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The Pastor’s Pen: Ignoring the barriers of the past
Every four years, the world’s attention turns to the summer Olympic games. For a few days, men and women from around the globe gather to compete against the best. Amazing records are broken and new ones are set at these games. The four-minute-mile Just a few decades ago, track-and-field experts proudly declared that no runner…
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The Pastor’s Pen: How do you measure a Christian?
A boy had been disobedient. His mother sent him to the corner and said, “You sit there,” to which he responded with folded arms slumped in his chair, “I might be sitting on the outside, but I’m standing on the inside.” That’s the way we are sometimes. Our hearts are full of willful stubbornness to…
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The Pastor’s Pen: The main thing
Norman Cates shared the humorous story of a guy who prayed this prayer every morning: “Lord, if you want me to witness to someone today, please give me a sign to show me who it is.” One day he found himself on a bus when a big, burly man sat next to him. The bus…
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The Pastor’s Pen: You will find Jesus there
Do you have hope for tomorrow if the doctor gave you bad news today? Did you know that unless you die in an accident or suddenly of a heart attack or stroke, every one of us is going to hear bad news from a doctor one day. Are you prepared for that day? The important…
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Happy, Happy, Happy
“I Want to Be Pretty.” This is the title of a popular TV program that was airing in Poland last year. It was a reality TV show in which, in every episode, you follow the changes of two women who are the heroes of the program. Each of these women works with a team of…
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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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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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Allow the word of God to speak to you
The Bible is God’s word. The Bible is the way God speaks to us today. If the Bible is God’s word then we must adhere to every word and read it as if a letter from a dear friend. In fact the Bible is much more important to you than a personal letter from the…
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What is Christmas to you?
I wonder what Christmas means to a mother who has lost her husband, who must take care of three or four children, working every day, never quite getting everything done, never making ends meet. What does Christmas mean to her? I wonder what Christmas means to the little man in Zimbabwe, 80 years old, living…
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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…
Tag: Jack Ward
