Christian Living on Jesus The Way

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Jesus Discerned Between Invitations

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Scripture

1 Kings 19:11-13, Exodus 33:12-14, Isaiah 30:15-21, Mark 5:25-34, Mark 1:35-38, Psalm 46:10

Jesus knew his spiritual journey depended on responsiveness to God’s invitations. Although his job was the most crucial in human history, Jesus did not get compulsive, preoccupied or unable to practic...

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Author

A. W. Tozer

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Scripture

John 16:16, Matthew 16:13-17, John 10:71, Matthew 7:13-14, Colossians 1:19-20, Acts 4:12, John 14:6

Jesus is not one of many ways to approach God, nor is He the best of several ways; He is the only way.

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Sixth Sunday after Pentecost

Author

Charles Teixeira

Scripture

Mark 5:21-43, Mark 5:17-21, Leviticus 15:7

Intertwined Narratives Jesus’ encounters with Jairus’ daughter and the bleeding woman are sandwiched together with the intention that the two narratives would unlock and help to interpret the other....

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Holy Wednesday | John 13:21-32 | We Are All Judas

Author

Scott B. Bullock

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Scripture

John 13:21-31

Reflection “I took the money, I spiked your drink, you miss too much these days if you stop to think… waves of regret and waves of joy, I reached out for the one I tried to destroy,” sings Bono of Ju...

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Author

Karl Barth

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Scripture

John 14:6, Hebrews 10:19-20, John 10:1-9, Acts 4:12, 1 Timothy 2:5, Luke 19:1-10

Jesus does not give recipes that show the way to God as other teachers of religion do. He is Himself the way.

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Author

Brian Zahnd

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Scripture

Isaiah 53:5-6 , Exodus 34:6-7, Zechariah 12:10, Psalm 85:10-11, Romans 5:8

Jesus didn’t die on the cross to change God’s mind about us; Jesus died on the cross to change our minds about God!”

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An Occupational Hazard for Ministry Leaders

Author

Alan Fadling

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Scripture

Matthew 6:null, Matthew 6:5-6

I’m not the first to say it, but Jesus is an absolute genius. I remembered this yet again in a recent conversation with a Christian leader with whom I meet regularly. We were talking about how one of ...

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Author

Eugene Peterson

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Pilgrim (parepidēmos) tells us we are people who spend our lives going someplace, going to God, and whose path for getting there is the way, Jesus Christ.

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A Soldier's Sacrifice

Author

Source Unknown

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Scripture

Ephesians 5:2, 1 John 3:16, Philippians 2:8, Romans 5:8, Galatians 2:20, John 15:13

A chaplain was speaking to a soldier on a cot in a hospital. “You have lost an arm in the great cause,” he said. “No,” said the soldier with a smile. “I didn’t lose it–I gave it.” In that same way, Je...

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Author

Eugene Peterson

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The way of Jesus cannot be imposed or mapped — it requires an active participation in following Jesus as he leads us through sometimes strange and unfamiliar territory, in circumstances that become cl...

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Author

Craig Groeschel

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Scripture

Genesis 12:1 , Exodus 3:10-12, Daniel 3:17-18, Matthew 8:19-20 , Hebrews 11:24-26, Psalm 34:19

Jesus never asks us to do something he wouldn’t do himself. He calls us to a life of faith, not a life of comfort.

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Gaining Scholars but Losing Jesus

Author

N. T. Wright

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Scripture

Deuteronomy 18:15 , Isaiah 7:14, Isaiah 11:1–4, John 14:6–9 , Philippians 3:8–10, Psalm 34:8

A friend of mine, lecturing in a theological college in Kenya, introduced his students to “The Quest for the Historical Jesus.” This, he said, was a movement of thought and scholarship that in its ear...

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Seeing Through the Eyes of Jesus

Author

Richard J. Mouw

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Scripture

Micah 6:8, Exodus 23:2–3, 6, Proverbs 31:8–9, James 2:12–13 , Luke 6:36–37, Psalm 103:8–10

Christian civility does not commit us to a relativistic perspective. Being civil doesn’t mean that we cannot criticize what goes on around us. …Civility is a different matter, though. I can treat ...

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Author

Scott Erickson

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Scripture

Genesis 37:23-28, Exodus 3:11-12 , Isaiah 43:1, John 1:42, Luke 8:26-39 , Psalm 139:13-16

Who we are is deeper than where we find ourselves in this moment. And Jesus illuminates that deeper identity.

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A Theology of Interruptions

Author

Christopher H. J. Wright

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Scripture

Genesis 18:1–8, 2 Kings 4:8–10 , Ruth 2:10–12, Luke 8:43–48 , Matthew 15:21–28, Psalm 145:8–9

I have a friend who says he wants to write a book on the life of Jesus and call it “a theology of interruptions.” Because, he says, so many of the things that Jesus said or did in the Gospel stories h...

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An Invitation to Act

Author

Adele Ahlberg Calhoun

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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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Author

George MacDonald

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Scripture

Mark 10:35-45, 1 Peter 4:12-13, Philippians 3:10, Romans 8:17, 2 Corinthians 4:17, James 1:2-4

The Son of God suffered unto death, not that men might not suffer, but that their sufferings might be like His.

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Why a Colt and Not a War Horse?

Author

Mia Levetan

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Scripture

Zechariah 9:9, Isaiah 53:3–5, Exodus 12:1–28, Matthew 21:1–11 , Luke 22:24–27, Psalm 118:25–26

I heard a woman named Veda Gill who is the Executive Director, Presbyterian Education Board in Pakistan preach on a Palm Sunday. Perhaps you’ve heard this story before, but it is so powerful that I th...

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Praying Wholeheartedly

Author

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

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Scripture

Luke 11:1–4 , Romans 8:26–27, Psalm 119:171–173 , Exodus 33:11 , Deuteronomy 6:4–9 , 1 Samuel 3:1–10

When our will wholeheartedly enters into the prayer of Christ, then we pray correctly. Only in Jesus Christ are we able to pray, and with him we also know that we shall be heard. And so we must learn ...

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Where are the Nails?

Author

The Pastor's Workshop

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Scripture

Deuteronomy 13:1-3, 1 Kings 22:19-23, Isaiah 53:3-5, Matthew 24:23-25, John 20:27, Psalm 34:18, John 20:25, 1 Corinthians 1:23; 2:2, Galatians 1:8-9

St. Martin of Tours was a Frankish soldier in the Roman army who abandoned his military post to follow Jesus at a time when Christianity had only begun to take root in France. He later became the bish...

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Imagining the Kingdom

Author

The Pastor's Workshop

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Scripture

Isaiah 65:17-25, Micah 4:1-4, Exodus 3:7-10 , Luke 4:18-19, Matthew 5:1-12, Psalm 146:7-9

Author and Episcopal priest Stephanie Spellers suggests that instead of imagining a kingdom, a better way for us to understand what Jesus had in mind when he spoke of this script, this new way of livi...

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What Keeps us from Experiencing Renewal

Author

The Pastor's Workshop

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Scripture

Deuteronomy 6:4-5, 2 Kings 22:23, Isaiah 58:6-7, Psalm 119:105, Matthew 5:17-20 , Acts 2:42-47

There’s a quote by H. Richard Niebuhr that I believe is absolutely true. “The great Christian revolutions,” he argued, “come not by the discovery of something that was not known before. They happen w...

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Christ, The Cornerstone

Author

Lisa Ann Moss Degrenia

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Scripture

1 Peter 2:2-10, Matthew 21:42, Acts 4:5-12

This prayer could be voiced with one voice, all voices, or as a call and response with all voices responding on the bold print. Jesus, You are our Refuge and Rock The Strong Foundation The Corner...

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Defining the Gospel

Author

Carl Medearis

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Scripture

John 14:6, 1 Corinthians 15:3-4, Acts 4:12, Colossians 1:15-20, Galatians 2:21, Romans 10:9-10, Romans 6:23

I’ve been reading Donald Miller’s Searching for God Knows What . Miller took this point to an even further extreme. In his book, he tells a story about one occasion when he was speaking to a class at...

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Road Trips: 2, Acts 9:1-19

Author

Allen Thompson

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Scripture

Acts 9:1-19, Luke 10:30-37, John 14:6

Saul's Confident Error Last week, we considered Abram and the way that God may send us out on a journey, waiting to see his will without knowing the destination. Today we move forward to Saul on...

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Author

Heinrich Weinel and Alban G. Widgery

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Scripture

Genesis 1:1 & 1:31, Genesis 14:18–20, Isaiah 55:6–7, John 14:6, Acts 10:1–4, 34–35, Psalm 19:1–2

To some God and Jesus may appeal in a way other than to us: some may come to faith in God and to love, without a conscious attachment to Jesus. Both Nature and good men besides Jesus may lead us to Go...

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Holy God, you have shown us the

Author

Austin D. Hill

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Holy God, you have shown us the ultimate example of sacrificial love in Jesus. For Jesus came not to be served, but to serve and give his life as a ransom for many. Yet we think of ourselves more high...

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A Kingdom of Priests

Author

Eugene H. Peterson

Keywords

Scripture

1 Peter 2:9, Isaiah 11:6

When the Hebrews, recently enslaved but now free, were gathered at Sinai to begin their formation as a free people, God spoke the words that defined them over against their four centuries of slavery i...

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The Hitchhiker Who Pulled a Gun on Me

Author

JR Woodward

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Scripture

Romans 12:20-21, Matthew 5:44, James 2:1, Proverbs 16:7, Ephesians 2:14-16

I was driving in Columbus, Ohio, when I came upon a hitchhiker who alternated between holding his thumb out and clasping his hands together as if he were praying. I picked him up. His name was Mike, a...

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The Gospel and the Other: Preaching in an Age of "Us vs. Them"

Author

Andrew DeCort

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Scripture

Luke 10:25-37

When conflict and division are driving both politics and media (including social media), the contrast between the way of the world and the way of Jesus stands out more than ever. How can pastors, task...

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