Christian Living on United States

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Mighty God, sovereign over the

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Mighty God, sovereign over the nations, direct those who make, administer, and judge our laws; the President of the United States and others in authority among us (especially N., N.); that, guide...

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Gracious God, you have placed us in a

Author

Chip Hardwick

Keywords

Gracious God, you have placed us in a culture that seems more and more filled with politics. Forgive us for every time we respond to these politics with decisions that do not honor Christ. Pardon us f...

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A Prayer for Those Who Govern

ALL SINGING: (America the Beautiful, first verse) O beautiful for spacious skies, for amber waves of grain, For purple mountain majesties above the fruited plain! America! America! God shed His grac...

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Father God–You invite us to come as a

Author

Richard Herman

Scripture

Psalm 23:4, James 5:16, 2 Corinthians 1:3-4, Isaiah 61:1-2, Amos 5:24

Father God–You invite us to come as a child to his/her daddy. You invite us to open our souls to You. You invite us to lay our desires before You. You are fond of us, Your children–so we come to You h...

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Author

Darrell Guder

Keywords

In North America, what might it mean for the church to be such a city on a hill? to be salt? to be a light to the world? It means, first of all, that the inner, communal life of the church matters for...

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Our Lord—Today we have given You praise

Our Lord—Today we have given You praise and thanks for who You are and what You’ve done for us. Now, we also give You our needs—for we are not self-sufficient. We need You! We pray for those dear to u...

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God–our Father, Lord and indwelling

Author

Richard Herman

Scripture

Philippians 4:6-7, 1 Timothy 2:1-2, Psalm 133:1, 2 Corinthians 9:13-14, Matthew 28:19-20

God–our Father, Lord and indwelling Spirit of grace and power: Thank you for hearing us when we pray whether in songs of rejoicing or through tears of sorrow. Thank you for gifts–for the gifts of musi...

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The Obstinate Lighthouse

Author

Source Unknown

Keywords

Scripture

Matthew 23:12, Proverbs 11:2, Psalm 25:9, Isaiah 40:8, Proverbs 12:15, Ecclesiastes 7:9, James 4:6

A radio conversation between a US naval vessel and Canadian authorities off the coast of Newfoundland. Americans: Please divert your course 15 degrees to the North to avoid a collision. Canadians: R...

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Who Do They Think We Are?

Author

Os Guinness

Keywords

Perseverance

The day after Christmas would normally have been a quiet day in Washington, D.C., above all on Capitol Hill. But December 26, 1941, was different. It was only nineteen days after the Japanese attack o...

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Author

Glenn R. Paauw

Keywords

The Bible

The evidence repeatedly shows that for all its sales the Bible remains a foreign book for the vast majority of us. And this is not only a problem in the United States: global mission agencies are now ...

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The Curious Case of the Monarch Butterfly

Author

Mark Batterson

Keywords

The monarch butterfly is the only species of butterfly that migrate like birds. They spend their summers in the northern United States and their winters in Mexico, but it takes four generations of mon...

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When Doubt Hurts

Author

Uche Anizor

Keywords

As many theologians have helpfully described, there is a healthy place for doubting that is integral to faith. When approached thoughtfully and sincerely, these doubts can lead to a deepening understa...

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Skutniks and Samaritans

Author

Mia Levetan

Keywords

Scripture

Luke 10:36-37, 1 John 3:18, Hebrews 13:16, Proverbs 14:31, Matthew 22:39

If you have ever watched the President of the United States deliver the State of the Union Address in recent years, you know that at some point in his speech, he will point to the balcony and introduc...

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Going Down to the River to Pray

Author

William Rowley

Keywords

Scripture

Exodus 14:21-29, Joshua 3:, 2 Kings 5:, Acts 8:36, Acts 16:13-15

Have you heard the old spiritual “Down to the River to Pray” or “The Good Old Way”? It is most famous in popular culture because of Alison Kraus’s version of the song recorded for the movie O Broth...

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Deceitful Hearts and Desert Shrubs

Author

Casey Clark

Keywords

Scripture

Jeremiah 17:9

We may find it hard to believe Jeremiah’s words that the heart is “deceitful above all things.” We would rather look outward and think, Yes, others may be quite foolish and misguided. But I have a ...

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A New Direction for Family Discipleship

Author

Brian Dembowczyk

Keywords

If the Prof is 10 min late... I was in my freshman year in college, and Statistics was the final class before Thanksgiving break. When the professor was ten minutes late, I and several others got up ...

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Climbing the Pastor's Ladder: Holy Ambition and Escaping the Comparison Trap

Author

Stuart R. Strachan, Jr.

Keywords

We pastors don't drive fancy cars or rake in the dough (most of us, anyway). But there is still a temptation to a skewed version of "holy success" that we need to watch out for, the idea...

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Crisis & Peace: An Unexpected Connection

Author

Stuart R. Strachan, Jr.

Keywords

Like many of you, I have been praying for those affected by Hurricane Ian along the Eastern shore of the United States. I've also continued to pray for Ukraine and for Russia, that peace would com...

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A Little Girl and The Founding of World Vision

Author

Soong-Chan Rah

Keywords

Scripture

Matthew 25:35-40, James 1:19-27, Luke 10:33-37, John 21:15-17, 1 John 3:17-18, Ruth 2:8-12, Acts 9:36-42, 1 Corinthians 13:1-13, Luke 6:38

In 1947 huge crowds came to hear a thirty-two-year-old Californian preach at mass evangelistic rallies throughout China. Although Bob Pierce had no knowledge of Chinese language or culture, his messag...

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Joy Awakens from a Smell

Author

Cyd and Geoff Holsclaw

Keywords

On a trip to France during college, I (Cyd) was walking through a historic garden in Paris with my older sister. Rounding one of the reflecting pools, we both caught a familiar scent and stopped dead ...

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The Difference Between Jesus and Mental Patients

Author

John Stott

Keywords

Some years ago I received a letter from a young man I knew slightly. ‘I have just made a great discovery,’ he wrote. ‘Almighty God had two sons. Jesus Christ was the first; I am the second.’ I glanced...

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A Surprising Conversion

Author

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Keywords

Scripture

Matthew 5:1-48, Matthew 6:1-34, Matthew 7:1-29, 2 Timothy 3:16-17, Romans 15:4, Isaiah 55:11, Hebrews 4:12-13, Matthew 4:4, Matthew 24:35

After a sojourn in the United States where he experienced the vibrancy of Black churches, Dietrich Bonhoeffer returned to Germany in 1931 to teach at the University of Berlin. His pastoral ministry co...

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The Cross as an Enduring Image

Author

N. T. Wright

Keywords

Scripture

Hebrews 12:2, Colossians 2:14-15, Philippians 2:8, Galatians 6:14, 1 Corinthians 1:18

In 2000, the National Gallery in London put on a millennial exhibition entitled “Seeing Salvation.” That was a case in point—especially remembering that European countries tend to be far more “secular...

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Practicing Corporate Repentance

Author

George Yancey

Keywords

In his insightful work, Beyond Racial Gridlock, George Yancey provides a multi-faceted picture of both the brokenness of American race-relations, as well as a response couched in the gospel. In this e...

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Loving Your Enemies & Costly Love

Author

Brett McCracken

Keywords

Scripture

Matthew 5:44

One of the costliest requirements of Christlike love is Jesus’s call to “love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Matt. 5: 44). What does this look like for Christians in today’s world...

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Performing the Lowliest Task

Author

John Ortberg

Keywords

Sometimes service means doing routine tasks even if we could have someone else do them. There is a story about Abraham Lincoln – possibly apocryphal but certainly in character – that a cabinet member ...

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Justice as the Source of Conversion

Author

Stuart R. Strachan, Jr.

Keywords

Scripture

Proverbs 21:2, Revelation 20:12, James 2:12-13, Matthew 12:36-37, 2 Corinthians 5:10, Romans 14:12, Hebrews 9:27

W.H. Auden is one of the greatest poets of the 20th Century, who grew up in England but who spent some of his life in the United States. In November 1939 he found himself in a German-language movie th...

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Tell Them About the Dream, Martin!

Author

Stuart R. Strachan, Jr.

Keywords

Scripture

Matthew 5:9, James 2:8, Proverbs 21:3, Romans 12:21, Isaiah 1:17, Galatians 3:28

Most of us in the United States know the famous “I have a Dream” speech Martin Luther King Jr. gave at the Lincoln Memorial as part of the 1963 March on Washington. On a sweltering, humid day in the n...

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God the Father had Two Sons?

Author

John Stott

Keywords

Some years ago I received a letter from a young man I knew slightly. ‘I have just made a great discovery,’ he wrote. ‘Almighty God had two sons. Jesus Christ was the first; I am the second.’ I glanced...

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The Benefits of Fire

Author

William Rowley

Keywords

The devastating power of wildfires has never been more apparent as their intensity, size, and frequency has increased dramatically over the last few years in the United States (and elsewhere), causing...

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