I am a daddy of two daughters—a four-year-old and a three-year-old. Because I love my children so much, it has been all too easy to make them into idols. I do not say that lightly or throw that term around. Am I willing to trust God with my girls? Do I really believe that God is good?

Some Christians separate themselves from the culture, while others try to transform it. Here are ten key books (listed in alphabetical order by title) to help believers navigate the complexities of living out their faith to the glory of God in a fallen world.

What is the character of our Christianity? Is its primary purpose ourselves? What we get out of it? Jesus exposes, challenges, and disintegrates this selfishness with the first petition of the Lord’s Prayer, “Hallowed be thy name” (Matt. 6:9).

I remember the day I determined to teach my firstborn how to clean her own room, rather than to continue to do the task myself. What would have taken me five to ten minutes to accomplish took closer to forty minutes that day; but it turns out that in the long term, the extra time was worth every second.

I don’t know about you, but I’m not such a big fan of change—especially when it comes to change I don’t have control over. Here are two good things to remember in the midst of all the twists and turns of life.

How do Christians decide which church to attend? As we walked through the doors of new churches, struck up conversations, and sat under preaching, we wrestled with the reality that no church is perfect. What should we even be looking for?

I will never forget the moment when I came to believe that hope was nothing more than a pipe dream. Hope was fanciful, wishful thinking, and useless. Years later I encountered real hope in God—the promise maker and promise keeper.

Does it seem to you, as it does to me, that it has become more common for our public debates to be framed as being between the “good guys” and the “bad guys”? The people on “our side” are perceived as “good,” and the people on the “other side” as “evil.” What does the Bible have to say about how we view each other?

When we think of hospitality, it is usually in regard to spending time with people at home. We can also learn a lot from businesses, including this Sacramento restaurant, about how to make people feel warm, welcome, and valued.