Christian Living on Personal Transformation

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The Power of Four: Spiritual Transformation from Reading Scripture

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Does reading the Bible really change us? Does it have the ability, through the power of the Holy Spirit, to shape and form our characters? That's what The Center for Bible Engagement wanted to fin...

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Psalm 51 | Awareness of Sin

Ancient lens What’s the historical context? A Historical Clue The superscript of Psalm 51 gives us a historical clue about the composition of this Psalm, “A Psalm of David. When Nathan the prophe...

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Our Faith

Author

C. S. Lewis

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Scripture

2 Corinthians 3:18, Galatians 2:20, Romans 8:10, Ephesians 3:16-17, 1 Corinthians 15:49, Ezekiel 36:26, Philippians 2:13, 1 John 4:13, Romans 8:29

Our faith is not a matter of our hearing what Christ said long ago and “trying to carry it out. The real Son of God is at your side. He is beginning to turn you into the same kind of thing as Himself....

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Author

Mark Batterson

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The circumstances we ask God to CHANGE are often the circumstances God is using to CHANGE US.

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"The Batman Effect" The Power of Identity

Author

Ryan Bundrick

Scripture

Romans 13:14, Colossians 3:9-10, Ephesians 4:22-24, Hebrews 12:2, Colossians 2:6

A group of researchers sought to study the nuances of self-control. They conducted a study with a few dozen kindergarten students and gave them a painfully boring, repetitive task designed to test how...

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The Lion in the Marble

Author

Henri J. M. Nouwen

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Scripture

2 Corinthians 3:18, Romans 8:29, Philippians 2:12-13, James 1:22-25, Colossians 3:10, Ephesians 4:22-24, 1 Peter 2:2-3, Hebrews 12:11

There was once a sculptor who worked hard with hammer and chisel on a large block of marble. A little child who was watching him saw nothing more than large and small pieces of stone falling away left...

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Now You Do It: A Good Parent Enables the Child

Author

Mia Levetan

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Scripture

1 Corinthians 3:2, Hebrews 5:12-14, Luke 10:25-26, Deuteronomy 6:7, James 1:22

[M]y husband, Nick, tells a story of when he was a teenager riding his bike with his friends, and his chain came off his bike. Nick took the bike to his dad, who said, “I'll fix it, you watch”. Hi...

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Author

Bobby Harrington

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So while conversion is the most important step in the journey, involving a fundamental change in our identity, life transformation is the end goal.

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Is it in You?

Author

David Lomas

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Scripture

John 7:38, Ezekiel 3:26-27, Philippians 2:13, Luke 6:45, 2 Corinthians 13:5

This may be a corny illustration, but I think about the Gatorade commercial where they ask, “Is it in you?” It shows athletes literally sweating Gatorade out of their pores. The point is that since Ga...

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Electrical Fires and Addressing Sin at the Source

Author

David Peterson

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Scripture

Mark 7:20-23, Proverbs 4:23, James 1:14-15, Luke 6:43-45, Colossians 2:23

One afternoon, I was playing with my son in our living room when I suddenly smelled something burning. I stood up and walked around, nose high in the air, sniffing furiously. My wife smelled it too, s...

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A Marinating Process

Author

Christian George

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Scripture

Deuteronomy 8:2, Matthew 4:1-2, Acts 9:19-30, Galatians 1:15-18

Pilgrimage is a marinating process. The Bible is bursting with people who traveled to places of retreat where God seasoned and tenderized them, preparing them to take the next step of the journey. Mos...

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The Eternal Weight of Glory: The Shadow of Our Future Selves

Author

N. T. Wright

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Scripture

Philippians 1:6, 2 Corinthians 4:17

In this short excerpt, the scholar and Anglican clergyman N.T. Wright discusses the famous “weight of glory” passage in 2 Cornthians 4:17: For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an ...

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Author

Marjorie Thompson

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The caterpillar must yield up the life it knows and submit to the mystery of interior transformation. It emerges from the process transﬁgured, with wings that give it freedom to ﬂy. . .. A rule of lif...

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Author

Chuck DeGroat

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Scripture

Philippians 3:7-11

When I teach on the dynamics of real change and maturation, I often describe a “furnace of transformation” each of us must pass through for the sake of growth and refinement. I’ve never seen real grow...

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Author

David Brooks

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The road to character often involves moments of moral crisis, confrontation, and recovery. When they were in a crucible moment, they suddenly had a greater ability to see their own nature. The everyda...

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Author

Rick Love

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Shalom

Shalom is turbocharged peace, full-spectrum peace, peace amplified. It involves the transformation of the personal, social and structural dimensions of life. Shalom includes human flourishing in all d...

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Self-Discipline Transforms our Motivations

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The Pastor's Workshop

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George Garrett, a novelist and amateur boxer wrote about a transformation that often takes place for fighters who stick with the sport. Throughout their journey to boxing excellence, in which they mus...

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Creating Christian Consumers

Author

Jay Y. Kim

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Scripture

1 Corinthians 1:22-25, Romans 12:2, 1 Corinthians 2:1-5, Isaiah 55:8-8, 2 Corinthians 12:9-10

I’ve served on staff at a few different churches throughout Silicon Valley for the last decade and a half, including a medium-sized church, a young church plant, and a multisite megachurch. At each, w...

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Author

Richard Rohr

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Without transformation, you can assume you're at a high moral, spiritual level just because you call yourself Lutheran or Methodist or Catholic. I think my great disappointment as a priest has bee...

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Training vs. Trying

Author

John Ortberg

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There is an immense difference between training to do something and trying to do something. … Spiritual transformation is not a matter of trying harder, but of training wisely. This is what the apost...

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Planning a Sermon Series

Author

Scott B. Bullock

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How do you choose what to preach on any given Sunday? Are you a… Lectionary Preacher ? Occasional use of the lectionary, select seasonal use of the lectionary, or full-throttle every Sunday and any...

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A Life Re-Defined by The Spirit of God

Author

Mark Labberton

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Scripture

Acts 8:36-38, Acts 8:29-31, Acts 10:44-46, Acts 10:3-6, Acts 10:1-48, Acts 9:17-18, Acts 9:3-6

In his excellent book on worship, The Dangerous Act of Worship , pastor and president of Fuller Seminary Mark Labberton shares a story of the transformation of one of his former congregants: Ben ...

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Author

N. T. Wright

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What are we hear for in the first place? The fundamental answer…is that we we’re “here for” is to become genuine human beings, reflecting the God in whose image we’re made, and doing so in worship on ...

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Loving God, you love us so much that

Author

Austin D. Hill

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Loving God, you love us so much that you invite us to a life of transformation. You call us to live outside ourselves, and to follow you more faithfully with each day that passes. We confess to you th...

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Spiritual Food Belongs in the Heart

Author

Dane C. Ortlund

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Scripture

Matthew 23:25-26, Ezekiel 36:26-27, Colossians 2:6-7, Jeremiah 31:33

Spiritual nourishment cannot be seen purely in our outward behavior. The process of sanctification is a deeply internal process. Outside growth is merely a symptom, and acting better does not mean our...

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Developing an Anthropological Foundation for the Spiritual Disciplines

Author

James Bryan Smith

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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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Author

James Bryan Smith

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The passion of my life has been to find the answer to this question: How do we become like Christ? I have come to believe that the problem is not that we do not want to change, nor is the problem that...

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Author

LeCrae

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You've got to admit you're broken before you can be made whole.

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Brother Lawrence and Trusting God in Failure

Author

Ryan Bundrick

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Scripture

2 Corinthians 12:9, Isaiah 40:29, 2 Corinthians 3:5, Hebrews 4:16, James 4:6, 1 Peter 5:6-7

Brother Lawrence, a 16th-century Carmelite monk, spent his days scrubbing pots and mending shoes. Largely uneducated, he filled his free time writing letters and notes that, after his death, friends g...

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Give us, O Lord, steadfast hearts,

Author

Thomas Aquinas

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Scripture

Psalm 112:7, Daniel 6:, 2 Corinthians 4:8-9, Genesis 39:, Matthew 2:1-12

Give us, O Lord, steadfast hearts, which no unworthy thought can drag downward, unconquered hearts, which no tribulation can wear out, upright hearts, which no unworthy purpose may tempt aside. Bestow...

christian living on Personal Transformation

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