J D Walt – författare

Creed-A Seven-Week Reflection Guide on the Apostles'' Creed is a seven-week individual or group study on the Apostles'' Creed. It is designed to be used independently or in conjunction with Timothy Tennent''s This We Believe.

Creed-A Seven-Week Reflection Guide on the Apostles'' Creed is a seven-week individual or group study on the Apostles'' Creed. It is designed to be used independently or in conjunction with Timothy Tennent''s This We Believe.

It’s time to stop crying in our soup about the consumeristic commercialization

of Christmas. Instead of bashing the culture for making Black Friday bigger than Thanksgiving, let’ do something different this year. Let’s do Advent. Instead of quibbling over saying “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas,” let’s recover what it means to celebrate Holy Days. Instead of our cheesy slogans

about the “reason for the season,” let’s practice a sacred season for the sake of the reason. Let’s joyfully embrace the fact that we will do Advent in the midst

of a culture that loves Christmas but doesn’t really understand it. When the church reclaims Advent, the culture will behold Christmas.

This twenty-five-day reader offers an opportunity for individuals, groups, and communities to get on the same page in preparation for the celebration of Christmas. Here you will find the trusted texts that have guided the church for centuries combined with daily insight and prayers composed by some of the best Christian poets of our time.

It’s time to stop crying in our soup about the consumeristic commercialization

of Christmas. Instead of bashing the culture for making Black Friday bigger than Thanksgiving, let’ do something different this year. Let’s do Advent. Instead of quibbling over saying “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas,” let’s recover what it means to celebrate Holy Days. Instead of our cheesy slogans

about the “reason for the season,” let’s practice a sacred season for the sake of the reason. Let’s joyfully embrace the fact that we will do Advent in the midst

of a culture that loves Christmas but doesn’t really understand it. When the church reclaims Advent, the culture will behold Christmas.

This twenty-five-day reader offers an opportunity for individuals, groups, and communities to get on the same page in preparation for the celebration of Christmas. Here you will find the trusted texts that have guided the church for centuries combined with daily insight and prayers composed by some of the best Christian poets of our time.

In Reset, J. D. Walt follows Mary and Joseph on a journey through that first Advent season and into the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ. In reading this interpretation of the conversations that may have occurred between them as they walked along the road, families can begin to understand more deeply and intimately what it meant for the Lord to be coming then, as well as what it means for him to be coming now.

In Reset, J. D. Walt follows Mary and Joseph on a journey through that first Advent season and into the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ. In reading this interpretation of the conversations that may have occurred between them as they walked along the road, families can begin to understand more deeply and intimately what it meant for the Lord to be coming then, as well as what it means for him to be coming now.

One of the great realities of scripture is that the most common verses hold the greatest mysteries until the Holy Spirit opens our eyes. So it is with John 3:16—“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

Then what? Surely there’s more to the Christian life than just believing.

In This Is How We Know, J. D. Walt invites us on a forty-four-day devotional journey to explore what he refers to as “the second half of the gospel” as presented in 1 John—“This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters” (1 John 3:16). The journey of awakening is the Spirit-empowered, hard-fought movement of John 3:16 to 1 John 3:16. This is how we know.

One of the great realities of scripture is that the most common verses hold the greatest mysteries until the Holy Spirit opens our eyes. So it is with John 3:16—“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

Then what? Surely there’s more to the Christian life than just believing.

In This Is How We Know, J. D. Walt invites us on a forty-four-day devotional journey to explore what he refers to as “the second half of the gospel” as presented in 1 John—“This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters” (1 John 3:16). The journey of awakening is the Spirit-empowered, hard-fought movement of John 3:16 to 1 John 3:16. This is how we know.

Through this Daily Text discipleship resource, James will implore us day after day to become real Christians. There are many people all around us who have been hurt by hypocrisy and who will only be healed by seeing the genuine article. Widows, orphans, and so many caught in the cruelty of inescapable poverty wake up every day with hopes of meeting their first real Christian. Jesus has all their numbers, and

James has ours. He’s looking for more friends like us. Let’s join him and add to his tribe of the first real Christians.

Through this Daily Text discipleship resource, James will implore us day after day to become real Christians. There are many people all around us who have been hurt by hypocrisy and who will only be healed by seeing the genuine article. Widows, orphans, and so many caught in the cruelty of inescapable poverty wake up every day with hopes of meeting their first real Christian. Jesus has all their numbers, and

James has ours. He’s looking for more friends like us. Let’s join him and add to his tribe of the first real Christians.

When people mention “the domino effect,” they are typically talking about setting up dominos end over end and arranging them into some kind of design in order to tip the first one and begin the chain reaction. But there’s another type of domino effect in which a two-inch tall domino can topple a larger domino, which can topple an even larger domino, and eventually topple the Empire State Building.

And so it is with Colossians, a treasure trove of proverbial dominos, each holding enormous capacity to topple things far exceeding its size. And when arranged together, they hold the ever-present possibility to tip fresh movements of awakening. That’s exactly what happened from the moment Jesus began calling disciples to follow him. One life tipped into another life which tipped into a family, which tipped into a village and a town and a countryside and a region.

The dominoes tipped from the Upper Room with 120 people to the day of Pentecost with three thousand and all the way to the present day and some two billion Christians around the world. In domino effect terms we’ve been to the moon and back a thousand times and the dominoes are still falling. Impossible things keep happening. And great awakenings are still on the horizon.

When people mention “the domino effect,” they are typically talking about setting up dominos end over end and arranging them into some kind of design in order to tip the first one and begin the chain reaction. But there’s another type of domino effect in which a two-inch tall domino can topple a larger domino, which can topple an even larger domino, and eventually topple the Empire State Building.

And so it is with Colossians, a treasure trove of proverbial dominos, each holding enormous capacity to topple things far exceeding its size. And when arranged together, they hold the ever-present possibility to tip fresh movements of awakening. That’s exactly what happened from the moment Jesus began calling disciples to follow him. One life tipped into another life which tipped into a family, which tipped into a village and a town and a countryside and a region.

The dominoes tipped from the Upper Room with 120 people to the day of Pentecost with three thousand and all the way to the present day and some two billion Christians around the world. In domino effect terms we’ve been to the moon and back a thousand times and the dominoes are still falling. Impossible things keep happening. And great awakenings are still on the horizon.

In his masterful letter to the Church in Ephesus, it is as if Paul is putting together a massive jigsaw puzzle. He shows how spiritual and material fit together, how male and female, slave and free, and even ethnicity and nationality connect and interrelate in this new creation of the kingdom of God. He reveals for us how the disparate pieces, powers, and principalities insert themselves into the affairs of heaven and earth. He gets granular at the level of husbands and wives, employers and employees, and even parents and children and how the gospel must work itself out from cosmic dimensions to everyday practicalities. The puzzle comes together in a marvelous way through this ancient letter to the Church in Ephesus.

In his masterful letter to the Church in Ephesus, it is as if Paul is putting together a massive jigsaw puzzle. He shows how spiritual and material fit together, how male and female, slave and free, and even ethnicity and nationality connect and interrelate in this new creation of the kingdom of God. He reveals for us how the disparate pieces, powers, and principalities insert themselves into the affairs of heaven and earth. He gets granular at the level of husbands and wives, employers and employees, and even parents and children and how the gospel must work itself out from cosmic dimensions to everyday practicalities. The puzzle comes together in a marvelous way through this ancient letter to the Church in Ephesus.

The forty days of Lent open up a journey from the top of Transfiguration Mountain to the bottom of the Valley of the Cross. These forty days provide forty steps, if you will, to lean in and listen deeply to Jesus. As we do so we find the way of the cross is the road to resurrection. Listening to Jesus-it''s our highest calling to the lowest place where we discover our lives transformed and our worst days breaking forth into our best life.

The forty days of Lent open up a journey from the top of Transfiguration Mountain to the bottom of the Valley of the Cross. These forty days provide forty steps, if you will, to lean in and listen deeply to Jesus. As we do so we find the way of the cross is the road to resurrection. Listening to Jesus-it''s our highest calling to the lowest place where we discover our lives transformed and our worst days breaking forth into our best life.

It is easy to become confined by our prayers. We say these words at those times and at that place in the morning or before a meal or at this point in the Sunday service. Prayer slips into a faithful practice when it was meant to be the core substance of a faith-filled life. That’s the point of this book—to shake us free from a dutiful prayer life and launch us into a more expansive life of prayer.

Jesus is calling his disciples beyond a mere prayer life and into an unbounded life of prayer. He wants to lead us to a radical kind of intimacy with God and each other that becomes the very labor and delivery room of the kingdom—the birthplace of

divine love in the world. It’s the place where prayer and justice and mercy and faith become inextricably intermingled and unleashed like a flood-tide onto a parched land. While prayer may not be the secret formula to a great awakening, we can be

assured it paves the only pathway that will lead us there.

It is easy to become confined by our prayers. We say these words at those times and at that place in the morning or before a meal or at this point in the Sunday service. Prayer slips into a faithful practice when it was meant to be the core substance of a faith-filled life. That’s the point of this book—to shake us free from a dutiful prayer life and launch us into a more expansive life of prayer.

Jesus is calling his disciples beyond a mere prayer life and into an unbounded life of prayer. He wants to lead us to a radical kind of intimacy with God and each other that becomes the very labor and delivery room of the kingdom—the birthplace of

divine love in the world. It’s the place where prayer and justice and mercy and faith become inextricably intermingled and unleashed like a flood-tide onto a parched land. While prayer may not be the secret formula to a great awakening, we can be

assured it paves the only pathway that will lead us there.