Thought Exercise on Commitments

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Cohabitation and the Definitely Maybe Relationship

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Keywords

The tension between autonomy and intimacy is most clearly evidenced in the trend toward cohabitation. Today, between 50 and 70 percent of American couples are cohabiting before or instead of marrying....

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Was I Supposed to Agonize Over Commitment?

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Scripture

Genesis 2:18, Proverbs 18:22, 1 Corinthians 7:2, Proverbs 19:14

Too many young guys are waiting for writing in the sky before they make a relational commitment. It doesn’t have to be that complicated. My grandpa DeYoung met my grandma on his paper route. Then they...

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Signed & Sealed

Author

Tim Chester

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Think of a contract. Think perhaps of an employment contract or a memorandum of sale or an IOU. What you hold in your hand is a sheet of paper with a series of commitments written on it. This is what ...

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Jonathan Edwards’s Consecration

Author

Mark Batterson

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Scripture

Colossians 3:23-24, 2 Corinthians 8:5, Psalm 73:26, Galatians 2:20, Romans 12:1, Joshua 3:5

Jonathan Edwards is one of America’s most influential philosophers and theologians. Edwards wrote dozens of books, sparked the First Great Awakening, and was influential in the lives of hundreds of mi...

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What I Can Do

Author

John R. W. Stott

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Scripture

Matthew 18:12-14, 1 Corinthians 12:12-27, 1 Peter 4:10, Philippians 4:13, Luke 12:48

Edward Everett Hale (1822-1909), an American Unitarian minister and writer, who lived and worked in Boston, Massachusetts, and inspired many by his story Ten Times One Is Ten : I’m only one, but I ...

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Packing a Coffin with Your Belongings

Author

The Pastor's Workshop

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Imagine being so committed to going to the mission field that you bought a one-way ticket to your destination and packed your worldly goods in a coffin, knowing you’d never come home. That is what A. ...

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The Pressures of Modern Life (Written Almost a Century Ago)

Author

Thomas Kelly

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The problem we face today needs very little time for its statement. Our lives in a modern city grow too complex and overcrowded. Even the necessary obligations which we feel we must meet grow overnigh...

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Burning the Ships

Author

Mark Batterson

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When Hernán Cortés landed in Mexico with under 700 men, the indigenous population numbered about five million, a ratio of about 7,500 to 1. Rather than keep his lines of escape open, Cortés made the r...

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Play the Man

Author

Mark Batterson

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Scripture

Revelation 2:10, Matthew 5:10-12, 2 Timothy 4:7-8, 1 Peter 4:12-13, James 1:12, Psalm 46:1-3

Like a scene straight out of Gladiator, Polycarp was dragged into the Roman Colosseum. Discipled by the apostle John himself, the aged bishop faithfully and selflessly led the church at Smyrna through...

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Chamberlain’s Charge

Author

Mark Batterson

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Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain was a professor of rhetoric at Bowdoin College when the Civil War broke out. In 1862, Chamberlain accepted a commission in the 20th Maine Volunteer Infantry Regiment of the...

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Marriage and Commitment

Author

David Brooks

Keywords

Weddings

A committed person is giving her word and placing a piece of herself in another person’s keeping. The word “commitment” derives from the Latin mittere, which means “to send.” She is sending herself ou...

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A Wedding & A Reaffirmation of Covenant Love

Author

Tim Chester

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Scripture

Luke 22:19-20, Galatians 3:26-27, Colossians 2:11-12, Titus 3:3-7, 1 Corinthians 10:16-17

Baptism is like a wedding. It is a covenant act, a relationship-making agreement, in which commitments are made. A couple may love one another. But feelings can go up and down. That is why marriage is...

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The Greatest Threat to the Church?

Author

Tim Muehlhoff and Richard Langer

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What is the greatest threat to the church of Jesus Christ today? There are so many threats to choose from. Some Christians would identify hazards like postmodern relativism working to unravel notions ...

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Disconnected from the Vine

Author

Sharon Hodde Miller

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Abiding in Christ

Scripture

Matthew 23:1-12, Isaiah 29:13, Matthew 7:21-23

Christianity can be such a pretty faith. God calls us to wonderful things, to noble deeds, and to be a people of love. We are meant to be kind, joyful, brave, and good. These are attractive qualities ...

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Covering the Bald Spots

Author

Sharon Hodde Miller

Keywords

Scripture

Jeremiah 17:7-8, John 15:4-5, Matthew 23:27-28, Isaiah 58:11, Ezekiel 36:26-27

Every year at the end of November, my husband, Ike, and I load the kids in the car and drive to the nearest Christmas tree lot. We are committed “real tree” people—not to be confused with “fake tree” ...

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The Surprising Truth about Habits, Happiness, and Self-Control

Author

Gretchen Rubin

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As a writer, my great interest is human nature, and in particular, the subject of happiness. A few years ago, I noticed a pattern: when people told me about a “before and after” change they’d made tha...

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The Peaks and Troughs of our Hypersexual Age

Author

Jonathan Grant

Keywords

Sex

A few years ago, while celebrating our fifteenth wedding anniversary, my wife, Esther, and I stayed at the base of the twin mountains of Whistler and Blackcomb, the mammoth ski resort on Canada’s West...

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A Need to Heal the Past

Author

Ronald Rohlheiser

Keywords

Scripture

Psalm 147:3, Jeremiah 30:17, Matthew 11:28-30, James 5:16, Psalm 34:18, Psalm 51:10, Jeremiah 33:6

One of the challenges, at least in the western church, is an inability to deal with our wounds in a healthy way. Our training as Christians has been focused on Bible studies, small groups, and Sunday ...

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Following Jesus Requires Real Commitment

Author

Bradley Long

Keywords

Scripture

Proverbs 3:5-8, Matthew 22:37, Romans 12:1-2, Luke 14:26-27, Deuteronomy 6:5, Luke 16:13, Mark 12:30, John 14:15, Matthew 16:24-26, Luke 9:59-62, Matthew 6:24, Hebrews 11:13-16, Hebrews 10:38-39, Matthew 6:33-34, Matthew 10:37-39

What are you willing to do for love? An instructor for the Perspectives on the World Christian Movement course shared with a class the major hang-up he had to get over before asking his wife to ma...

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Being Careful Not to Commit

Author

C. S. Lewis

Keywords

Scripture

Hebrews 10:38, James 1:6-8, Matthew 6:24, Romans 7:19, 1 John 2:15-17, Psalm 139:23-24, Luke 9:62

I say my prayers, I read a book of devotion, I prepare for, or receive, the Sacrament. But while I do these things there is, so to speak, a voice inside me that urges caution. It tells me to be carefu...

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Keeping His Promises

Author

Ben Patterson

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Scripture

Romans 8:28, Jeremiah 29:11

God’s dealings with us are always on the order of what he did with Abram and Sarai. He makes his promises, and he will keep his promises; but just how and when he will keep them is something for which...

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Taking Convictions Seriously

Author

Tim Muehlhoff and Richard Langer

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We might say that convictions are firmly held moral or religious beliefs that guide our beliefs, actions, or choices…[M]ost Christians attach their convictions to Christ personally. In other words, we...

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Wholeheartedly Committing to God's Will

Author

Frank Laubach

Keywords

Scripture

John 4:14, John 4:1-26, Isaiah 58:11, 2 Corinthians 4:16-18, Psalm 1:3, 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18, Matthew 6:10, Proverbs 16:9, Hebrews 13:20-21, James 1:5, John 6:38-40

Frank Laubach recounts the profound shift in his life that came when he wholeheartedly committed to following God’s will: Before that moment, I was barely alive—like a tree rotting from within. Bu...

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The Gap Between the Promise and the Fulfillment

Author

Ben Patterson

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It isn’t easy to wait. It demands persistence when common sense says “give up.” It says “believe” when there is no present evidence to back it up. Faith is forged in delay. Character is forged in dela...

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God’s Promises

Author

Paul David Tripp

Keywords

Promises

God’s promises are meant to move and motivate us. They are meant to instill hope. They are meant to give us courage. They are meant to defeat feelings of loneliness, inability, and fear.They are meant...

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Equivocating on Promises: Pierre from Tolstoy’s War & Peace

Author

Leo Tolstoy

Keywords

Scripture

Psalm 119:11, Proverbs 3:5-6, 1 Corinthians 10:13, Galatians 5:16-17, Matthew 5:37, Proverbs 14:12

In this excellent little character study, Tolstoy describes the inner monologue of the character Pierre Bezuhov from War & Peace , who is able to justify and convince himself that a promise made ...

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Our Invitations Determine our Future

Author

Adele Ahlberg Calhoun

Keywords

Scripture

Genesis 3:1-7, Deuteronomy 30:19-20, Jonah 1:1-3, Matthew 4:18-22 , Luke 9:57-62 , Psalm 25:4-5

The things we say yes to and the things we say no to determine the terrain of our future. My convoluted journey is posted with invitations, and my RSVPs account for the twists and turns. Sometimes, ha...

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The Spectrum Of Conviction

Author

Tim Muehlhoff and Richard Langer

Keywords

Scripture

Genesis 1:26, Genesis 9:5-6, 1 Thessalonians 1:5, Romans 14:1-23, Romans 8:26-37, 1 Corinthians 1:17

So how can we form deep Christian convictions without dividing the church? Let’s take a deeper look at convictions themselves. Convictions are like light: they come in many colors and form across a sp...

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A Living Martyrdom: To be True at All Costs

Author

F. W. Faber

Keywords

Scripture

Daniel 6:10–23, 1 Kings 18:17–39, Esther 4:12–16, Matthew 10:28–33, Acts 6:8–7:60 , Psalm 15:1–2

The hymnwriter and theologian F. W. Faber writes with beautiful prose the challenges that each one of us faces when it comes to living a life faithfully according to the truth that is within us: M...

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Embodying a Decision

Author

Wesley Granberg-Michaelson

Keywords

Scripture

2 Corinthians 6:2, Matthew 4:19-20, Hebrews 11:8, Acts 2:37-38, Mark 10:50

Billy Graham had a weekly radio show titled The Hour of Decision. Normally it was a tape recording of the service and message he’d given at a recent evangelistic rally. And at the conclusion of every ...

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