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Serious heartbreak
The past 9-10 years have opened up so much spiritually for me. The hardest has been spiritual disappointment, which has led to more determination from me to go deeper with God and walk away from a lot of “form without the power.” Still… the heartbreak is there. This week’s OT passage from Isaiah captures this powerfully. It is difficult to…
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Missing the Kingdom of God
Last Sunday our gospel text was Mark 3:23-35. The story here is the pressure Jesus is getting from his family and then the religious leaders. Neither one is happy with him. For his family, Jesus was avoiding them and his ministry was attracting so many people that his own family couldn’t get into their own home to eat. This put…
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What Jesus doesn’t say
I continue to walk in wonder as I read through the Gospel of Luke. I’ve been on this journey with Jesus for decades and the longer I walk with him, the more I am in awe of the Kingdom of God. It is a learning process still. And, it is an unlearning process. In all of it, I am still…
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Basic discipleship
What Jesus treated as basic discipleship in his time on earth we’ve made into a rarity and some “specialist” work. In Mark 9 Jesus has come down from the Transfiguration and a father runs straight to him.
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Tolerating demons
When I began Lent I had in mind a practice I read in Esau McCaulley’s new book, Lent. I was going to go through the New Testament books that weren’t the Gospels or Paul’s writings. I would start in Acts and move through and end up in Revelation. Once I opened my Bible to try that while I was in…
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Wrestling with unhappiness
We can tend to insulate ourselves against the harshness of what is going on around us. We build thicker walls to keep the noise out. We ignore news because it is “all bad.” We need to keep our eyes and ears open. There is unhappiness around and we need to LISTEN to the why.
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The journey of healing and justice
Healing is not accidental. It is not coincidental. Healing in our lives, our thinking, etc., is intentional. It is a process. This is the journey I have been on and the journey I will be on for the rest of my life. (I almost typed “God willing”, but I know it is God’s will.)
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Living in the gospel wrecks your daily schedule
Then they came to Jericho. As Jesus and his disciples, together with a large crowd, were leaving the city, a blind man, Bartimaeus (which means “son of Timaeus”), was sitting by the roadside begging. When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to shout, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” (Mark 10:46-47) The way of…
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How NOT to have a healing ministry
I am walking my way through the Gospel of John and there are times I find passages I’m familiar with a bit humorous. John 5 is one of them.
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The enemy shows up when things are GOOD
As I keep moving prayerfully through Acts 5, I am struck by how I like to emphasize things in my preaching and teaching. I love Acts 5:12-16. Peter’s shadow falling on people heals them and delivers them from demons! Who wouldn’t like that? Who couldn’t preach on that?
Tag: healing
