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The Pastor’s Pen: Proper Worship
Let the one who would worship God open his mouth in praise, his heart in receptivity, his mind in contemplation, his purse in dedication, and his hand in fellowship. Songwriter and worship leader Graham Kendrick said, “Worship is first and foremost for His benefit, not ours, though it is marvelous to discover that in giving…
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The Pastor’s Pen: The truth of the book
“It’s a strange thing: the book has never been so accessible. According to the Guinness Book of Records, L. Ron Hubbard’s writings of Scientology have been translated into 65 languages; the Quran is supposed to be read in Arabic so it has not been translated as much; The Book of Mormon is in about 100…
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The Pastor’s Pen: No replacement refs
Way back in October 2012, sports fans across the United States were howling foul. Officiating calls in the final week of replacement referees in an NFL game and Major League baseball’s National League Wildcard game turned the sports world into a finger-pointing circus. On Sept. 24, 2012 Monday Night Football game between the Seattle Seahawks…
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The Pastor’s Pen: They will not prevail
Psalm 22:6-8: “But I am a worm, and no man; a reproach of men, and despised of the people. All they that see me laugh me to scorn: they shoot out the lip, they shake the head.” When Susan Boyle stepped out on the stage of “Britain’s Got Talent” years ago people laughed at her…
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The Hands of Christ
Many families from Austria and Holland barely escaped before the Nazis occupied both countries and they fled to England. Justin Jackson, a postmaster friend of mine from Ohio, tells this story: My brother and I started traveling many years ago to trace our family’s heritage and it’s taken us to many Holocaust sites and death…
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The Pastor’s Pen: ‘I thought you were Jesus’
When Wycliffe Bible translator Doug Meland and his wife moved into a village of Brazil’s Fulnio Indians, he was referred to simply as “the white man.” The term was by no means complimentary since other white men had exploited them, burned their homes, and robbed them of their lands. But after the Melands learned the…
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The Pastor’s Pen: The Word of God
Maybe you’ve heard about the gorilla in a zoo holding a Bible in one hand & a book about evolution in the other. He was looking confused, so someone asked, “What are you doing?” The gorilla answered, “Well, I’m trying to decide if I’m my brother’s keeper or my keeper’s brother.” There’s a story I…
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The Pastor’s Pen: Just watch!
A young boy looked up at his grandfather and wondered aloud, “Grandpa, how do you live for Jesus?” The respected grandfather stooped down and quietly told the boy, “Just watch.” As the years went by the grandfather was an example to the boy of how to follow Jesus. He stayed rock-steady in living for Him.…
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The Pastor’s Pen: Approaching storm
“Isaac’s Storm” is a very interesting book about the hurricane that wiped out Galveston in 1900. One of the main plot lines of the book is about how everyone was convinced that a hurricane could never strike Galveston, even as one approached. The author vividly describes how, as the streets began to flood, people went…
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The Pastor’s Pen: Truly hungry
In May 1846, 187 men, women and children left from Missouri in a wagon train headed to California. There was nothing exceptional about the group or this journey and we would have never known about them had they not made the decision to try a shortcut. The “Hastings Cutoff,” as it was known, was indeed…