Christian Living on Performance

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Gracious Father, too often we base our

Author

Keywords

Scripture

Ephesians 2:8-9, Romans 5:8, 1 John 4:10, Romans 8:38-39, Titus 3:4-5, Isaiah 55:1, Psalm 103:10-12, John 15:9

Gracious Father, too often we base our worth on our performance. We believe if we do well, your love grows, and if we falter, your love lessens. Our God, how far this is from the truth. We confess our...

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A Saxophonist's Spiritual Revelation

Author

Ryan Bundrick

Scripture

Luke 2:1-35, 2 Timothy 4:6-7, Colossians 3:23-24, 1 Corinthians 10:31, Ephesians 2:10

John Coltrane stands out as one of the giants of 20th-century jazz. His legacy is a generation of hearts touched and the light of God shining through his songs. Yet, for years, his work was haunted by...

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Enjoying My Own Company

Author

Belden Lane

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…When I venture into wilderness, I’m surprised by how much I enjoy my own company…The person I travel with there isn’t worried about his performance. He sheds the polished persona he tries so often to...

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Myths About Meaning

Author

Bobby Harrington

Keywords

Do you want your life to count? Do you want to look back and say that you made the biggest difference possible? Most Christians want to devote their lives to something significant. Deep inside they wa...

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Performance-Oriented Worship

Author

D. A. Carson

Keywords

Scripture

Luke 18:9-14

We have become so performance-oriented that it is hard to see how compromised we are. Consider one small example. In many of our churches, prayers in morning services now function, in large measure, a...

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The Two Runners

Author

The Pastor's Workshop

Keywords

Scripture

Matthew 6:33, Colossians 3:23, Psalm 39:6, Luke 12:15, Acts 15:29, Matthew 5:14-16, Ephesians 2:10, 1 Corinthians 10:31, Jeremiah 9:23-24, Matthew 16:24, Luke 9:62, 2 Corinthians 4:8-9, James 1:12, Romans 8:16-17, Galatians 2:20

The true story of Eric Liddell and Harold Abrahams, two British sprinters who qualified for the 1924 Olympic Games, illustrates two contrasting approaches to life and identity. Abrahams was driven by ...

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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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Author

Brennan Manning

Keywords

The noonday devil of the Christian life is the temptation to lose the inner self while preserving the shell of edifying behavior.

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What Happens to Performance Identity in the Wilderness

Author

Belden Lane

Keywords

Wilderness

What happens when a ‘gifted child’ finds himself in a wilderness where he’s stripped of any way of proving his worth? What does he do when there’s nothing he can do, when there’s no audience to applau...

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When Faith Grew but Evangelism Failed

Author

Don Everts and Doug Schaupp

Keywords

Scripture

Romans 1:16, Colossians 4:5-6, Matthew 5:14-16, 1 Corinthians 4:10

I can remember that afternoon as if it were yesterday. I (Doug) was standing out in the middle of the green grass of the quad on campus, singing as loudly as I could. Twenty of my Christian friends an...

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Author

John Calvin

Keywords

Scripture

Exodus 32:, Jeremiah 17:1-4, Exodus 20:3-6, Psalm 115:1-8, Romans 1:21-23, Galatians 4:8-9, Galatians 5:19-21

Man’s nature, so to speak, is a perpetual factory of idols.

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Author

Jerry Bridges

Keywords

Our expectation of God's blessing depends on how well we feel we are living the Christian life. We declared temporary bankruptcy to get into His kingdom, so now we think we can and must pay our ow...

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Author

Will Durant

Keywords

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then is not an act but a habit.”.

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Author

Jerry Bridges

Keywords

Good Works

My observation of Christendom is that most of us tend to base our personal relationship with God on our performance instead of on His grace.

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St. Matthew’s Passion: Not Theater But Prayer

Author

N. T. Wright

Keywords

Scripture

Philippians 2:8, John 12:32, Isaiah 53:4-6, Luke 23:39-43, Hebrews 12:2

Another example struck me forcibly during the 2014 season of Promenade Concerts in the Albert Hall in London. (The “Proms,” as they are known, make up a major annual festival, offering world-class mus...

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Playing for His Master

Author

Steven C. Roy

Keywords

Scripture

Colossians 3:23-24, Galatians 1:10, 2 Corinthians 5:9, 1 Corinthians 4:3-4, Romans 12:1, John 12:43, Matthew 6:1

A story is told of a young violinist who lived in London many years ago. He was a superb musician. He loved his music and enjoyed playing before small groups of people in the homes of friends. But he ...

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The Agony & The Ecstasy

Author

The Pastor's Workshop

Keywords

Scripture

Philippians 3:13-14, Hebrews 12:1-2, 2 Timothy 4:7, 1 Corinthians 9:24-27, Romans 8:18, James 1:12, 2 Corinthians 4:17-18

During the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal, Japanese gymnast Shun Fujimoto broke his right knee while competing in the floor exercise. At the time, Japan and the Soviet Union fielded the world's ...

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Scene Stealing through Pride

Author

Brian Dembowczyk

Keywords

Scripture

John 3:30, Philippians 2:3-4, James 4:6, 1 Peter 5:5-6, Matthew 23:1-12, Galatians 6:14

One of the cardinal rules of improvisational theater is that actors must never steal scenes. In her book Improvisation for the Theater , Viola Spolin bluntly puts it this way: “Any player who ‘st...

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When the Church Isn’t so Welcoming

Author

The Pastor's Workshop

Keywords

Scripture

Genesis 12:1–3 , Isaiah 56:3–7, Ruth 1:16–17 , Luke 10:25–37, Acts 8:26–39, Psalm 146:7–9

Lamin Sanneh, the African theologian who would be pivotal in the development of missional theology, was raised in an orthodox Muslim household in Gambia. He found himself drawn to Christianity after e...

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The Parable of the Clown

Author

The Pastor's Workshop

Keywords

Scripture

Ezekiel 33:6, 2 Corinthians 6:2, 1 Peter 2:9, Acts 8:4, 1 Corinthians 1:18, Colossians 4:5-6

The Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard once told a parable to illustrate the urgency of the gospel message—and the need for all believers, not just clergy, to share it. A traveling circus in Denm...

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Studying our Parts

Author

Brian Dembowczyk

Keywords

Scripture

Philippians 2:5, Ephesians 5:1-2, 1 Peter 2:21, Colossians 3:16, 1 John 2:6, John 13:15

Imagine you were cast to play the role of legendary baseball player Babe Ruth in a biography of his life. You could simply follow the script, reading out what is written. How much better, though, to s...

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O God, we thank you that you have not

Author

William Barclay

Keywords

Scripture

Micah 6:8, Colossians 3:23-24, Psalm 119:105, 1 Corinthians 12:12-14, Lamentations 3:22-23, 1 Samuel 1:24-28, Acts 2:42-47

O God, we thank you that you have not treated us as we deserve. We thank you that, though you are Creator, Judge and King, you are also Father, so that, though we are wandering children, there is alw...

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Why Humility is Essential to Christian Leadership

Author

Stuart R. Strachan, Jr.

Keywords

Scripture

Ephesians 4:null

A Rude Awakening Just as I began my seminary education, filled with a love of learning and a hunger to serve God, I attended a lecture. It was given at a nearby think tank, and the presenter was an a...

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Jesus’ Trial

Author

John Stott

Keywords

Trials

In his seminal work, The Cross of Christ , British pastor and author John Stott describes the unique, upside-down kingdom instituted on the cross: One of the fascinating features of the Gospel writ...

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Getting Feedback is Hard

Author

Bob Merritt

Keywords

We all have blind spots. We all have flaws in our personalities, behavior, or work habits that we can’t see, and they block our performance and growth. But others can see them. If we permit them to gi...

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Author

Barbara Brown Taylor

Keywords

The sermon is no place for a virtuoso performance; it is a place for believers to explore together their common experience before God. The stories I tell from the pulpit are not just “my” stories but ...

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How Do You Know?

Author

Stuart R. Strachan, Jr.

Keywords

Grace

Scripture

John 21:15-19, 1 Corinthians 13:12, Luke 19:1-10, Romans 8:1-2, Luke 23:39-43, Matthew 11:28

In his book The Case for Grace , pastor and author Lee Strobel describes a dream he had as a child after having a significant argument with his father. Strobel does what most of us would do at that...

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A Double Blessing

Author

Mark Batterson

Keywords

Blessing

Scripture

Isaiah 61:1, Psalm 96:1-3, 1 Corinthians 10:31, Colossians 3:17, Psalm 40:3, 1 Peter 4:10-11, Psalm 67:1-2, 2 Corinthians 9:10-11

During his celebrated career as a composer, George Frideric Handel wrote forty-two operas, twenty-nine oratorios, and 120 cantatas. Of Handel, Ludwig van Beethoven said, “To him I bow the knee.” Hande...

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Into the Wilderness: Sermon Illustration Tuesday

Author

Stuart R. Strachan, Jr.

Keywords

Wilderness

In the wilderness, life is stripped of distractions. It is quiet. The topography demands discipline, simplicity, and fierce attention. Solitude in the wilderness makes irrelevant all the people-pleasi...

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Perfect Sanctification?

Author

The Pastor's Workshop

Keywords

To believe that you have already reached perfect sanctification, R. C. Sproul says you must do one of two things: 1. “reduce the demands of God’s law to such a low level that they can obey them” or 2....

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