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When the saints come marching in
I grew up in a very fundamental Assemblies of God church. I have no bitter stories to tell. I have no scarred past… tattoos… rebellious drug-induced stories… I have good memories. For all the good, the bad, and the ugly, I have fond memories. What I remember most fondly is great preaching and the old gospel songs. Today we rip…
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Are you finished being God?
Matthew 7:1-6 gives us the ultimate excuse to tell people to back off. We usually don’t like others prying into our messes, so we say something like, “Don’t judge me.” The Kingdom ethic is, of course, a bit more involved than us just trying to get people to back off. Scot McKnight’s new commentary, The Sermon on the Mount, gives some…
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God hiding his presence
But then you hid your presence. I was terrified. (Ps. 30:7b) Does that even terrify us anymore? If God hid his face from us… would that terrify us? What is an even more horrific thought to me is this: Would we even notice?
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Being the prophetic voice
There was a comedian I heard one time that said, “That person ministered in the pathetic.” Not prophetic, but pathetic. Too many times people think they have something to say and it turns out they’re saying nothing. To develop a prophetic voice, we need to develop a listening ear. To be the voice of God we need to hear the…
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In honor of our pirate candidate
I live in Minneapolis and today is mayoral election day. We have on the ballot, and I am not making this up, Captain Jack Sparrow. So, in honor of a true pirate party candidate, and in the spirit of all other political candidates who are running today:
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Why I am not a universalist
Blame John: 20 But the people who did not die in these plagues still refused to repent of their evil deeds and turn to God. They continued to worship demons and idols made of gold, silver, bronze, stone, and wood—idols that can neither see nor hear nor walk! 21 And they did not repent of their murders or their witchcraft or their sexual…
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What happens when we pray?
What do we EXPECT to happen? One of my favorite prayer heroes was always in a spiritual fight. The Lord invited him to pray and stuff happened. The Lord would ask him to pray for places he had never heard of, so he would fast and pray until breakthrough came, often resulting in spiritual warfare that would sometimes feel like…
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Culture Wars
I grew up in a great political era. Honestly. My family was very aware of the news and it was discussed at the dinner table. I was a political geek, knowing the names of the Supreme Court justices, the leaders of the Congress, and many key cabinet leaders in the sitting president’s cabinet. I knew key world leaders. Key events…
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I waited patiently… okay… I didn’t
I waited patiently for the Lord to help me, and he turned to me and heard my cry. (Ps. 40:1, NLT) I am not patient. There are times when the need is so severe… and so immediate… that desperation sets in and I am not patient. At all. The mistakes I make when I don’t wait are fairly numerous. It becomes the pattern of “trying to…
