Christian Living on Change

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Embodying a Decision

Author

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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What Does it Mean to Be Blessed?

Author

H. Norman Wright

Keywords

Blessing

Scripture

Genesis 12:1-4, Mark 10:13-16, Psalm 1:1-3, Matthew 5:3-12, Galatians 3:8-9, Matthew 19:13-15, Numbers 6:24-26, Luke 18:15-17, Luke 24:50-51, Genesis 27:1-40

Ask a dozen people what the word blessing means and you’ll probably get a dozen different answers. For many people, it means financial security. For some, it means good health- For yet others, it mean...

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Author

Lesslie Newbigin

Keywords

Scripture

John 13:1-17, Ephesians 2:8-9, Galatians 2:21, Hebrews 9:14, Mark 10:45, Romans 5:8

To accept this [Jesus' self-humiliation in washing the disciples' feet] is to be converted. And nothing can be added to this. If you imagine that you can add something to what is given in the ...

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Power is for Service

Author

Spiritual Disciplines

Keywords

Scripture

Luke 22:27, Matthew 23:11, Philippians 2:5-7, Galatians 5:13, John 13:14-15, Mark 10:45

The way most of us serve keeps us in control. We choose whom, when, where and how we will serve. We stay in charge. Jesus is calling for something else. He is calling us to be servants. When we make t...

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Savior Jesus, we confess that all too often we are incapable of looking

Author

Jonathan Cornell

Keywords

Scripture

Mark 10:35-45, Philippians 2:3-7, Psalm 139:23-24, John 3:1-17, Mark 10:17-27

Savior Jesus, we confess that all too often we are incapable of looking beyond our own ambitions. We get wrapped up in prestige and position, leaving you behind for our own aspirations. Forgive our mi...

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Missional Ministry: Crossing to the Other Side of the Street

Author

Leonard Sweet

Keywords

Scripture

Genesis 18:1-8 , 2 Kings 4:1-7, Micah 6:8, Luke 10:25-37, Mark 10:45, Psalm 82:3-4

Leonard Sweet shares an interesting story in the introduction to Neil Cole’s book, Organic Church , about a parish pastor who lived in a Scottish village near Edinburgh called Davidson’s Mains. ...

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Jesus the Irresistible One

Author

John Stott

Keywords

Scripture

Colossians 1:19-20, Romans 8:1-2, Luke 7:36-50, 1 Corinthians 1:18, Mark 10:45, Matthew 20:20-28, John 14:6

In his seminal work, The Cross of Christ , British pastor and author John Stott describes the unique, upside-down kingdom instituted on the cross: ‘Irresistible’ is the very word an Iranian stude...

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Author

C. S. Lewis

Keywords

Scripture

Romans 3:23-24, Mark 10:17-22, Ephesians 2:8-9, Isaiah 64:6, Revelation 3:15-16, Matthew 7:21-23

A world of nice people, content in their own niceness, looking no further, turned away from God, would be just as desperately in need of salvation as a miserable world-and might be even more difficult...

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Author

C. Gene Wilkes

Keywords

Scripture

Romans 12:2, Matthew 6:33, Mark 10:14-15, John 18:36, Luke 4:18-19, Matthew 20:26-28, Matthew 5:3-10

Jesus came to show us what life in the kingdom looked like, not how to modify how the world did things.

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An Invitation to Act

Author

Adele Ahlberg Calhoun

Keywords

Scripture

Exodus 14:15-16, 2 Kings 5:9-14, Deuteronomy 30:19-20, John 5:1-9, Mark 10:46-52, Psalm 107:19-20

I am struck by all the things Jesus didn’t say or do in response to the litanies of pain and defensiveness he heard from people. Jesus didn’t say to the man, “You sound like a victim to me; what are y...

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Sarah Smith of Golder's Green

Author

Eunice McGarrahan

Keywords

Scripture

1 John 3:18, Mark 10:43-45, Colossians 3:12-14, 1 Peter 4:10, Galatians 5:13

One of the most powerful expressions of humble, servant-like caring for others is found in C.S. Lewis’ The Great Divorce , in the character of Sarah Smith of Golders Green. Her quiet life of love tra...

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Author

Eugene Peterson

Keywords

Scripture

John 1:14, Matthew 9:36, Luke 19:10, John 15:15, Mark 10:45, Philippians 2:5-7, 1 John 4:9-10

The ways Jesus goes about loving and saving the world are personal: nothing disembodied, nothing abstract, nothing impersonal. Incarnate, flesh and blood, relational, particular and local. The ways em...

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Author

Benedicta Ward

Keywords

Scripture

1 John 3:18, John 13:1-17, Luke 10:25-37, Matthew 4:18-22, James 1:22, Romans 12:1, Mark 10:15

It is possible also to come at Christianity from a rather different point of view as well, seeing it as something not too difficult but too simple for us, too basic, something to be apprehended theref...

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A Seed of Wanting to Be the Boss

Author

Walter Brueggemann

Keywords

Scripture

Mark 10:42-45

People in the world naturally want to boss others. Imagine a boy beginning work with a firm. He has a lowly place and is ordered around by everyone. Do this! Do that! Every dirty job is his. He is the...

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Cheap Grace vs. Costly Grace

Author

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Keywords

Scripture

Philippians 3:7-8, Romans 6:1-2, Ephesians 2:8-10, John 21:15-19, Luke 9:23-24, Mark 10:17-22

Cheap grace is the deadly enemy of our Church. We are fighting to-day for costly grace. Cheap grace means grace sold on the market… Cheap grace means grace as a doctrine, a principle, a system…. Chea...

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Almighty God, we pray for your

Keywords

Scripture

1 Peter 5:10, Mark 10:13-16, Luke 15:11-32, Matthew 9:20-22, Acts 2:42-47, Psalm 73:26

Almighty God, we pray for your blessing on the church in this place. Here may the faithful find salvation, and the careless be awakened. Here may the doubting find faith, and the anxious be encou...

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Beloved of God go now in peace. Go to

Author

Lisa Ann Moss Degrenia

Keywords

Scripture

Matthew 10:5-8, Luke 10:25-37, Ephesians 3:20-21, Numbers 6:24-26, Galatians 6:9-10, Mark 10:45

Beloved of God, go now in peace. Go to love. Go to serve. Go with the unending blessing of the One, True, Living God Father – Son – Spirit. Amen.

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Gracious God, your Son Jesus came not

Author

Dustin Ray

Keywords

Scripture

Mark 10:45, Romans 12:10, 1 John 3:18, 1 Peter 5:2-3, Ephesians 4:32, John 10:11, Matthew 20:28

Gracious God, your Son Jesus came not be served, but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many. He is our Good Shepherd, whose leadership is less about the love of power, and more about the ...

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Author

Charles Haddon Spurgeon

Keywords

Salvation

Scripture

Colossians 2:9-10, Acts 9:1-19, Mark 10:17-27, John 15:5, Galatians 2:20

[If] Christ is not all to you he is nothing to you. He will never go into partnership as a part Savior of men. If he be something he must be everything, and if he be not everything he is nothing to yo...

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Free us, Lord, from our obsession with

Author

Walter Brueggemann

Keywords

Scripture

Luke 10:25-37, Matthew 16:24, Acts 2:44-45, James 2:14-17, Mark 10:43-45, 1 John 3:17-18, John 13:14-15, Isaiah 58:6-7

Free us, Lord, from our obsession with ourselves long enough to care for others; to be so concerned about the well-being of the human community that me don’t have to worry about our place, our church,...

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Author

Thomas Aquinas

Keywords

Scripture

1 Corinthians 13:13, Mark 10:17-22, Luke 10:25-37, Matthew 22:34-40, Galatians 5:6, James 2:26

Love takes up where knowledge leaves off.

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Author

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Keywords

Scripture

John 4:7-26, John 21:15-19, Matthew 9:9-13, Mark 10:17-22, Matthew 16:24-25, Romans 6:1-2, James 2:17

Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession, absolution without personal confession. Cheap grace is grace ...

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Author

N. T. Wright

Keywords

Scripture

Luke 12:33-34, Luke 18:28-30, Acts 2:44-45, Matthew 19:21, Mark 10:29-30, Luke 14:26

Family and property, then, were not for the ancient Jew simply what they are to the modern western world. Both carried religious and cultural significance far beyond personal, let alone “individual,” ...

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Author

Amy Carmichael

Keywords

Scripture

Exodus 32:7-14, Mark 10:17-22, Galatians 2:11-14, 2 Samuel 12:1-14, 1 John 3:16, Romans 5:8, John 15:13

If I fear to hold another to the highest goal because it is so much easier to avoid doing so, then I know nothing of Calvary love.

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A Day with Jesus

Author

The Pastor's Workshop

Keywords

Scripture

Mark 10:13-16, Luke 19:1-10, Matthew 9:10-13, John 15:15, Mark 5:35-43

A group of fourth-graders at a Christian school was given an assignment to draw what they would like to do if Jesus spent a day with them. After working diligently on their pictures, one little girl a...

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Humble

Author

Keywords

Scripture

Philippians 2:5-8, Luke 2:6-7, Isaiah 53:2-3, John 13:4-5, Hebrews 2:14-17, Luke 22:27, Mark 10:42-45

Humble. Before Jesus, almost no pagan author had used “humble” as a compliment. Yet the events of Christmas point inescapably to what seems like an oxymoron: a humble God. The God who came to earth ca...

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The Origins of “Servant Leadership”

Author

The Pastor's Workshop

Keywords

Scripture

Philippians 2:5-8, Mark 10:45, John 13:3-5, 12-15 , Matthew 25:21, Colossians 3:23-24, Matthew 6:3-4, 1 Peter 5:5-6

The Swiss-German novelist Hermann Hesse published a short story in 1932 called "Journey to the East." In it, a group of men go on a long journey. Throughout their trip, they are accompanied ...

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Author

Bill Hull

Keywords

Scripture

Matthew 16:24-25, Acts 9:1-19, Mark 10:17-22, Ephesians 4:1-2, John 8:31-32, Luke 9:23, Matthew 28:18-20

All who are called to salvation are called to discipleship, no exceptions, no excuses!

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The Definition of a Level 5 Leader (Jim Collins’ Definition of Top Executive Leaders)

Author

Jim Collins

Keywords

Scripture

Mark 10:43-45, Philippians 2:3-8, 1 Peter 5:2-3, James 3:13

It came down to one essential definition. The central dimension for Level 5 is a leader who is ambitious first and foremost for the cause, for the company, for the work, not for himself or herself; an...

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A Walking Sermon

Author

Roy T. Lloyd

Keywords

Scripture

Romans 12:10, Isaiah 58:10, Proverbs 3:34, Galatians 5:13, Mark 10:43-45, Philippians 2:3-4

One of the best stories of humility is that of a man who arrived in 1953 at the Chicago railroad station to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. He stepped off the train, a tall man with bushy hair and a bi...

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