Tag: presence
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Walking With Saints
Read: Psalm 34:1β10, 22; 1 John 3:1-3; Revelation 7:9-17; Matthew 5:1-12 βπ Focus βAfter this I looked, and there was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, robed in white, with palm branches in their hands.…
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Be Our Guest
Psalm 111; Exodus 24:1β11; Romans 15:22β33 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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Tabled Enemies
Psalm 23; Jeremiah 10:17β25; Acts 17:16β31 One of the things that will make many Christians fall away from the faith is a weak foundation when it comes to trials. We say many platitudes, and try not to think about what happens where we actually tested. If you’ve ever read anything on the many martyrs of…
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The God of Where
Psalm 123; Jeremiah 7:1β15; 1 Corinthians 4:8β13 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, ββ¦only then will I dwell with…
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Passed The Gates
Psalm 88; Leviticus 15:19β31; 2 Corinthians 9:1β5 I have long felt this passage in Leviticus to be unfair to women. No, not because of certain cultural influences of today. Perhaps it was the era I grew up in, or because my mom worked as a school teacher. Or in conjunction with that, my dad was…
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Wrong Thing Vision
Psalm 52; Ezekiel 31:1β12; Galatians 6:11β18 “When a tree falls in the forest, does it make a sound?” That philosophical question is designed around the presence of a human being. βSoundβ being a human word, the implication is that the tree wouldn’t make a sound, as there is no one around to hear. From a…
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Sighting Evil
Psalm 74; 1 Samuel 16:14β23; Revelation 20:1β6 Evil spirits or the βspirit of evilβ has a presence in human culture throughout the ages. Even for those who have no deistic belief, there is an understanding that something is completely evil. There was nothing positive about the Holocaust. In fact, most people would state that the…
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Loving Presence
Psalm 20; Exodus 25:1β22; 1 Corinthians 2:1β10 ββ¦so that I am present among them.β (Exodus 25:8) It seems like a strange statement to us as Christians. Our theology talks about God’s omnipresence (God is everywhere), so a tent doesn’t really change that. The tent was, however, the place set aside for meeting God. As part…