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Pray… even when it’s hard
I have been challenged in my prayer time and Bible reading time to engage on a journey of intercession for the American Church. I would like to think I’m just getting prepped to challenge others to pray for the American Church so I can just pass it off. I just finished Nancy French’s new book, Ghosted, and believe me, I…
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What we miss in “praying for our nation”
So he said he would destroy them—had not Moses, his chosen one,stood in the breach before himto keep his wrath from destroying them. Psalm 106:23 (NIV) Last week was the National Day of Prayer. It is a designated time to pray for our nation. More times than can be counted, prayers were offered for America to repent of something. Here…
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The command to love is our call
Our gospel reading for Sunday is John 15:9-17. NT Wright contrasts the texts of laying down one’s life for another and the abuse of that verse in the context of a nation sending soldiers to war.
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To know Christ fully
God wishes to be known, and is pleased that we should rest in him; for all that is beneath him is not enough for us; and this is the reason why no soul is at rest until it counts as nothing all that is created. When a soul has made itself as nothing for love, in order to have him…
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I want to walk carefully in the ways of God
Deuteronomy 6:4–5 (NIV): Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 5 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. There is a saying I’ve heard repeated: I listen twice as much as I speak for I have two ears and one mouth. Another I’ve heard, probably…
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The dangers of chants and quick slogans
The activism and chants of antisemitism and anti-Muslim are dangerous. We need to pay attention. Christians, though, ought to be especially attentive to what’s happening to a society that increasingly seems, on the horseshoe extremes of the populist right and the activist left, to be driven toward the pull of the channeled rage of the mob. — Russell Moore More…
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The under-utilized ministry of a deacon
One alternate text for the 5th Sunday of Easter this year is Acts 8:26-40, the story of Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch. Having grown up in a Pentecostal tradition, we didn’t have any true category for “deacon.” We saw “deacon” in 1 Timothy but in most churches that was translated to “board member.” It wasn’t an ordained ministry.
