Tag: fear
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Too Busy To Live
Exodus 5:7-9; Romans 8:5-8, 12-17 Recently, there was a song going around the internet called the “Rich Men North of Richmond”. It mostly speaks to the anguish of a working man who is striving and working and is not making ends meet, and, yes, there are some digs that many are questioning, and sometimes just…
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Seeing Christ In The Lives of Others
Romans 12:16–21 As part of our college ministry many years ago, we asked our college students to come up with their mission statement. It was coached in a business/organization language; it should have been better phrased as a Rule of Life. Mine was: Seeing Christ in the Lives of Others. Yes, the title was my…
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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…
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Rubble and Ruin
Psalm 142; Amos 9:1–4; Acts 23:12–35 I don’t know about you, but I’m a little jaundiced about earthquakes. I grew up in Northern California. Earthquakes were…normal isn’t the word…to be expected. So much so, that the first earthquake my wife experiences was in the middle of the night. She woke me up in a panic,…
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Good Fire. Bad Fire.
Sometimes only purification is needed. Sometimes a clean slate is needed. The same can be said about our lives. The same can be said about our actions. Sometimes we think we’re doing one when we’re doing the others. Sometimes we just want to watch things burn. Fires of prophecy can take many forms. Many people…
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The God of Where
Psalm 123; Jeremiah 7:1–15; 1 Corinthians 4:8–13 The change between Jeremiah and Corinthians cannot be overstated. The clash between law and grace is right there before us. The CEB (the primary translation currently being used to write and to read for this devotional) and NRSV translated Jeremiah 7:7 as, “…only then will I dwell with…
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Our Warring Hearts
Psalm 30; Lamentations 2:18–22; Luke 4:31–37 In the science fiction series, Babylon 5, we learn about the “great” war. The great war was between two sides fighting for the benefit (or the evolution) of the “lesser” species. Each side has a different method to initiate change and improvement. One side (“the light”) seeks to change…
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Lamentable Change
Psalm 30; Lamentations 1:16–22; 2 Corinthians 7:2–16 The might of God both obvious and not-so should provide comfort for all who follow God. We should also be aware of it such that we do not wander far away. We read the triumphant story of Joshua yesterday, and today we read lament. This lament is that…