searching for grace

by scotty smith and Russ Masterson

Anxious? Burnt out? Weary? Why is it so hard for our souls to find rest?
In Searching for Grace, Russ and his mentor, Scotty Smith, explore the contours of their lives and why embracing God’s grace unreservedly is so difficult for many of us. Their honest conversations offer priceless lessons for parched souls everywhere.

Many of us feel anxious and unfulfilled by our everyday existence, yet deeply long for a purposeful, meaningful, and peace-filled life. That tension creates a background buzz of profound discontentment behind everything we do. There is a better way. Searching for Grace reveals the conversations between Russ and Scotty that transformed Russ’s life forever, helping him identify the mindsets that contributed to his restlessness. Straight from his little black journal, Russ shares the seven life-giving principles he learned from Scotty that unleashed him to a refreshingly new life, radically built on God’s grace.

“Searching for Grace invites you into the kind of relationship that we all long for deep in our hearts. The relationship between Scotty and Russ is scary, vulnerable, painful, but gorgeously loving and drenched in grace.” ―Paul David Tripp, author of New Morning Mercies

Grace in Practice

by Paul Zahl

Long captivated by the idea of one-way love or “God’s grace,” Paul Zahl has often contended with accusations of being “long on grace but short on law.” “Grace in Practice” begins with Zahl’s response to the classic tension between law and grace. He then sets up the four pillars of his own theology of grace: humanity, salvation, Christ, and the Holy Spirit in the Trinity.

Having discussed grace in theological terms, Zahl goes on to address the practicality of grace, developing a systematic theology of grace that is radically understood from the Bible and consistently applied to everyday life. After helpfully narrowing down specific fields of grace, asserting throughout that grace always trumps both law and church, Zahl concludes with an expanded view of grace in everything, extending this good news to all creation.

Because He Loves Me

by Elyse Fitzpatrick

God’s love has the power to change lives. Christians, then, should exhibit the greatest transformation of all because, rightly understood and cherished, God’s love makes them increasingly more like the One who has lavished his love on them.

So why do we so often struggle to exhibit God’s love? Biblical counselor Elyse M. Fitzpatrick asks one simple question: “In your pursuit of godliness, have you left Jesus behind?” We need to be rescued from our “identity amnesia” and pointed to our true identity as God’s beloved children—adopted by the Father, united with the Son, and empowered by the Holy Spirit.

Fitzpatrick shows how a genuine transformation of identity leads to a transformation of our daily lives. Those who struggle with either legalism or lawlessness will find encouragement to return to God’s love, the source of authentic and lasting change. Study questions and invitations to further discovery conclude each chapter.

The Prodigal God

by Timothy Keller

Newsweek called New York Times bestselling author Timothy Keller a “C.S. Lewis for the twenty-first century” in a feature on his first book, The Reason for God. In that book, he offered a rational explanation for why we should believe in God. Now, in The Prodigal God, Keller takes his trademark intellectual approach to understanding Christianity and uses the parable of the Prodigal Son to reveal an unexpected message of hope and salvation.

Within that parable, Jesus reveals God’s prodigal grace toward both the irreligious and the moralistic. This book will challenge both the devout and skeptics to see Christianity in a whole new way.