Nice: Why We Love to Be Liked and How God Calls Us to More

God never called us to be nice.What happens when we replace courage with compromise?What happens when we replace honesty with likability?What happens when we replace conviction with clichés?What happens when we replace discipleship to Christ with a devotion to nice?We live in a culture that prizes niceness as one of its highest virtues. Niceness keeps the peace, wins friends, gains influence, and serves our reputations well, but it also takes the teeth out of our witness and the power out of our faith. When we choose to be nice instead of faithful, we bear fruits that are bland, bitter, empty, and rotten to the core.In this life-changing book, Sharon Hodde Miller explores the seemingly innocent idol that has crept into our faith and quietly corrupted it, producing the bad fruits of cowardice, inauthenticity, shallowness, and more. Then she challenges readers to cultivate a better tree, providing practical steps to reclaim our credibility as followers of Christ, and bear better, richer, more life-giving fruits.From the Back Cover"This book is challenging me and helping me to discover a truer way to live authentically free. Sharon is a refreshing voice full of truth and wisdom."--Lysa TerKeurst, #1 New York Times bestselling author and president of Proverbs 31 Ministries***God never called us to be nice.Niceness. It keeps the peace, wins friends, gains influence, and serves our reputations well. It looks a lot like following Jesus, but it takes all the power and freedom out of our lives. In this eye-opening book, Sharon Hodde Miller shares her own battle with this false faith, confesses the bad fruit it produced in her life, and offers practical steps for cutting down the tree at its root.With biblical wisdom, surprising insight, and deep conviction, this book will help you· identify the most common forms of nice Christianity and how they manifest in your life· stop being nice and start practicing true kindness, honesty, courage, and joy· develop a deeper, sturdier faith that can withstand life's storms and even flourish in the middle of themTake a stand, take back your faith, and follow the Savior who was kind, gentle, compassionate, patient, and good, but never simply nice.Sharon Hodde Miller leads Bright City Church in Durham, North Carolina, with her husband, Ike. In addition to speaking all over the country and earning her PhD, she is the author of Free of Me: Why Life Is Better When It's Not about You. Sharon is a regular contributor to sites like She Reads Truth, Propel, and Christianity Today, and she has blogged at SheWorships.com for over ten years. When she is not leading, teaching, or writing, her favorite place to be is at home with her husband and three kids.About the AuthorSharon Hodde Miller, PhD, is teaching pastor at Bright City Church in Durham, North Carolina, which she cofounded with her husband, Ike. The author of Free of Me and Nice, Miller has blogged at SheWorships.com for over ten years, has been a regular contributor to Propel, Her.meneutics, and She Reads Truth,and has written for Relevant, Christianity Today, (in)courage, and many other publications and blogs. She lives with Ike and their three children in Durham, North Carolina.