Background on Relationship With God

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A Growth Spurt in our Relationship with God

Author

Keywords

Growth

A few years ago I had a little boy. Then, within a year, he became a man. He went through one of those adolescent growth spurts. He grew almost a foot in height, his voice dropped into a deep bass, he...

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Our Relationship with our Fathers Affects our Relationship with God

Author

Lee Strobel

Keywords

Fathers

At the time I was oblivious to the fact that a young person’s relationship with his father can greatly color his attitude toward God. I wasn’t aware that many well-known atheists through history — inc...

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God Has Written Himself into Our World

Author

Timothy Keller

Keywords

C.S. Lewis wrote an essay…called “The Seeing Eye,” and in it he argued that if there were a God, we would not relate to him the way a person on the first story of a house relates to a person on the se...

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Do You Trust God?

Author

Brennan Manning

Keywords

Scripture

Habakkuk 3:17-19, Job 1:20-21, Daniel 6:10, 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 , Psalm 136:1, Philippians 4:6-7

Let’s say I interviewed ten people, asking each the same question—“Do you trust God?”—and each answered, “Yes, I trust God,” but nine of the ten actually did not trust him. How would I find out which ...

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Ratatouille and Surrendering to God

Author

Casey Clark

Keywords

Scripture

Romans 8:6-11, 1 Corinthians 2:16, Galatians 2:20, Colossians 3:3, Philippians 2:5

When we watch cartoons, it is fun to see the way we can so easily allow some of the craziest stuff to just be taken at face value. Movements that don’t follow the laws of physics? Sure. Talking animal...

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The Strong & the Weak

Author

Timothy Keller

Keywords

Every other religion and philosophy says you have to do something to connect to God; but Christianity says no, Jesus Christ came to do for you what you couldn’t do for yourself. Every other religion s...

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The Test of Spiritual Integrity

Author

Timothy Keller

Keywords

The infallible test of spiritual integrity, Jesus says, is your private prayer life. Many people will pray when they are required by cultural or social expectations, or perhaps by the anxiety caused b...

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Experiencing a New Reality with Disability

Author

Joni Eareckson Tada

Keywords

Scripture

Galatians 5:16-26

Many formerly active able-bodied people have had to learn a new pace in life after an accident or illness. Whether the condition is temporary or permanent, it isn’t easy. The memory and muscles still ...

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The Most Radical Discipline

Author

Dallas Willard

Keywords

Scripture

Matthew 26:38-42

Solitude is the most radical of the disciplines for life in the spirit. In penal institutions, solitary confinement is used to break the strongest of wills. It is capable of this because it excludes i...

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The Challenge of Planting a Vineyard

Author

Caroline Cobb

Keywords

It takes at least three years to for a grape vine to begin producing fruit. The planting site must be carefully chosen, the vine planted at just the right depth and at just the right time of year, the...

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The Problem with Apologetics

Author

Joshua Chatraw and Jack Carson

Keywords

Scripture

1 Corinthians 13:2, James 2:19-20, 1 Corinthians 8:1-2, Ecclesiastes 1:18, 1 Corinthians 2:5, Philippians 3:10, Matthew 7:21, 24-27, James 1:22

The Oxford scholar and apologist C. S. Lewis... once closed a lecture to a group of apologists like this: I have found that nothing is more dangerous to one’s own faith than the work of an apologis...

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God’s Story or Our Story?

Author

Gregory Koukl

Keywords

Our Story starts with a person for another reason…God is the very first piece of the Christian Story because the Story is all about him. God is the central character. The Story does not start with us ...

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The Greatest Subject in Human History

Author

The Pastor's Workshop

Keywords

Scripture

Matthew 22:36-38, Deuteronomy 6:4-5

Have you ever heard of the Greatest Books of the Western World collection? Published by Encyclopedia Britannica in 1954, this comprehensive series was edited by Robert Hutchins and Mortimer J. A...

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When Fire Makes Things Grow

Author

Ryan Bundrick

Scripture

1 Peter 1:6-7, James 1:2-4, Romans 5:3-5, 2 Corinthians 4:16-18, Hebrews 12:11-13, 2 Corinthians 7:10, Zechariah 13:7-9, Daniel 3:, Isaiah 48:10

Trivia time! What natural disaster is the most destructive to a forest? Chances are that the first thing that comes to mind is a forest fire. After all, fire is pure destruction to plants. What possib...

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Pruning Strengthens: A Botanist's View on Pain

Author

Ryan Bundrick

Keywords

Scripture

John 15:1-8, Jeremiah 17:7-8, Hebrews 12:11, 1 Peter 1:6-7, 2 Corinthians 4:17, Psalm 119:67-71, Isaiah 48:10

Any experienced gardener has heard of a botanical term called Apical (ah-pick-ul) dominance. In most plants that grow from a central stem, from maple trees to bush peas, whatever branch is at the top ...

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The Three Most Longed-for Words

Author

The Pastor's Workshop

Scripture

Jeremiah 31:3, Isaiah 1:18, Exodus 16:4-15 , John 3:16, Luke 15:11-32, Psalm 23:5, Mark 14:22-26, Luke 22:14-23, 1 Corinthians 11:23-25

Mark Rutland humorously recalls a survey asking Americans which words they most long to hear. As expected, the top response was, “ I love you. ” The second was, “ I forgive you .” ...

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Who are You to Think You are Better than Our Lord?

Author

Madeline L'Engle

Keywords

Scripture

Romans 12:18, John 15:9-17

While exploring an experience of deep guilt and shame with her spiritual director, the author of Madeleine L’Engle, wrote One time I was talking to Canon Tallis, who is my spiritual director as we...

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Read any study on human satisfaction

Author

Bryan C. Loritts

Keywords

Scripture

Ecclesiastes 4:9-12 , Genesis 2:18, 1 Samuel 18:1-4, Mark 8:36, Philippians 2:3-4, Psalm 133:1

Read any study on human satisfaction and you will see the paramount role of relationships with others. And yet, so many of us readily exchange friendship and community for success and achievement, onl...

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The Wild Soul

Author

Parker J. Palmer

Keywords

The soul is like a wild animal—tough, resilient, resourceful, savvy, self-sufficient. It knows how to survive in hard places. But it is also shy. Just like a wild animal, it seeks safety in the dense ...

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Negotiating with God

Author

Max Lucado

Keywords

Scripture

Job 1:20-21, Daniel 3:17-18, Habakkuk 3:17-18, Luke 22:42, Psalm 34:18-19 , John 6:66-69

A few days ago I met with a young couple. Their toddler was injured in a car accident. When I visited them in the hospital, the child was on life support. As we stood outside the ICU and spoke, I saw,...

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The church fathers consistently acknowledged

Author

Curt Thompson

Keywords

Scripture

Genesis 3:1-7 , Exodus 32:1-6 , Ecclesiastes 2:1-11, Psalm 73:25-26, Matthew 4:1-11 , James 1:13-15

The church fathers consistently acknowledged the beauty and goodness of desire (e.g., Augustine, above), but they were not naive to the potential for desire to be bent by sin. They knew that our longi...

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Biblical Roots of Knowing

Author

Debra Hirsch

Keywords

Scripture

Genesis 4:1 , Exodus 33:13 , Hosea 6:6, John 17:3, Philippians 3:10 , Psalm 139:1-4

The Hebrew word yada (“to know”) is, in fact, used for both sexual intercourse as well as our relationship with God. Every relational event is a stage that affords one a glimpse into the consumm...

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The Two Runners

Author

The Pastor's Workshop

Keywords

Scripture

Matthew 6:33, Colossians 3:23, Psalm 39:6, Luke 12:15, Acts 15:29, Matthew 5:14-16, Ephesians 2:10, 1 Corinthians 10:31, Jeremiah 9:23-24, Matthew 16:24, Luke 9:62, 2 Corinthians 4:8-9, James 1:12, Romans 8:16-17, Galatians 2:20

The true story of Eric Liddell and Harold Abrahams, two British sprinters who qualified for the 1924 Olympic Games, illustrates two contrasting approaches to life and identity. Abrahams was driven by ...

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The Value of Not Watering Your Plants

Author

William Rowley

Keywords

Scripture

Psalm 37:7, Hosea 12:6, Psalm 27:14, Isaiah 40:31, Psalm 130:5-6, James 5:7-8

An experienced gardener knows the value of not watering their tomatoes. Well, there's a little more to it, but that's the headline. Suppose you go to the nursery in the spring and get a tom...

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How Transformation Happens

Author

James Bryan Smith

Keywords

Scripture

2 Corinthians 5:17, Romans 6:11-14, Galatians 2:20, Romans 8:1-2, Colossians 3:3-4, John 8:34-36, 1 Corinthians 6:19-20, Ephesians 4:22-24, Romans 8:15-16

In The Good and Beautiful God , James Bryan Smith describes a new Christian he happened to know who came to him one day feeling dejected. He was so excited to be a follower of Jesus, but he just co...

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Rolling Stone Interview with Bono

Author

Rolling Stone Magazine

Keywords

Scripture

Isaiah 40:31, 2 Corinthians 12:8-9, Psalm 42:3-5, Lamentations 3:17-20, Habakkuk 1:2-3, Psalm 22:1, Job 30:20-21

The music that really turns me on is either running toward God or away form God. Both recognize the pivot, that God is at the center of the jaunt. So the blues on one hand — running away; gospel, the ...

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Sexuality and our Spiritual Life

Author

Ruth Haley Barton

Keywords

Sex

Scripture

Genesis 1:27

The appreciation of life in the body includes embracing our maleness or our femaleness, and thus our sexuality, as a gift from God that helps to reveal his true nature. None of us exists in this world...

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Signatures of the Trinity

Author

Andrew Arndt

Keywords

The Trinity

Everything that is exists by and through and unto the relationship between God the Father and Jesus, his Son. One of the great teachers of the ancient church, St. Augustine, had a very helpful way of ...

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What Your Prayers Reveal

Author

Timothy Keller

Keywords

Prayer

A pastor and friend of mine, Jack Miller, once said he could tell a great deal about a person’s relationship with God by listening to him or her pray. “You can tell if a man or woman is really on spea...

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Peace Like a River

Author

Beth Moore

Keywords

Scripture

Isaiah 48:18, John 15:4

What do you suppose would happen if we paid attention to God’s commands? We don’t have to wonder, because He told us clearly: “If only you had paid attention to my commands, / your peace would have be...

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