Current Affairs and Causes on Life Story

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It's like everyone tells a story about themselves inside their own head. Always. All the time. That story makes you what you are. We build ourselves out of that story.

One of the dearest indications of a flawed life story is its failure to give one the sense of purpose and conviction necessary to live life with an acceptable degree of optimism and resolve. A failed ...

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Author

Andy Stanley

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Deuteronomy 30:19-20 , Genesis 13:8-12 , Joshua 24:15, Luke 15:11-32, Galatians 6:7-8, Psalm 37:23-24

Your decisions . . . along with your responses to other people’s decisions, which are also your decisions...are about the only thing you can control in life, which means your decisions are how you con...

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Author

Gregory Spencer

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Genesis 1:1-3, Exodus 3:13-14, Deuteronomy 6:4-9, John 1:1-3, Romans 12:1-2, Psalm 19:1-4

To frame is to put a language boundary around our experience. It is to name what happens in particular ways, to say how we see the world, and to see the world how we say it is. Framing includes tellin...

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The Magician’s Nephew: No Deals to be Made with the Lion

Author

Steven Garber

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Genesis 22:1-14 , Job 38:1-7 , Exodus 3:7-12, Psalm 34:17-18, John 11:32-35 , 2 Corinthians 1:3-5

Most of life is autobiographical for all of us—and so it was for [C. S.] Lewis. Growing out of his years of sorrow, especially the ones of watching his mother become sick and die, The Magician’s Neph...

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Finding God in the Slowness of Life

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A. J. Swoboda & Nijay K. Gupta

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We admit that embracing slowness is hard . But slowness transforms us. One of our favorite theologians, Dr. John Goldingay, served for decades as a professor of Old Testament theology. Goldingay ...

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Praying for Demar Hamlin & Our Primal Desire to Pray

Author

Stuart R. Strachan, Jr.

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Scripture

Ephesians 4:null

Like many of you, I've been somewhat glued to the story of Damar Hamlin since Monday evening, when the defensive player for the Buffalo Bills collapsed on the field after making a tackle. In the ...

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Finding the Plots of our Own Lives

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William Kilpatrick

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The same impulse that makes us want our books to have a plot makes us want our lives to have a plot. We need to feel that we are getting somewhere, making progress. There is something in us that is no...

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Author

Alan Roxburgh

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The cathedral lay at the center of a society. Its structure told the story of the Christian narrative and the human journey. In its shadow people were formed inside a story about how life was best liv...

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The Emperor and the Whipping Boy

Author

Stuart R. Strachan, Jr.

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Revelation 19:16, Matthew 2:2, John 18:36-37, Revelation 17:14, Zechariah 9:9, Isaiah 9:6, Psalm 24:7-10, Colossians 1:15-20, Matthew 21:1-11, Luke 19:28-40, Mark 11:1-11, John 12:12-16

In 1987 director Bernardo Bertolucci released the film The Last Emperor to raving reviews. It was based on the autobiography of the last living emperor of the Manchu dynasty in China, Henry Aisin-Gior...

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Caring For Them is What We’re on this Earth For

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Thomas G. Long

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Isaiah 1:17, Colossians 3:12, Romans 12:10, Proverbs 31:8-9, Galatians 6:2, Matthew 25:40, James 1:27

In this beautiful illustration from Tom Long’s well-known preaching guide, The Witness of Preaching , a pastor shares a true story of what valuing human life can look like when God’s Kingdom takes ro...

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A Life Changed by a Stolen Gideon Bible

Author

Andy Cook

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Steve May tells the story of “Dee,” who grew up in east Tennessee in an affluent, but unchurched home. Dee’s time at college involved as much wild living as it did studying, and soon her life became a...

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Craig Dykstra And Dorothy Bass

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Ecclesiastes 12:13, Proverbs 3:5-6, Nehemiah 6:3, Matthew 6:33, Ephesians 2:10, Psalm 90:12

We long to see our lives whole, to know that they matter. We wonder whether our many activities might ever come together in a way of life that is good for ourselves and others. Lacking a vision of a l...

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A Runner Misses the Forest for the Trees

Author

Louie Giglio

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Scripture

Genesis 28:10–17, 2 Kings 6:15–17, Ecclesiastes 3:11, Luke 24:13–35, Ephesians 1:18–19, Psalm 19:1–4

The author and pastor Louie Giglio isn't the type of runner who enjoys the scenery—he's just trying to survive his workouts. And when he's running in freezing rain? He's barely thinkin...

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Bruce’s Story & Voluntary Transitions

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D. Michael Lindsay

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Bruce had served as the most successful CEO in the history of Alaska Airlines. In less than ten years on the job, he matured the company from an obscure, regional carrier to the nationwide brand it is...

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One Love—The Life and Music of Bob Marley

Author

Stuart R. Strachan, Jr.

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My Early Soundtrack What music shaped your early life? For most of us, our parents’ musical tastes probably were our starting place. That music made a deep impression on what we like — and don’t like...

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A Bit-Part in a Story of Redemption

Author

Kevin Blue

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Scripture

Proverbs 19:17, Matthew 25:40, Galatians 6:9, Luke 14:13-14, James 2:15-17

Kevin Blue has spent much of his ministry career serving the poor in inner-city Los Angeles. This reflection show how the investment in the poor can pay big dividends: Loving the poor has cost me so...

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A Nice Theory

Author

Lynn Anderson

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Scripture

1 Peter 4:10, Matthew 5:16, James 2:17-18, Galatians 6:9, Proverbs 11:25, Luke 6:38

Jesus said, “It is more blessed to give than receive.” “Well,” you say “that is a nice theory—but is it really true?” There is really only one way to find out: Give! Give generously and consistently, ...

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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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The Church Losing its Place as the Center of Attention

Author

Tim Wu

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The Church was the one institution whose mission depended on galvanizing attention; and through its daily and weekly offices, as well as its sometimes-central role in education, that is exactly what i...

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Preaching for Change

Author

Stuart R. Strachan, Jr.

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The only person who likes change is a wet baby. –Mark Twain (Attributed) To Change or Not to Change, That is the Question When do we decide to change ? I’m not a Tony Robbins acolyte, but I do l...

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St. Anthony and the Search for God Amidst Crisis

Author

Daniel Grothe

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Scripture

Matthew 19:21, Philippians 3:8, Luke 9:23, Romans 8:29, 2 Corinthians 4:17, Hebrews 12:11, Isaiah 58:6-7

Given life’s unpredictability and the inevitability of pain and hardship, what do we do when that pain and hardship show up on our doorsteps? In roughly AD 270, there was a man in Lower Egypt named An...

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Author

Craig Dykstra And Dorothy Bass

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We long to see our lives whole and to know that they matter. We wonder whether our many activities might ever come together in a way of life that is good for ourselves and others. Are we really living...

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Elephants Chains’ and Self-Limiting Beliefs

Author

Stuart R. Strachan, Jr.

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Have you ever wondered how people keep elephants, whether at a circus or as means of transport throughout Asia, from throwing off their shackles and marching to their own tune? A single metal chain is...

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Alfred Nobel’s Big Turn

Author

Stuart R. Strachan, Jr.

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Do any of you know the name of the inventor of dynamite? It might sound familiar once you hear it, it’s Alfred Nobel. In 1867, Nobel, Alfred Nobel, who was a Swedish chemist invented a new high explos...

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It is Well

Author

Stuart R. Strachan, Jr.

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Scripture

Matthew 5:4, Psalm 147:null, Psalm 34:18, Revelation 21:1-8, 2 Corinthians 1:3-12, Romans 8:18-28, John 11:null, 2 Thessalonians 3:16, John 14:27, 1 Peter 5:7, Daniel 6:, Psalm 46:, Psalm 23:, Job 1:, Job 2:, 2 Samuel 11:, 2 Samuel 12:

If you ever travel to Jerusalem and are looking for sites to see, beyond all the ‘must-see’ sites related to Ancient Israel, the Temple Mount, and the sites associated with Jesus, you might venture to...

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A Phone Call Away

Author

D. Michael Lindsay

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Scripture

Romans 8:28, Matthew 6:34, Job 1:21, Psalm 46:1, James 4:14, Proverbs 27:1, Ecclesiastes 9:11

I interviewed Jamie Dimon, current CEO of JPMorgan Chase (the largest bank in the United States) and previous cofounder of the financial services conglomerate Citigroup (the third largest). While at C...

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Pursuing Truth Over Revenge

Author

Stuart R. Strachan, Jr.

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Scripture

Micah 6:8, Luke 23:34, Exodus 23:5, 1 Peter 3:9, Proverbs 24:17, Luke 6:35

During that time there was a pastor named Peter Miller, and all through his ministry in a small town in Lancaster County, he had a neighbor who took great pleasure in mocking and ridiculing Miller and...

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Galileo and the Courage to See the Truth

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The Pastor's Workshop

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* This story is debated among Galileo scholars, though most would agree that the story conveys Galileo’s unique approach to learning. Galileo Galilei was a man who dared to look beyond what othe...

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Telling the Same Story

Author

Lee Strobel

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In The Case for Grace, Lee Strobel interviews former drug addict and current Las Vegas pastor Jud Wilhite on what it is like to become addicted to drugs: “All addicts tell the same story,” Jud said t...

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