Your Secret Name: Discovering Who God Created You to Be, by Kary Oberbrunner, is free courtesy of Christian publisher Zondervan.
Book Description
We all have one--a Secret Name that is. The Bible tells us so. Yet few of us know ours. Ignorantly, we're stuck, caught up in the 'Name Game.'Using the story of the biblical patriarch Jacob as a backdrop, author Kary Oberbrunner calls us to stop accepting the world's labels and start wrestling with God to discover our true identity. Jacob spent years living out the meaning of his earthly name: 'deceiver.' Caught up in pretending to be someone he wasn't, he was unaware that God would build a nation through him, unaware that Jesus would be one of his descendents, unaware of the lands he would inherit. Then he heard God speak his true name and the future God had for him unfolded. Oberbrunner reminds us that we'll be unable to discern what God wants to build through us until we discover how God has seen us all along. In Your Secret Name, readers will find the courage to abandon what they know in order to become who they were born to be.
Spiritual Rhythm: Being with Jesus Every Season of Your Soul, by Mark Buchanan, is free courtesy of Christian publisher Zondervan.
Book Description
'Abide in me,' Jesus tells us, 'and you will bear much fruit.' Yet too often we forget that fruit needs different seasons in order to grow. We measure our spiritual maturity by how much we do rather than how we are responding to our current spiritual season.In Spiritual Rhythm, Mark Buchanan replaces our spirituality of busyness with a spirituality of abiding. Sometimes we are busy, sometimes still, sometimes pushing with all we've got, sometimes waiting. This model of the spiritual life measures and produces growth by asking: Are we living in rhythm with the season we are in? With the lyrical writing for which he is known, Mark invites us to respond to every season of the heart, whether we are flourishing and fruitful, stark and dismal, or cool and windy. In comparing spiritual rhythms to the seasons of the year, he shows us what to expect from each season and how embracing the seasons causes our spiritual lives to prosper. As he draws on the powerful words of Scripture, Mark explores what activities are suitable or necessary in each season---and what activities are useless or even harmful in that season.Throughout the book, Mark weaves together stories of young and old, men and women, families, couples, and individuals who are in or have been through a particular season of the heart. As Mark writes, 'I pray that this book meets you in whatever season you're in, and prepares you for whatever seasons await. I pray that it helps you find your voice, your stride, your rhythm, in season or out. Mostly, I pray that you, with or without my help, find Christ wherever you are. And that, even more, you discover that wherever you are, he's found you.'