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Telling the Story: Not a heart like Herod
Herod was a terrible person. We know it from the Bible (Matthew 2); history records his evil deeds. He’s been the bad guy of the Christmas story for a long time. Though thousands of years have passed, we can still learn from his notorious ways. Make that what not to do. When the wise men…
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Seeking Approval Part 2
“But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him. For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being…
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Trust your King
From a great chess player of Cincinnati, we learn that in the early part of the last century, an artist who was also a great chess player painted a picture of a chess game. The players were a young man and Satan. The young man manipulated the white pieces; Satan the black pieces. The issue…
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Telling the Story: Prayer and the wish book
Way back in the 1900s, there was an amazing, magnificent, almost magical book of wishes. Each year, the Sears, Roebuck, and Company issued a treasured catalog containing all the toys on earth, and it went to Every. Single. Household. Kids young and old anxiously awaited its arrival in the fall. Dolls of every size and…
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Seeking approval
“Nevertheless among the chief rulers also many believed on him; but because of the Pharisees they did not confess him, lest they should be put out of the synagogue: For they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God.” John 12:42-23 The Pharisees of Jesus’ day should have been the first to…
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Freedom ‘for’
Robert Youngs gives this illustration: I have on my table a violin string… it is free. I twist one end of it and it responds. It is free. But it is not free to do what a violin string is supposed to do–produce music. So I take it, fix it in my violin and tighten…
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Telling the Story: The ‘Do not be afraids’ of Christmas
It’s hard to let go of Christmas. The “Do not be afraids”are still on my mind. When the angel visited Mary in Nazareth, the words gushed from Gabriel’s mouth: “Do not be afraid…you have found favor with God.” Seeing an angel right in front of her would have been terrifying. Pondering it from this side,…
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Quit complicating the Grace of God Part 4
“And there arose a great storm of wind, and the waves beat into the ship, so that it was now full. And he was in the hinder part of the ship, asleep on a pillow: and they awake him, and say unto him, Master, carest thou not that we perish? And he arose, and rebuked…
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God’s heartbeat in us
The great paradoxes of the Bible. To live you must die; to be free you must serve; to know the truth you must see the lie. God is not trying to confuse us but to show us that His ways are not our ways, nor are His thoughts our thoughts. Isaiah 55:8. Here is another…
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Telling the Story: Team Mary and Joseph
A middle schooler recently told his mother he didn’t like Sunday School because he knew all the Bible stories already. I got a little bit tickled but beg to differ with that young man. Even though I am 62, every single time I open God’s Word, He speaks to me. Unfortunately, I’ve been there as…
Tag: Faith
