Christian Living on Self Deception | The Pastor's Workshop

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Jeremiah 17:9, Proverbs 16:2, 1 John 1:8, James 1:22-24, Psalm 19:12, Matthew 7:3-5

You will never make yourself feel that you are a sinner, because there is a mechanism in you as a result of sin that will always be defending you against every accusation. We are all on very good term...

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Daring to Glance

Author

Terry Linhart

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Proverbs 12:15, 1 Corinthians 13:12, James 1:22-25, Psalm 19:12, Proverbs 14:12, Jeremiah 17:9, 1 Corinthians 3:18-19

One helpful, practical tool to understand our blind spot is what’s called the Johari Window, an image developed as a counseling tool in the 1950s. Subjects were given a list of fifty-six adjectives, a...

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Author

J. C. Ryle

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Proverbs 13:10, Colossians 3:20, Proverbs 11:14, James 1:19, Job 12:12, Proverbs 19:20, Exodus 20:12

Stop being so sure that you are always right, and others wrong. Don't trust your own opinion, when you find it contrary to that of older men, and especially to that of your own parents. Age gives ...

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Being Careful Not to Commit

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C. S. Lewis

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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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Certainty vs. Vulnerability

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Austin Fischer

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Galatians 5:6, John 20:27, Mark 9:24, 2 Corinthians 4:18, Romans 8:24-25, James 1:5-6

In this excerpt from his book Faith in the Shadows, pastor and author Austin Fischer shares a surprising truth about the need to be vulnerable with our own faith if we are likely to have a positive im...

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One False Assumption

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Simon Sinek

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Exodus 32:null, 1 Timothy 4:16, 1 John 4:1-4, 2 Corinthians 11:14-15, Proverbs 3:5-6, Matthew 7:1-2, James 1:19

On a cold January day, a forty-three-year-old man was sworn in as the chief executive of his country. By his side stood his predecessor, a famous general who, fifteen years earlier, had commanded his ...

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Fearing to Want

Author

Jen Pollock Michel

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Ephesians 5:18-21, Proverbs 20:1, 1 Corinthians 10:23-24, Colossians 3:5, James 1:12-15, Matthew 6:19-24, Ecclesiastes 6:9

In her thought-provoking book, Teach us to Want , Jen Pollock Michel describes the tension in listening to our deepest desires: some of them these desires are integral to our identity, but they a...

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The Rope

Author

C. S. Lewis

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Belief

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Mark 9:14-24, Psalm 56:3-4, Proverbs 3:5-6, Hebrews 11:null, Philippians 1:21, Psalm 20:7, James 1:2-4

You never know how much you really believe anything until its truth or falsehood becomes a matter of life and death. It is easy to say you believe a rope to be strong as long as you are merely using i...

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Gracious God, sometimes I am so caught

Author

Mark D. Roberts

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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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How To Keep Your Kids From Talking All the Time (Unfortunately, Through Lying)

Author

Steve May

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Scripture

Proverbs 10:19, James 1:19, Matthew 12:36, Colossians 4:6, Amos 5:13, 1 Samuel 3:

My friend Joi told me that when she was growing up, her parents invented a ploy to keep her from talking all of the time. They told her that people are allowed only so many words in one lifetime, and ...

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Symeon the New Theologian

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Humility

Scripture

Matthew 11:29, Galatians 5:16-17, 1 Peter 3:9, James 1:19-20, Romans 12:19

A person who suffers bitterly when slighted or insulted should recognize from this that he still harbors the ancient serpent in his breast. If he quietly endures the insult or responds with great humi...

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The Perversion of Pleasure

Author

Jared C. Wilson

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Scripture

Genesis 1:31, 1 Timothy 4:4-5, James 1:17, Romans 1:25, 1 Corinthians 10:31, Psalm 16:11, 1 Timothy 6:17

In his classic fictional work on spiritual warfare, The Screwtape Letters , C. S. Lewis imagined a senior demon (Screwtape) corresponding with one of his protégés (his nephew Wormwood) as the latte...

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Author

George MacDonald

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Scripture

James 1:22, Titus 3:8, Philippians 2:13, Romans 12:2, John 14:15

To hold to a doctrine or an opinion with the intellect alone is not to believe it. A man’s real belief is that which he lives by.

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A Map & Our Beliefs

Author

Gregory Koukl

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Scripture

Proverbs 3:5-6, Micah 6:8, Matthew 7:13-14, James 1:5, Romans 12:2, Jeremiah 6:16, Psalm 119:105

A few years ago I was with my family in Washington, D.C., a wildly complex city laid out like a square wheel with broken spokes making an angular maze that is a nightmare to navigate. However, my fami...

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Almighty God, we trust in our own

Author

Laura B. Murray

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Scripture

Philippians 4:13, Micah 6:8, Colossians 3:17, 2 Corinthians 12:9-10, 1 Corinthians 10:31, Psalm 24:1, James 1:17

Almighty God, we trust in our own strength, abilities, and resources. We think too highly of what we have to offer this world. The truth is we cannot do anything without your strength and all we have ...

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Dear Heavenly Father, we lower our

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Scripture

James 1:5, Philippians 4:13, Matthew 5:14-16, Romans 12:2, Isaiah 41:10

Dear Heavenly Father, we lower our heads before you and we confess that we have too often forgotten that we are yours. Sometimes we carry on our lives as if there was no God and we fall short of being...

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Weighing the Options

Author

Bits and Pieces

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Scripture

Philippians 4:8, Romans 12:17-18, Ephesians 4:2, Matthew 7:3-4, James 1:19

Many years ago a senior executive of the then Standard Oil Company made a wrong decision that cost the company more than $2 million. John D. Rockefeller was then running the firm. On the day the news ...

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Who Determines Your Behavior?

Author

The Pastor's Workshop

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Scripture

Romans 12:1, Matthew 5:44, Proverbs 15:1, 1 Peter 3:9, Luke 6:31, Galatians 6:9, Colossians 3:12-13, 1 Corinthians 13:4-5, Genesis 50:20, Philippians 2:3-4, James 1:19-20, 1 Samuel 24:17

Some years ago, the syndicated newspaper columnist Sidney J. Harris shared an interesting anecdote from one of his friends. Each evening, this friend would stop at the same newsstand to buy a newspape...

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Author

Bernard of Clairvaux

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Conversion

Scripture

James 1:14

Neither fear nor self-interest can convert the soul. They may change the appearance, perhaps even the conduct, but never the object of supreme desire... Fear is the motive which constrains the slave; ...

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Made to See

Author

Jen Pollock Michel

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Scripture

Ezekiel 36:26, Mark 10:21-22, James 1:14-15, Jeremiah 17:9-10, Psalm 139:23-24, Matthew 6:22-24

In her engaging treatment, Teach us to Want , Jen Pollock Michel describes both the beauty and pain of seeing our own sinful nature: It is often true that once we are made to see, we don’t like w...

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Author

Friedrich Nietzsche

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James 1:5-6, 2 Corinthians 5:7, 1 Corinthians 2:5, Romans 10:17, Proverbs 3:5-6, John 20:29, Hebrews 11:1

Faith: not wanting to know what is true.

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For the times when we fail to notice

Author

Austin D. Hill

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Matthew 25:35-40, James 2:15-17, 1 Peter 5:2-3, Galatians 6:2, Matthew 7:12, Deuteronomy 15:11, Galatians 2:10, James 1:27

For the times when we fail to notice others’ needs, we repent. For our apathy for those you’ve entrusted to us, we repent. For the amount of time we spend focused on ourselves, we repent. For fa...

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Author

C. S. Lewis

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Galatians 2:20, 1 Peter 1:8-9, James 1:6, 2 Corinthians 5:7, Romans 10:17, Mark 9:24, John 20:29

Ramandu’s daughter: "You can't know, you can only believe - or not."

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Author

John Ortberg

Keywords

Faith

Scripture

Matthew 14:31, John 20:29, 2 Corinthians 5:7, Proverbs 3:5-6, Mark 9:24, James 1:5-6

We live in an age when belief comes hard because we’re much more afraid of being gullible (believing something that’s not true) than we are of being skeptical (not believing something that is true). W...

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The Blue Pill or the Red Pill

Author

Mark Batterson

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Scripture

Philippians 3:14, John 20:29, James 1:5-6, Romans 10:17, Matthew 17:20, 2 Corinthians 5:7, Proverbs 3:5-6

There is an iconic scene in the cult classic The Matrix that makes for a great metaphor. Morpheus gives Neo a choice between two pills: You can take the blue pill and the story ends. You wake up in y...

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True Healing Occurs When…

Author

Henri J. M. Nouwen

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Scripture

Matthew 11:30, Matthew 11:28-30, 2 Corinthians 1:3-4, Romans 8:18, Hebrews 12:1-2, James 1:2-4

Paradoxically…healing means moving from your pain to the pain…When you keep focusing on the specific circumstances of your pain, you easily become angry, resentful, and even vindictive. You are inclin...

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Author

Paul E. Little

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James 1:5, 1 Corinthians 13:12, Hebrews 11:1, Romans 1:20, Isaiah 55:8-9, 1 Corinthians 2:14, John 8:32

Belief doesn’t create truth. Unbelief doesn’t destroy truth. Christian faith goes beyond reason but not against reason.

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The Problem with Apologetics

Author

Joshua Chatraw and Jack Carson

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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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Author

G. K. Chesterton

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Scripture

Hebrews 11:1-6, Isaiah 1:18, 1 Peter 3:15, John 1:1, James 1:5, Colossians 2:8, Romans 12:2

Reason is itself a matter of faith. It is an act of faith to assert that our thoughts have any relation to reality at all.

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Author

Richard Cecil

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Scripture

Psalm 46:1, Philippians 4:13, Psalm 23:4, 1 Peter 1:6-7, James 1:2-3, Hebrews 11:1, Romans 8:28

Faith makes all evil good to us, and all good better; unbelief makes all good evil, and all evil worse. Faith laughs at the shaking of the spear; unbelief trembles at the shaking of a leaf, unbelief s...

christian living on Self-Deception

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