is left with the challenge to live at peace with all men and to forgive as Christ has forgiven us." The Rev. Joy Magala, St. Mark's Episcopal Church, CA "I found it riveting and very moving. Her frankness and eventual forgiveness of her husband through her love and obedience to the will of God is an inspiration and can only bring hope and restoration for anyone who is going through any traumatic experience." Bertha Graham, African Enterprise, CA "Victoria's book is definitely un-put-down-able. Victoria's words have the power to take hold of your thoughts. I know I will find myself thinking about her story for a very long time. The constructive thoughts transcribed straight from Victoria's journal will be a great help to Christian women who are struggling with some of the same issues the author faced." Darla Ebert, Missionary in the Philippines for thirty years Ugandan-born Victoria Wilson Darrah is an author/speaker/television producer who lives in Arcadia, California with her son, Jordan. She is the author of My Father's Daughter: Continuing the Dream, a tribute to her beloved father and his dream for peace and reconciliation, beginning in Africa and spreading around the world. Victoria is a graduate of USC and UCLA with degrees in television and film production.

In Jesus and John Wayne, a seventy-five-year history of American evangelicalism, Kristin Kobes Du Mez demolishes the myth that white evangelicals "held their noses" in voting for Donald Trump. Revealing the role of popular culture in evangelicalism, Du Mez shows how evangelicals have worked for decades to replace the Jesus of the Gospels with an idol of rugged masculinity and Christian nationalism in the mould of Ronald Reagan, Mel Gibson and above all, John Wayne. As Du Mez observes, the beliefs at the heart of white evangelicalism today preceded Trump and will outlast him.

Questions of secularity and modernity have become globalized, but most studies still focus on the West. This volume breaks new ground by comparatively exploring developments in five areas of the world, some of which were hitherto situated at the margins of international scholarly discussions: Africa, the Arab World, East Asia, South Asia, and Central and Eastern Europe. In theoretical terms, the book examines three key dimensions of modern secularity: historical pathways, cultural meanings, and global entanglements of secular formations. The contributions show how differences in these dimensions are linked to specific histories of religious and ethnic diversity, processes of state-formation and nation-building. They also reveal how secularities are critically shaped through civilizational encounters, processes of globalization, colonial conquest, and missionary movements, and how entanglements between different territorially grounded notions of secularity or between local cultures and transnational secular arenas unfold over time.

Two people love each other deeply but are kept apart. Will their love last? It s 1966 in Southern California. Shy but strong twenty-something Norm Supancheck is headed toward the priesthood when a chance meeting with a young teacher named Shayla Strohmeyer changes his life forever. Norm and Shayla discover common passions, become friends, and grow to love each other. Yet because of this love they re faced with an enormous choice. To marry means giving up a calling. To break up means losing a lifetime of love. Or does it? This is a book for anyone who s ever sensed that the call to love extends beyond anticipatable boundaries. It s a story about being pulled between two worlds, about loving deeply and truly, but about expressing that love in ways not first imagined. What will happen to true love when it s bombarded by time, distance, accidents, family rearing, sickness, and finally mortality? Father Norm Supancheck s poignant and monumental memoir will comfort you and challenge you. Ultimately, like true love itself, it will never let you go. A true story "