Tag: Kingdom of Heaven
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Mixing It Up
The church is called to cross enemy lines not to defeat the enemy, but to reconcile the enemy, so that there are no more enemies.
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Power to…
Jeremiah 31:10–14; John 5:19–40 If you had the power to change anything and everything, would you? If you could eliminate war, disease, hatred, bigotry, misogyny…would you? If you could judge people perfectly…would you? The structure of the Trinity (Father, Son, Holy Spirit) is a conundrum. The Father is God; the Son (Jesus) is God; the…
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Kingdom Justice
Psalm 7; Revelation 19:1–9 “They got what they deserved.” We long for justice. In fact, much of the separation between political parties and people, in general, is defined by justice. When we look at emotionally charged issues such as racism, justice is often the biggest piece. The person negatively affected want to feel heard and,…
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Whose King
Psalm 95:1–7a; Ezekiel 34:11–24; Matthew 25:31–46; Ephesians 1:15–23 Christ is King. We often say that to ourselves and to others. The real question that we need to ask is, do we believe it? As the 2020 US political season wraps up, the victors and the losers each have their speeches to give, and much to…
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Moneyed Futures
2 Samuel 7:12–21; Matthew 6:33–34; James 4:13–5:6 If you’ve ever listened to Dave Ramsey, you’ve probably heard of the “emergency” fund. When you start his Financial Peace University program, this is the first thing to be done. His point being that credit cards and payday loan “emergencies” become less so when you actually plan for…
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Following
Matthew 10:21–22; Matthew 12:46–50; Luke 11:27–28 Have you ever been in a conversation…and it’s going well…and then it’s really digging in…and then someone interrupts? That feeling of…really? Couldn’t you have held out just a bit longer? Really? What was so important? Family. Except, in comparison to the Kingdom of God, what is family? That might…
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Rumble
Exodus 19:17–20; Haggai 2:5–9; Hebrews 12:25–27 We are often skeptical about God making the mountains tremble and the oceans roar. Our deeper understanding of the natural world makes us a little arrogant about things. We “know” that it’s really tectonic plate movement that causes that. The heavens don’t really shake, so we think. We “know”…
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Rooftop Shenanigans
Jeremiah 17:9–11; Luke 12:1–12 If you have a smartphone, you are probably aware of this little program installed on it, which is supposedly an assistant. “Hello, Google, Siri, Bixby, Alexa.” This program can be helpful. Yet, there is often weirdness associated with it. There have been plenty of experiences where Facebook suddenly shows stuff in…