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Conviction Wasn’t Always a Bad Word
2 Kings 22 Josiah heard the Book of the Law read and then tore his clothes. He was broken. He allowed the words of the Lord to tear into his heart. He didn’t sit stroking his chin and contemplating the words. “Well, should I obey or not?” His heart was shredded. We work so hard to make sure we don’t…
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The Lesson of the Underwear
These are days when I am fascinated by English translations and wish I knew Hebrew. (And I know at least TWO comments I will get on that statement alone.) Jeremiah is part of our Lenten reading and the symbolic things Jeremiah had to do were… um… interesting. This one from Jeremiah 13 is really interesting. First, the “polite” version: This is what…
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When All Seems Well, It May Be a Time to Seek God MORE
The Dow Jones Industrial Average hit a new record high. It finished above it’s previous high in 2007, which was right before the huge slump and we went into an economic tailspin. So… all is well again. Yet, there is a sense that it’s not “all well.” We put our gauges on the wrong meters and think everything is “normal.”…
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The Need to be WITH God
3 Restore us, God! Make your face shine so that we can be saved! (Ps. 80:3, CEB) We need the face of God to shine on us once again. We need HIS will in our lives once again. Lent is a time for evaluation. It is a period of examination. We come up short so often. We find failure in our…
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Do you love “truth” or do you love TRUTH?
16 For this is the way God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world should be saved through him. 18 The one who believes in him is…
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A Storm is Raging
3 Our God is coming; he won’t keep quiet. A devouring fire is before him; a storm rages all around him. (Ps. 50:6, CEB) This is not a happy time. In this Psalm he is coming out of justice. He doesn’t want another sacrifice. He doesn’t want another worship song. No more fake offerings. This isn’t about appeasing a god because…
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Make His Paths Straight
We are on a journey in our church. This week starts our summer reading. We want to go all the way through the New Testament. This week’s reading is the Gospel of Luke. All of it. The challenge before us is to prepare the way of the Lord. WE need to be prepared. We need to make the way expedient…