Breaking the Idols of Your Heart : How to Navigate the Temptations of Life (Large type / large print ed)

WE ALL WANT TO KNOW OUR LIFE MATTERS. The Teacher in Ecclesiastes wanted to know if his life mattered.

He invested time and energy in every activity he could think of that might bring meaning and purpose to his life but found only disappointment, frustration, hopelessness.

In our thirst for significance we, like the Teacher, give our lives-our time, talents, strength, heart-to anything we think will give us worth and purpose: Power.

Relationships. Money. Pleasure. Work. But worshiping these idols has a high cost-and still doesn't bring the fulfillment we long for.

In Breaking the Idols of Your Heart Dan Allender and Tremper Longman illuminate for us the Teacher's warnings and, after all his activities, his final radiant conclusion: Meaning and purpose come only when God is truly the center of our life and the object of our hope.

Using a compelling fictional narrative at the start of each chapter, the authors lead us through Ecclesiastes to help us recognize and exchange cheap pursuits for the only One worth pursuing.

Also included are group discussion questions to take you through Ecclesiastes with others. Ecclesiastes is not an easy book to read, because transferring our worship from money, power and fame to God is not an easy road to travel.

But as the Teacher discovered and wrote down for us, it leads to one conclusion: life lived abundantly, with freedom, hope, purpose, meaning...DAN B.

ALLENDER is a professor of counseling and president of Mars Hill Graduate School in Seattle, Washington.

TREMPER LONGMAN III is a professor of biblical studies at Westmont College in Santa Barbara, California.

Together Dan and Tremper authored the bestselling book Bold Love (NavPress) as well as The Intimate Mystery and Intimate Marriage Bible studies (InterVarsity Press).