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Needing a Redo. Does God allow us to start over?

There are times we all mess up and wish we could get a redo. A word we’ve spoken that we wish we could unsay. A decision we’ve made where we wish we could yell “Mulligan” and take a second shot. We wish an undo button existed. That’s one of the reasons that I like reading about the Nazarite Vow and how God allowed for starting over – getting a redo! The Old Testament book of Numbers gives…

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#beginning #do-over #Jesus #mistake #new #vow

Unconfessed Sin. Unintentional Sin. Unknown Sin. Is this a big deal?

Is it possible we could sin and not know it? Possible to have unconfessed sin in our lives? And if so, what would that mean? As we read God’s Word, we find that He is serious about sin. And because He is, we sometimes get worried about our own possibility of some sin we may be unaware of. Let’s start by thinking about unintentional sin. Sins that I committed that I didn’t mean to, and maybe…

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#confess #ignorance #love #prayer #sin #unintentional

Waiting on the Lord can be Scary. You need the Faith of Moses.

Yes, waiting on the Lord to come through can be a time of anxiety and fear. But do not worry – He always answers. (Though His answer and timing will not always be just what we were expecting.) In Exodus, we find that Moses led the people out of Egypt. But Pharaoh determined that He would not allow his slave labor to slip out of his hands so easily. So he gathered up his army and pursued the…

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#answer #doubt #faith #God #trust #waiting #worry

Being a Light-Bearer for Jesus - Creating Holes in the Darkness

Being a Light-Bearer for Jesus – Creating Holes in the Darkness

In preparing for a message on God’s light, I ran across this illustration of what it means to be a light-bearer for Christ: Years ago, a traveler arrived at a village in France on Sunday evening, and found people hurrying through the streets, each carrying a similar looking lamp. As they walked through the streets with these lamps, little pockets of light were poking holes in the darkness. The…

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#darkness #Jesus #lamp #light #overcome #path

Easter: The Hope of an Empty Tomb

I was recently asked by our local newspaper, The Meridian Star, to write a brief article about Jesus’ empty tomb. And as we are entering Spring and approaching Easter, I thought I would share it with you. Here it is: It is hard to believe that we are now two years into the COVID experience. We’ve been discussing hopes of a “new normal” this entire time, and yet, we continue to find ourselves in a…

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#COVID #easter #empty tomb #hope #resurrection

God Is A Great Story-Teller

We all love stories. And God is great at providing amazing stories. And He has even written you into the story! By calling God a story-teller, I’m not indicating the Bible is fiction. Too often, we’ve said something like “that person is telling stories” to indicate that they are lying. But a good story-teller is able to make a true account into a great story – not by embellishing it with fiction,…

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#God #grace #history #Jesus #love #Moses #redemption #rescue #story #true

Hypocrisy is dangerous. Instead let's help each other with compassion.

Hypocrisy is dangerous. Instead let’s help each other with compassion.

Hypocrisy is a common theme in the Bible. Jesus makes several statements about hypocrisy against the Pharisees. But one of the most well-known statements He gives is from the Sermon on the Mount. And it is for all of us: How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then…

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#compassion #help #hypocrisy #judgment

Consistently Faithful, Even In the Face of So Much Evil

I already know this to be true – you strive to be a person who is faithful. Faithful to your family, certainly. Probably most who read this strive to faithful to God. Maybe a lot of us even strive to be faithful to our employers. You strive to be a faithful person. But in the struggle to be faithful, you have probably thought – “There sure is a lot of unfaithfulness and evil in the world today.…

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#choice #faithful #integrity #joseph #sin #temptation #unfaithful

Bound to the Word of God. (Tied, Restricted, and Restrained.)

Bound means tied up. Binding restraints and restricts. It means we can’t do certain things because we are tied to something else. If you physically tie me — bind me — to my chair, I can’t go for a walk. I can’t drive my car. I can’t go to work. Physically binding me would keep me in one fixed location. But we can also be bound in other ways. I am bound by my vows to my wife, and therefore I am…

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#Bible #bound #God&039;s Word #marriage #restraint #true

Sanctification: a one-time gift of God? Or an on-going, life-long process?

A question came across my desk from a church member regarding the word sanctification: In our Sunday School lesson, the author used the term “process of sanctification.” I have a problem with that phrase, because I believe we are sanctified only once – at the moment of our salvation. I believe sanctification is the initial act of God making us holy and setting us apart, but then we abide in…

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#holiness #holy #process #reconcile #sanctification

Life Is Messy. Our Families Are Too. God Still Has A Plan For Us.

Though we can make things quite messy – including our lives and our family’s lives – I am thankful that God loves us through the messes we make. For example, I know that Abraham and Sarah were godly people. However, as we read their story in the Bible, we see that they still struggled to do what was right. Some of the errors they made: Abraham was fearful that the attractiveness of Sarah could…

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#clean #forgiveness #God #love #messy #mistakes

The Holiness of Every Human Life – Including the Life of the Unborn.

From the title, you can tell that this is going to be a pro-life post. I know that some may not care for a post on such a controversial topic. But God’s Word on this is clear, and with this being an issue that is currently before the United States Supreme Court, I feel that now is a good time to share about the Sanctity and Holiness of Every Human Life. Life has value. God is the one who creates…

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The Value of Writing Down What God Is Teaching You (No. Not Journaling.)

Not Journaling. Certainly Not Keeping a Diary. Simply Writing Down What God is Teaching You on Occasion. I don’t remember when I started doing it or even who it was that encouraged me to start. It seems that maybe it was around the time I started seminary that I started writing down a few of the things God was teaching me. Maybe it was a professor who encouraged us to start doing so? Maybe it was…

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#Abraham #Bible #journaling #note-taking #value #writing

You Are A Unique Miracle.

Our world has an amazing creation story. God created it out of nothing. But the truth is that every single one of us also has a miraculous creation story. Because from the beginning of creation up to present day – only God can make another person. We know how a human egg gets fertilized and becomes an embryo and continues to grow in the womb and is born into this world as a new baby, but… …We…

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#life #miracle #unique #value #worth

Serving God Can Be Uncomfortable. But That May Be On Purpose.

Sometimes God puts us in uncomfortable places to serve Him. Paul went to Jerusalem knowing that he would be arrested. And yet he went anyway. From all indications, prison is uncomfortable. While in prison, Paul got the chance to speak to Felix, the Governor. The Bible tells us that Felix was hoping to get money from Paul, so he spoke to him often. So why didn’t Paul just go ahead and bribe Felix…

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#comfort #opportunity #prison #serving #witnessing

I am not the center of everything. And . . . neither are you.

We all want to understand what life is all about. We want to know what to focus on. But when we think of ourselves as the center of the universe, and want everything and everyone to revolve around us, we elevate the wrong “center” and find ourselves frustrated and ultimately unsatisfied. So what should be in the center? The reason for this frustration is that when we put too much emphasis on the…

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#awe #center #children #parenting #worship

Where Have You Been?!?! (& a return from a lengthy absence)

Did you ever get asked that question by your parents – perhaps when you missed curfew? When our absence is unexpected, those who care about us want to know what has happened. And so when we are running quite late, we know that this question is coming. So we begin concocting some great excuse, working up various explanations for each point we think we might need! Well, some have wondered the same…

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#absence #job loss #return #Ukraine

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