Books

I had it all backwards. The main thing was not my love for God, but his love for me. And from that love I respond to God as one deeply flawed, yet loved. I’m not looking to prove my worth. I’m not searching for acceptance. I’m living out of the worth God already declares I have. I’m embracing his view of me and in the process discovering the person he created me to be.

In Eyes Wide Open, Jud Wilhite invites you to discover the real you. Not the you who pretends to be perfect to satisfy everyone’s expectations. Not the you who always feels guilty before God. Not the you who secretly feels God forgives everyone else but only tolerates you. Not the you who looks in the mirror and sees a failure. The real you, loved and forgiven by God, living out of your identity in Christ.

A travel guide through real spirituality from one incomplete person to another, Eyes Wide Open is a book of stories about following God in the messes of life, about broken pasts and our lifelong need for grace. It is a book about seeing ourselves and God with new eyes–eyes wide open to a God of love.

Love has a way of making you sing. Songs like “I Only Have Eyes for You,” “Stand by Your Man,” “Love Me Tender,” and “Livin’ on a Prayer” come to mind. Three thousand years ago, King Solomon of Israel was inspired by his bride to write a love song. He considered it a masterpiece, and it is simply known as the Song of Solomon. The song is filled with passionate and insightful principles for relationships.

In today’s changing culture, relationships can be incredibly challenging. That Crazy Little Thing Called Love provides relevant and encouraging reminders of God’s plan for married living from the Song of Solomon. And, besides all that, it’s just plain fun! The soundtrack of That Crazy Little Thing Called Love is divided into five playlists:
* Love is a crazy thing
* Thriving after “I do”
* Sex in marriage
* Fighting fair
* Making love last

“Uncensored grace is what you get from a loving God when all the religious types have gone home, and every last hope for your own effort has blown up in your face.”

What comes to mind first when you think “Las Vegas”? Maybe glitz and glam. Or dealers and dancers, high rollers and hell raisers. And why not? After all, the town they call Sin City is an American icon, an anything-goes shrine to pleasure, money, sex–and another lucky roll of the dice.

Probably when you think Las Vegas, you don’t think about God or grace.

Neither did Jud Wilhite when he was first invited to become the senior pastor at the city’s largest church. But the people he’s met since moving there with his family have changed all that. Today, Vegas stands for something much different and more surprising for Jud. He doesn’t think of Vegas as Sin City anymore. Now, to him, it is Grace City.

Working with veteran journalist Bill Taaffe, Jud takes you past the neon and the hype to another side of Vegas–where people whose lives have been marred by loneliness, addiction, and despair are finding hope and freedom in a vital community of faith. Uncensored Grace is an account of what happens when ordinary people get honest with each other and an extraordinary God. In its pages you’ll meet gaming industry movers and shakers. You’ll meet working exotic dancers, a Flying Elvis, an American Idol contestant, a cop who won the hearts of a crime-hardened city, and more.

Each of them has encountered what Jud calls “uncensored grace.” He writes, “Uncensored means that there is no formula or membership or performance that stands between you and God’s goodness.”

Uncensored Grace is their unforgettable account of people who are betting everything on a very big idea: that as wide and deep and high as your mountain of personal ruin might get, God’s transforming grace is always wider and deeper and higher.

This book is also available in Hardback titled Stripped.