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George Floyd, Lecrae, Lent in the time of reckoning
This week is supposed to begin jury selection for Derek Chauvin, the former police officer charged in the murder of George Floyd. It’s been a year since Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd. What have we learned?
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Lent needs to deal with our callousness
My Lenten reading has me in Jeremiah. It wasn’t that long ago I was in Jeremiah in my Daily Office readings… It is a constant pummeling, but for good reason.
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Domesticating the Cross of Christ
“It is startling to reflect on just how diminished the average modern Western Christian vision of ‘hope,’ of ‘inheritance,’ or indeed of ‘forgiveness’ itself has become. We have exchanged the glory of God for a mess of spiritualized, individualistic and moralistic pottage.And in the middle of it we have radically distorted the meaning of the central gospel message: that, in…
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Sin and death and mowing lawns
When I first was in ministry, the area where I pastored had a group of people who were teaching on a subject I would call “hyper grace.” A few years later, when I was pastoring in the Twin Cities, there was a Christian radio show focusing on what they perceived to be “apologetics” and how to trip up people to…
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Talk to your soul
Truly my soul finds rest in God;my salvation comes from him.Truly he is my rock and my salvation;he is my fortress, I will never be shaken.Yes, my soul, find rest in God;my hope comes from him. (Ps. 62:1-2,5)
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Hemmed in
You hem me in behind and before,and you lay your hand upon me.Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,too lofty for me to attain. (Ps. 139:5-6)
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Spiritual formation and exile
The more we will walk in these uncertain days the more we are in need of spiritual formation and spiritual rhythms. As we go into a spiritual Babylonian exile, we need to understand we are equipped for this time. Without Christ, we deal with a void. John Mark Comer and James Bryan Smith talk about spiritual formation in a time…
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The beauty of hope
“To hope is to ‘borrow grace.’ It is not naive optimism. Hope admits the truth of our vulnerability. It does not trust God to keep all bad things from happening. But it assumes that redemption, beauty, and goodness will be there for us, whatever lies ahead.” — Tish Harrison Warren, Prayer in the Night
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The hard realizations of our evangelical structures
This whole Twitter chain is worth the read. But a snippet:
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Lent: trust the long walk
Lent isn’t a cure all. Growing up as a Pentecostal, the prayer time around the altar was treated as a cure all. Youth camp was treated as a cure all. One time events were treated as cure alls. You pray, God visits you, the Holy Spirit does his work… you move on.