God
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Last week I did a post about the first video in a series by Craig Groeschel called Soul Detox. I was really impressed with his teaching on toxic language. I taught the second video today in Sunday school and thought I’d share about what Craig calls “Scared Pollution” or toxic fear. The gist of the…
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Lisa and I have been asked to present at an upcoming Branches of Valor event called “Living Abundantly in a Stress-Filled World.” We’ll be presenting a marriage enrichment course. I put together some class notes for the group that I thought I would share here. They’re pretty self-explanatory, but write back if you have questions or thoughts. Negotiating Your Way to a…
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I had something very profound happen to me today. Coming from a broken home, I don’t really know my extended family very well. Both my father and mother had three brothers, which means lots of cousins. But I don’t really know any of them. As we’ve grown up, I’m starting to come into contact with…
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I recently read a news account of a Philadelphia couple who lost a second child because they relied on prayer instead of bringing the child to the doctor for care. In 2009, Herbert and Catherine Schaible was told their toddler was infected with bacterial pneumonia. Members of a fundamentalist Christian church, the couple relied on…
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A colleague of mine at work has been really sick. While she was at the hospital, I asked another colleague to take her the devotional, Jesus Calling by Sarah Young. It’s a very uplifting and encouraging daily devotional I thought might brighten her spirits. However, I didn’t actually know if she was a believer or…
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At church today, my Pastor, Bret Truax at Calvary Baptist in Salem, OR, was preaching on baptism. Three kids from the church got baptized this morning, and the pastor used the occasion to remind the congregation about the origins and meaning of baptism in our faith. But it wasn’t a comment about baptism that caught…
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This may sound weird, but I always cringe a little when people say, “Just give it up to God,” or “Let go and let God.” I get what they’re saying and at the 40,000 foot view it’s exactly right. But when people are in crisis, letting go and giving the pain up to God just…
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Colossians 3:13 tells us to, “Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.” I think I’ve come to the conclusion that this may be the hardest thing for people to do! I spent a great deal of time these past…
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If your week’s been anything like mine, you could use a little encourgement today! It’s certainly been one of those weeks in my world. So when that happens, we need to keep our eye on how much God loves us and how He sees us not on how things are going for us in a worldly…
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Like the rest of you, I sit here in prayer for those lost and injured today at the Boston Marathon. The news is calling it a terrorist attack, which at this point seems accurate. But as Christians, we should be prepared for one of the hardest questions we have to face when these types of…
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