Book Giveaway For Selling Water by the River: A Book about the Life Jesus Promised and the Religion That Gets in the Way

[close] "Christ" and "Christianity" are two very different things. One is the river. The other sells water by the river.

In Selling Water by the River, Shane Hipps seeks to separate the truth and reality of Jesus from the religion that bears his name, and which has sometimes built the biggest barriers to him.

Conservative Christians focus on Jesus as a personal Savior, concentrating on fulfillment in the afterlife. Liberal Christians think of Jesus as a Moral Guide and Teacher, and play out his message through social justice initiatives in this life. Both views are found in scripture, and both are used to fuel political and personal agendas. Both are only partially true.

There is one portrait of Jesus that is overlooked far too often. Jesus focused on "the Kingdom of Heaven": an inner life of boundless peace for every person. While liberals look for the Kingdom of Heaven in this life and conservatives in the next, Jesus insisted that the Kingdom of Heaven is an experience that resides within every human being. It is the key to unlimited peace and fulfillment inside each individual.

Lyrical yet precise, Hipps deconstructs "religion" to reveal how Jesus taught that the heaven that we long for isn't just a gift when we die, but a gift while we live. It's already inside of us. [close]