Christian Living on Character

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Our Character

Author

Keywords

Scripture

1 Timothy 4:12, Galatians 5:22-23, Philippians 2:15, 2 Peter 1:5-7, Proverbs 27:17, Romans 5:3-4, Genesis 1:27

The actual word in the Greek—charaktér—originally was used in connection with tools designed for engraving. And character is indeed a tool that marks us—that in one sense cuts us, shapes us, and engra...

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The Dickensian Approach to Storytelling (Or, Rather, the Biblical Approach)

Author

Mark D. Roberts

Keywords

Scripture

Genesis 1:, John 1:1-3

Sometimes great stories introduce the protagonist in the very first paragraph. In Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations, for example, we are immediately introduced to Pip, the central figure of the nov...

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The Good and the Beautiful without God

Author

C. S. Lewis

Keywords

Scripture

Psalm 19:1, Genesis 1:2, John 4:1-26, Philippians 4:8, Genesis 1:27

You can’t, except in the lowest animal sense, be in love with a girl if you know (and keep on remembering) that all the beauties both of her person and of her character are a momentary and accidental ...

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The Land Slows Us Down

Author

Jennifer Dukes Lee

Keywords

Scripture

Isaiah 55:10-11, John 15:1-2, Matthew 13:31-32, Deuteronomy 11:10-12, Psalm 65:9-10, Leviticus 25:23, Genesis 1:11-12

It’s been right here all along—the land teaching us how to un-hurry our hurry-sick hearts. Land speaks stunning truths through Scripture. The Hebrew word for land is eretz. It is the fifth most freque...

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Polemic Against Paganism

Author

Nahum Sarna

Keywords

Scripture

Genesis 1:, Genesis 2:, Exodus 3:14, Deuteronomy 4:14-19, 1 Corinthians 1:16-17

Whether the Hebrew Genesis account was meant to be science or not, it was certainly meant to convey statements of faith. As will be shown it is part of the biblical polemic against paganism and an int...

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Gracious God, sometimes I am so caught

Author

Mark D. Roberts

Keywords

Scripture

Genesis 1:null, Philippians 1:6, 2 Corinthians 3:18, James 1:17-18, Colossians 3:10, Ephesians 2:10

Gracious God, sometimes I am so caught up in my failures, in all the ways I am not like you, that I neglect the deeper truth, the earlier truth of Genesis 1. You have made me, as a human being, in you...

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You have Called Me Brother

Author

The Pastor's Workshop

Keywords

Scripture

Matthew 25:31-46, Galatians 3:28, 1 John 3:17-18, James 2:15-16, Romans 12:10, Genesis 1:26-31, Psalm 8:, Matthew 10:24, Mark 12:31

One day, as Leo Tolstoy, the renowned Russian author, was walking down the street when he encountered a man in worn, shabby clothing. The homeless man asked him if he had any money to spare. Tolstoy s...

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All That Good Stuff

Author

Mark D. Roberts

Keywords

Scripture

Genesis 1:null, Revelation 21:18-19, John 1:14, 1 Timothy 4:4, Colossians 1:16, Psalm 24:1, Genesis 1:31

Sometime in the last decade or so I started hearing the phrase “all that good stuff.” I think it happened first when I was ordering dinner at a restaurant. The waitress summarized the menu briefly, en...

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Near a Wonderful Beauty

Author

Donald McCullough

Keywords

Scripture

Ecclesiastes 3:11, Genesis 1:31, Psalm 19:1, Psalm 8:3-4, Romans 1:20, Psalm 96:11-12, Psalm 65:9-13, Colossians 2:2-3

J.M. Montgomery’s novel Emily of New Moon has a passage that conveys the attractive and terrifying aspects of the mystery of God: It had always seemed to Emily, ever since she could remember, th...

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Leader: Scripture teaches us that there

Author

Memorial Drive Presbyterian Church

Scripture

Deuteronomy 6:4-5, Genesis 1:27, Ephesians 2:10, Isaiah 60:1-3, 1 John 3:1

Leader: Scripture teaches us that there is one good and holy God; that we were created in God’s image, to commit ourselves to Him, to do good works, to reflect His glory, and to know Him as loving Fat...

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Dear Lord, we come before You today as

Author

Memorial Drive Presbyterian Church

Keywords

Scripture

Genesis 1:27-28, Psalm 104:24-25, Romans 8:14-16, 1 John 3:1-3, Genesis 1:1-31, Hebrews 11:3, John 1:1-3

Dear Lord, we come before You today as Your children. We praise You as the God of all creation and the giver of life. You have made us, saved us, and called us to be Your people and to serve in Your K...

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The Goodness of the Physical World

Author

Christopher West

Keywords

Scripture

Genesis 1:31, 1 Timothy 4:4-5, Colossians 1:16, Romans 1:20, 1 Corinthians 6:19-20

God is the author of the physical world, and in his wisdom, he designed physical realities to convey spiritual mysteries. “There is no good trying to be more spiritual than God,” as C. S. Lewis insist...

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Adapted from Genesis 1 and John 1 (NIV)

Author

Stuart R. Strachan, Jr.

Keywords

Scripture

John 1:null, Genesis 1:null

Leader: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. People: Jesus was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through Him, and without Him not one t...

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Two Wrong-Headed Views of the Body

Author

Tish Harrison Warren

Keywords

Scripture

Genesis 1:31, 1 Timothy 4:4-5, Colossians 1:16, Romans 1:20, 1 Corinthians 15:42-44, 2 Corinthians 5:1

Christians are often accused of two wrong-headed views of the body. One is that we ignore the body in favor of a disembodied, spirits-floating-on-clouds spirituality. The other is that we are obsessed...

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Goodness: A Home for Humanity

Author

Jen Pollock Michel

Keywords

Scripture

Genesis 1:null, Genesis 2:null

In Genesis 1–2, God makes a home for his people. From the primeval wilderness and wasteland God begets beauty and form, building the grand house called Earth. God’s creative acts are not simply intend...

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O Father of all creation, who hovered

Author

Scott B. Bullock

Keywords

Scripture

Romans 1:25-26, Psalm 139:14, Genesis 1:2

O Father of all creation, who hovered over the deep at the beginning, who spoke light into darkness, who split the heavens open and descended upon the Son of God in the waters of the Jordan, who creat...

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Author

Henri J. M. Nouwen

Keywords

Scripture

Acts 17:26, Genesis 1:27, Romans 5:12, Romans 3:23

Across all barriers of land and language, wealth and poverty, knowledge and ignorance, we are one, created from the same dust, subject to the same laws, and destined for the same end. With this compas...

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Adapted from Genesis 1 / John 1 (WEB)

Author

Jacob Traeger

Keywords

Scripture

Genesis 1:null, John 1:null

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was formless and empty. Darkness was on the surface of the deep. And God’s Spirit was hovering over the surface of the waters. In ...

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Developing an Anthropological Foundation for the Spiritual Disciplines

Author

James Bryan Smith

Keywords

Scripture

Genesis 1:26-27 , Deuteronomy 6:4-6, Jeremiah 31:33, Matthew 23:25-26 , Romans 12:2 , Psalm 51:10

Before my mentor, Dallas Willard, passed over to glory, I asked him what he thought about the rapid rise of the Christian spiritual formation movement. He said, “It is a wonderful thing, but my fear i...

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Our Relational Design

Author

Richard Plass and James Cofield

Keywords

Scripture

Genesis 1:27, Genesis 2:23-24, Matthew 19:4-5, 1 Corinthians 11:11, Ephesians 5:31-32

Maleness and femaleness is the fundamental way we carry our relational design. Interestingly, the English word sexuality comes from the Latin word sexus, which means “being divided, cut off, separated...

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Consider the Egg

Author

Robert Farrar Capon

Keywords

Scripture

Colossians 2:3, 1 Timothy 4:4, Romans 11:36, Matthew 6:26, Psalm 104:27-28, Job 12:7-10, Genesis 1:24-25

In this short excerpt, the author and priest Robert Farrar Capon describes just how intricate and beautiful one single part of God’s creation is, the chicken egg: Forget for the moment the fantastic...

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Creator Spirit, by whose aid The

Author

John Dryden

Keywords

Scripture

Titus 3:5-6, Ezekiel 37:1-14, 2 Corinthians 3:17-18, Romans 8:11, Psalm 104:30, Genesis 1:1-2

Creator Spirit, by whose aid The world's foundations first were laid, Come, visit every pious mind; Come, pour thy joys on humankind; From sin and sorrow set us free, And make thy temples worthy t...

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A Millwright or Poet?

Author

Max De Pree

Keywords

Calling

Scripture

Ephesians 2:10, Genesis 1:27, Job 12:7-10, Psalm 45:1, Proverbs 25:11, Proverbs 22:29

In the furniture industry of the 1920s, the machines of most factories were not run by electric motors but by pulleys from a central drive shaft. The millwright was the person on whom the entire activ...

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Heavenly Father, we stand in awe of

Author

Memorial Drive Presbyterian Church

Keywords

Scripture

John 14:6, Genesis 1:1, Psalm 19:1, Isaiah 40:28, John 14:6, Psalm 100:3, Colossians 1:16, Romans 5:8

Heavenly Father, we stand in awe of Your creation. You are the master of design. You know the change of seasons, You know the orbit of planets, and You know exactly what human beings were made for: a ...

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Util and Frui

Author

James Bryan Smith

Keywords

Scripture

Ephesians 2:10, Hebrews 10:24-25, Psalm 8:, Genesis 1:31, Psalm 19:1, Ecclesiastes 3:11

Two Latin words are used to describe useful and beautiful things: util and frui. Util means useful, beneficial, helpful. Frui means enjoyable, pleasurable, and delightful. The created world is both fr...

Quote

Author

Bob Goff

Keywords

Scripture

Matthew 25:40, Genesis 1:27, James 2:8-9, 1 John 4:20, Galatians 6:2, Luke 10:25-37, Luke 19:1-10, John 13:12-15, Luke 17:11-19

What I’ve come to realize is if I really want to “meet Jesus,” then I have to get a lot closer to the people He created. All of them, not just some of them.

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Author

Gordon and Gladis DePree

Keywords

Scripture

Colossians 3:17, Galatians 2:20, 1 Corinthians 6:19-20, Ephesians 2:10, 2 Corinthians 4:7, Romans 12:1, Genesis 1:27

Has God’s face ever been on a coin? We are the coin that bears the living likeness of God. Giving of ourselves with whatever that may include, is the only legal currency of the kingdom of heaven.

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Lord Jesus, Master of both the light

Author

Richard Herman

Keywords

Scripture

Matthew 4:12-17, John 1:1-14, Genesis 1:3-4, John 8:12-20, James 1:1-18, Ephesians 5:8-9, 1 John 1:5-10

Lord Jesus, Master of both the light and the darkness, send your Holy Spirit upon our preparations for Christmas. We who have so much to do seek quiet spaces to hear your voice each day. We who are an...

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Author

Julian of Norwich

Keywords

Scripture

Psalm 33:8, Genesis 16:, John 10:11-18, Genesis 1:2, Matthew 6:26, Colossians 1:16-17, Psalm 139:13-14

And in this vision, he showed me a little thing, the size of a hazelnut, lying in the palm of my hand, and to my mind’s eye it was as round as any ball. I looked at it and thought, ‘What can this be?’...

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The Heresy of Body/Spirit Dualism

Author

Christopher West

Keywords

Scripture

Genesis 1:31, 1 Timothy 4:4-5, Colossians 1:16, Romans 1:20, 1 Corinthians 6:19-20

Christianity Does Not Reject the Body The “spirit-good / body-bad” dualism that often passes for Christianity is actually an ancient gnostic error called “Manichaeism,” and it couldn’t be further from...

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