Charisma Magazine

This message has also been adapted for teens in the book You Were Made to Make a Difference, which Lucado wrote with daughter Jenna Lucado Bishop. Lucado's also releasing One Hand, Two Hands to help children realize that they can help others.

Lucado talks about the message of Outlive Your Life. (Side note: Lucado is already taking his own message to heart; 100 percent of the author's royalties from Outlive Your Life products are going to benefit children and families through World Vision.)

Q: Why did you write Outlive Your Life?

A: It started with three questions. I heard them about four or five years ago and I'm still reeling from them. The first question came from a fellow, just out of curiosity, who said if you'd been a German pastor during the Nazi occupation, would you have taken a stand against Adolf Hitler? Then someone asked me a similar question just two or three weeks later. They said if you had been a pastor in the Deep South during the civil rights movement would you have taken a stand against racism? Another good question, but I didn't live in the South during the civil rights movement. I certainly didn't live in Germany during World War II. That's why the third question was really powerful. The person said, when your children and grandchildren learn that you lived in a day in which 3 billion people were desperately poor and a billion people were hungry, what would they think of your response to this crisis? Now that's a good question.

All of us have an opportunity now to do something to set a great example for our children and our grandchildren. That's why I wrote Outlive Your Life. We are created by a great God to do great works. He invites us to outlive our lives, not just in heaven but here on Earth.

Aaron Crider has two passions. He loves worship and leading others into the presence of God. And he's also very passionate about social justice. His new CD, The Change, offers listeners a chance to reflect on our Creator but also reminds us to put that love into action for others.

TobyMac | Bethany House

TobyMac's song "City on Our Knees" took the Christian music world by storm, and now the musician takes his lyrics one step further with this book, which "reflects the message of the song," he says.

Instead of merely singing the line "when we step across the line, we can sail across the sea," he illustrates it with numerous stories of people who have stepped across lines of persecution, doubt, prejudice or despair to change the world one bit at a time.

Jim Daly | David C. Cook

Jim Daly, who serves as president and CEO of Focus on the Family, writes about one of the paradoxes of the Christian—the blessing of brokenness—in Stronger: Trading Brokenness for Unbreakable Strength.

No stranger to suffering, as a boy he was abandoned by his alcoholic father and then lost his mother to cancer. He not only shares vignettes from his own life—his marriage and his wife's struggle with depression—but also relays the stories and struggles of others who've crossed his path, offering no easy answers to the "Why, God?" question.

Ted Dekker | Thomas Nelson

When advance publicity material warns that Ted Dekker's latest is for everyone, but "not everyone is for this story," it's either nervousness or clever marketing.

Certainly in this tale of vampires and seduction set in 18th-century Russia, Christian fiction's favorite provocateur once more pushes the boundaries as he depicts the lure of sin in a way that may make some frown. But there is a strong redemptive thread woven into the adventure for those who persist beyond any initial discomfort.