A Christian Life, the Journal of Love and Faith are weekly blogs that I write as part of the being40plus online magazine. In my passion to spread God's Word I've decided to put these blogs together as mini journals. I not only want to help spread God's good Word but I also desire to help others or non-believers know and understand how we as Christians should live in order to live the promised life, a better, more abundantly-filled and happier life given to us by God. But in order to obtain the fulfillment of God's promises, we must choose to surrender to His Will and completely trust in Him. He loves us abundantly, unconditionally and more importantly, His love never fails!

This book explores the implications of recent insights in modern neuroscience that attribute mental capacities often ascribed to a disembodied soul instead to the functions of the brain and body in collaboration with social experience. It explores how this insight changes the traditional "care of souls," encouraging more attention to fostering spiritual growth through a social and communal focus.

You are what you love. But you might not love what you think. In this book, award-winning author James K. A. Smith shows that who and what we worship fundamentally shape our hearts. And while we desire to shape culture, we are not often aware of how culture shapes us. We might not realize the ways our hearts are being taught to love rival gods instead of the One for whom we were made. Smith helps readers recognize the formative power of culture and the transformative possibilities of Christian practices. He explains that worship is the "imagination station" that incubates our loves and longings so that our cultural endeavors are indexed toward God and his kingdom. This is why the church and worshiping in a local community of believers should be the hub and heart of Christian formation and discipleship. Following the publication of his influential work Desiring the Kingdom, Smith received numerous requests from pastors and leaders for a more accessible version of that book's content. No mere abridgment, this new book draws on years of Smith's popular presentations on the ideas in Desiring the Kingdom to offer a fresh, bottom-up rearticulation. The author creatively uses film, literature, and music illustrations to engage readers and includes new material on marriage, family, youth ministry, and faith and work. He also suggests individual and communal practices for shaping the Christian life.

Love. It’s that thing everyone talks about but very few will ever truly put into action. It’s the fuel with which we are called to live, and it’s the very reason Jesus’ body was brutally broken upon that splintered cross. It’s unbeatable, unrestricted, and hands down the greatest attribute of God. It will transform the way you see life, and it will radically invade the way you see others. The question is, have you discovered and harnessed it the way God intended? In Love Is Oxygen, you will engage with the reality of God’s love as something you can know and personally experience. This love transcends fear and circumstances, and it pushes us into places we never imagined. After all, living God’s love is like breathing—it gives life as we breathe it in . . . and then we can’t help but breathe it out to the people around us.

When you understand it properly, the doctrine of vocation—"doing everything for God's glory"—is not a platitude or an outdated notion. This principle that we vaguely apply to our lives and our work is actually the key to Christian ethics, to influencing our culture for Christ, and to infusing our ordinary, everyday lives with the presence of God. For when we realize that the "mundane" activities that consume most of our time are "God's hiding places," our perspective changes. Culture expert Gene Veith unpacks the biblical, Reformation teaching about the doctrine of vocation, emphasizing not what we should specifically do with our time or what careers we are called to, but what God does in and through our callings—even within the home. In each task He has given us—in our workplaces and families, our churches and society—God Himself is at work. Veith guides you to discover God's purpose and calling in those seemingly ordinary areas by providing you with a spiritual framework for thinking about such issues and for acting upon them with a changed perspective.

Christians know that God loves them, but can easily feel that he is perpetually disappointed and frustrated, maybe even close to giving up on them. As a result, they focus a lot—and rightly so—on what Jesus has done to appease God’s wrath for sin. But how does Jesus Christ actually feel about his people amid all their sins and failures? This book draws us to Matthew 11, where Jesus describes himself as “gentle and lowly in heart,” longing for his people to find rest in him. The gospel flows from God’s deepest heart for his people, a heart of tender love for the sinful and suffering. These chapters take readers into the depths of Christ’s very heart for sinners, diving deep into Bible passages that speak of who Christ is and encouraging readers with the affections of Christ for his people. His longing heart for sinners comforts and sustains readers in their up-and-down lives.