"I have never met a person whose goal was to ruin his or her life. We all want to be happy, and we want it all of the time."

So begins James Bryan Smith in The Good and Beautiful Life. The problem is, he tells us, we have bought into false notions of happiness and success. These self-centered decisions lead us further into the vices that cause ruin: anger, lust, lying, worry, and judging. Eventually we find ourselves living a beautifully packaged life of self-destruction.

Following the Sermon on the Mount, this follow-up to The Good and Beautiful God guides us to look behind these character flaws and to replace our false beliefs with Jesus' narratives about life in the kingdom of God.

The Good and Beautiful Series includes four essential discipleship books from James Bryan Smith. Work through these proven Bible study resources individually or with a group to learn who God is, what it means to be a Christian, how to live in community, and how to address toxic self-narratives that hinder spiritual growth.

Smith, James Bryan

James Bryan Smith is a theology professor at Friends University in Wichita, Kansas, as well as the director of the Christian Spiritual Formation Institute there. A writer and speaker in the area of Christian spiritual formation, Jim Smith is a founding board member of Renovar#233. Smith is an ordained United Methodist Church minister and has served in various capacities in local churches. He is also the author of A Spiritual Formation Workbook, Devotional Classics (with Richard Foster), Embracing the Love of God, Rich Mullins: An Arrow Pointing to Heaven and Room of Marvels.