Tag: love
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Untrashed
Malachi 1:6-9 Perhaps you’ve heard an acquaintance, a friend, a family member say, “God won’t accept me until I clean myself up.” Or perhaps, “if I enter the church, lightning will come down and/or the church will catch on fire.” Behave, believe, belong has long been the order in the church. That’s likely where these…
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Movie About a Christian
Read: Luke 9:18–50 One of the reasons I love and appreciate the concept of the “church year” is that we are often confronted by the hard passages, especially those that often make no sense to our post-enlightenment (i.e., science- and data-driven) minds. This is, as you probably inferred, one of those days. Today is Transfiguration…
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How to Come Back
1 Corinthians 11:17–33 It’s almost over it seems. The time of being masked and constrained nears its end. On the other hand, already another strain of COVID is showing up, but the reality is that we, as an entire world, are at our limits. It seems great that we’re almost there, except that we really…
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Future Tensely
Psalm 126; Isaiah 40:1-11; Romans 8:22-25 Have you realized that Advent is weird? I love Advent, don’t get me wrong. However, the world has done a successful job of retraining us on what Advent is all about. Partially, I think, this is because of the image of an unthreatening baby Jesus with lambs, other baby…
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A Movement: Of Priest and Temple
…if we…focus too much on the outside, the temple comes crumbling down, for the internal structure cannot hold up the facade shown to the world, and we then dishonor God by our fallen temple.
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Blazing a Way
Nehemiah 9:1-31 “It’s not our fault!” That is proclaimed so much by so many about slavery, racism, poverty, etcetera…and they’re right. Yet, here we have the example of the Jews. It was the fault of their ancestors. However, their ancestors were dead. All things new Often, you cannot figure out the right way without figuring…
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Be Our Guest
Psalm 111; Exodus 24:1–11; Romans 15:22–33 If you were invited to a US presidential affair, you might be surprised. Unless you roam such circles or are connected to them, usually you won’t have any expectation of being invited to sit at the table with the president, unless, of course, you decide to contribute to their…
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Let ‘Em Fight
Psalm 145:10–18; 2 Kings 3:4–20; Colossians 3:12–17 It can be hard to be rid of wounds. Many physical ones heal with scars, though the deeper body ones may not heal well. For most of us, the emotional and spiritual wounds are the ones with deep and lasting effects. These are the ones that can hold…