Christian Living on Shock

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Preference for the Christ-Child Over the Cross

Author

Keywords

Scripture

Luke 19:10, Luke 2:7, John 19:18, Philippians 2:8-9, Isaiah 53:5, 2 Corinthians 5:17

In the sixteenth century, Jesuit missionary Matteo Ricci journeyed to China, bringing religious art to share the Christian story with those unfamiliar with it. The Chinese readily embraced images of t...

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The Church's Funeral

Author

Stuart R. Strachan, Jr.

Keywords

Scripture

1 Corinthians 12:12-27, Ephesians 4:15-16, Revelation 3:1-3, James 2:17, Matthew 16:18, Hebrews 10:24-25, 1 Peter 2:4-5, Romans 12:4-5, Acts 2:42-47, 1 Corinthians 3:9

The story goes about a young man (or woman!) with dreams of growing a small church nestled in rural Oklahoma. Despite his relentless efforts, the church continued to teeter on the edge of extinction a...

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Surprising Peace in Times of Crisis: Sermon Illustration Tuesday

Author

Stuart R. Strachan, Jr.

Keywords

In his book, Running Scared , Pychologist Edward Welch illustrates how the fear of an event is often worse than the event itself. To demonstrate this, he provides two examples of people whose lives...

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Waking Up

Author

N. T. Wright

Keywords

What happens when you wake up in the morning? For some people, waking up is a rude and shocking experience. Off goes the alarm, and they jump in fright, dragged out of a deep sleep to face the cold, ...

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The Evil of Apathy

Author

John Shea

Keywords

Scripture

Luke 16:1-8, Matthew 22:2-10

The unjust steward who, hearing he is going to be fired, doctors his master’s accounts to secure another job, is commended precisely because he acted. The point does not concern morality but apathy. H...

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Forgiving Her Husband's Killers

Author

Bradley Long

Keywords

Scripture

Ephesians 4:32, Mark 11:25, Matthew 18:21-22, Luke 6:37, Colossians 3:13, Matthew 6:12, Ephesians 1:7, Luke 6:27, Luke 17:3-4, Luke 23:34, Matthew 5:23-24, 44

Elizabeth Elliot's story of forgiveness started in 1956 on the banks of the Curaray River in Ecuador when her husband and four other young missionaries were attacked and killed by members of the H...

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Preparing for Death

Author

John Robinson

Keywords

Scripture

Psalm 90:12, 2 Corinthians 4:16-18, Philippians 1:21-23, Deuteronomy 30:19-20, Isaiah 40:6-8

When I was told that I had six months, or perhaps nine, to live, first reaction was naturally of shock -though I also felt liberated, because, as in limited-over cricket, at least one knew the target ...

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Lord God Almighty: our Creator,

Author

Richard Herman

Scripture

Isaiah 41:13, John 14:26-27, Psalm 34:18-19, Philippians 4:6-7, Matthew 11:28-30, 2 Corinthians 1:3-4

Lord God Almighty: our Creator, Redeemer and Sustainer: There is no place where You are absent. There is no corner of our world that’s hidden from You. There is nothing about us You do not know, no ac...

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Jesus, Lord—because you took on flesh,

Author

Richard Herman

Scripture

Isaiah 53:4-5, 2 Corinthians 1:3-4, Romans 12:15, 1 Peter 5:7, Psalm 34:18, Hebrews 4:15-16

Jesus, Lord—because you took on flesh, You know what it’s like to be us. You know what keeps us awake at night, or yanks us out of sleep in the early morning. You know what it’s like to have good days...

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Faithful God–Father, Son and Holy

Faithful God–Father, Son and Holy Spirit: You are always there in times of transition or trial, times of uncertainty and anxiety, or times of accomplishment and celebration. You do not leave us nor fo...

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Preaching on Parables: A Simple Framework to Teach Them Effectively

Author

Stuart R. Strachan, Jr.

Keywords

Scripture

Matthew 22:null, Matthew 22:1

A Special Kind of Story Most Christians have some idea of what a parable is. Ask an adult Sunday school class and you might hear: “It’s a story!” Another might chime in, “with a moral message!” Mer...

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Race Issues Over Coffee

Author

Melinda Joy Mingo

Keywords

One day while drinking coffee, laughing, and sharing stories with one of my best friends, who is white, an unexpected question about race came up. It just popped up out of nowhere as we were talking a...

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God with the Professor

Author

John Ortberg

Keywords

God's Power (Omnipotence)

The offer of this with-God life has not expired in our day. When my friend Kim was a young girl, her dad pulled the car off the road one day to help a woman change a flat tire. While he was lying unde...

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Heroes on this Earth

Author

Philip Rhinelander

Keywords

If ever mortal men found a real hero on this earth, those men were the disciples. They, indeed, were hero-worshippers. Then think of the horrid shock and shame which overwhelmed them at the Cross. It ...

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Brené Brown Struggling to Belong

Author

Brené Brown

Keywords

Scripture

Numbers 12:null, Joshua 2:null, Matthew 9:9, Mark 5:1-10, Mark 5:25-34, Luke 19:1-10, John 4:1-42, Galatians 3:28

Belonging can be such a fickle and painful process in life. As the popular researcher and writer Brené Brown describes in her book, Braving the Wilderness, she struggled to fit in after moving to New ...

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Afraid of Myself

Author

Timothy Keller

Keywords

Scripture

1 Corinthians 10:12, Romans 7:24-25, Ecclesiastes 7:20, 1 John 1:8, Mark 7:21-23, Romans 7:18-19

Adolf Eichmann was one of the Nazi architects of the Holocaust who escaped after World War II to South America, where he was caught in 1960 and taken back to Israel for a trial. He was tried, found gu...

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Scripture Filled with Non-Heroic Figures

Author

Eugene H. Peterson

Keywords

Scripture

Genesis 12:1-13, Genesis 27:35, Exodus 2:12, 2 Samuel 11:, Matthew 26:74

One of the first things that strikes us about the men and women in Scripture is that they were disappointingly non- heroic. We do not find splendid moral examples. We do not find impeccably virtuous m...

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A Brazilian Intercessor

Author

Stuart R. Strachan, Jr.

Keywords

Scripture

1 John 2:1, Romans 8:34, Exodus 32:9-14, Hebrews 7:25, John 14:16-17

Max Lucado tells the story of an intercession he experienced in Brazil in 1983. The transition was difficult enough with culture shock, but it was not helped by the fact that their possessions were he...

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Sharing Through Showing

Author

Bobby Harrington

Keywords

Because I was raised in England, drinking tea is a central part of my cultural identity! Whatever the situation—a celebration, a welcome, a crisis, an afternoon break—the response of a good Brit is to...

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The Controversial Cookies

Author

Reader’s Digest

Keywords

Scripture

Matthew 7:1-2, John 7:24, Proverbs 18:2, James 4:11-12, 1 Corinthians 4:5, Proverbs 21:2, Ephesians 4:31-32, Colossians 3:12-13

A traveler, between flights at an airport, went to a lounge and bought a small package of cookies. Then she sat down and began reading a newspaper. Gradually, she became aware of a rustling noise. Fro...

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Author

Brant P. Hansen

Keywords

Scripture

Titus 3:5, Romans 7:18-19, Psalm 51:5, Jeremiah 17:9, Isaiah 64:6, 1 John 1:8-9, Romans 3:23

“I’m not a good person” is a shockingly countercultural thing to say. We all want to think we’re “clean” and that we’ve avoided whatever “big sins” are on our own personal lists. But we trust ourselve...

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Author

Brennan Manning

Keywords

Creation discloses a power that baffles our minds and beggars our speech.

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Shock-Proof

Keywords

Scripture

Matthew 7:24-27, Isaiah 28:16, 1 Corinthians 3:11, Luke 6:47-49, Psalm 11:3, 2 Timothy 2:19, 1 Peter 2:4-6, Matthew 7:24

The great architect Frank Lloyd Wright was given the challenge of building the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo, one of the most earthquake-prone cities in the world. Wright’s investigation showed that a solid...

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Earrings with a Mushroom Cloud

Author

D. A. Carson

Keywords

Scripture

Philippians 2:8, Hebrews 12:2

What would you think if a woman came to work wearing earrings stamped with an image of the mushroom cloud of the atomic bomb dropped over Hiroshima? What would you think of a church building adorned w...

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Farm Animals Prefer the Familiar to the Good

Author

Mia Levetan

Keywords

Scripture

Galatians 5:1, Numbers 14:4, Exodus 16:3, Luke 9:62, 2 Peter 2:22, Proverbs 26:11

There is a story about a farmer who had a few animals he kept in a barn that had gotten old, drafty, and leaky. Concerned for his animals' well-being, the farmer decided to build a new barn. He bu...

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Longing for Eden

Author

Caroline Cobb

Keywords

In a letter to his son, J. R. R. Tolkien famously wrote, “We all long for [Eden], and we are constantly glimpsing it: our whole nature at its best and least corrupted, its gentlest and most humane, is...

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Ephesians 3:1-21 | God’s Grace, Power, and Love are for All Peoples

Author

Bradley Long

Keywords

Scripture

Ephesians 3:1-21

Context The body of the letter continues in chapter 3. If it were not for chapters 4-6, we could even believe that Paul was about to close this letter after we read what appears to be a benediction i...

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He Breathed on Them

Keywords

Scripture

John 20:19-23, Genesis 2:7, 1 Kings 17:17-24, Ezekiel 37:9- 10

[A] vivid scene from the Gospel of John [John 20:19-23]. It’s intimate from the start-a stunningly private scene that occurs behind locked doors among dear friends. The scene begins with a friendly gr...

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Psalm 22 | Feeling Forsaken by God

Author

Scott B. Bullock

Keywords

Scripture

Psalm 22:, Matthew 27:46, Mark 15:34, Hebrews 2:12

Ancient lens What’s the historical context? A Structured Complaint The Psalmist organizes his complaint against God in three sections. The first two sections dramatize the complaint (vv. 1-11 and...

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Risen and present Lord: There’s no

Author

Richard Herman

Keywords

Scripture

James 5:14-15, Romans 8:38-39, Matthew 28:20, Isaiah 41:10, Psalm 23:4, 2 Corinthians 1:3-4, Psalm 139:7-10

Risen and present Lord: There’s no place we go–near or far, high or low, familiar or strange–where you aren’t there with and even before us. There is no experience we have or feeling we feel that’s un...

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