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Statistics on Religion in America: The Rise of the None's
In March 2009, we received the results from the widest religious survey conducted in the United States, the ARIS (American Religious Identification Survey) study. There is much to gain from this repor... -
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The vast majority of violence oppressing the poor is not driven by the overwhelming power of the perpetrators—it’s driven by the utter vulnerability of the victims. Give the poor a strong, consistent ... -
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Frederick the Great & the Innocent Prisoners
There is a famous story about Emperor Frederick the Great visiting Potsdam Prison. As he spoke with the prisoners, each one insisted they were completely innocent of the crimes that led to their impri... -
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The Arrogant General
Abraham Lincoln’s sharp wit often surfaced, even in serious moments. At the funeral of a talented but overly vain Army General during the Civil War, Lincoln observed the large crowd that had gathered.... -
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The life of a Christian is wondrously ruled in this world, by the consideration and meditation of the life of another world. -
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Almighty God, you are king of
Almighty God, you are king of everything. You are Lord of our lives. You control the stars in heavens. And you humbled yourself to be a servant to us. In response to this, we continue to reign as king... -
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Based on the Call of Matthew
This prayer also works well for the parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector (Luke 18) Christ, have mercy on me, a sinner. I have failed to love as You Love I have treated others as objects and... -
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We confess, Gracious God, that we are a
We confess, Gracious God, that we are a forgiven people who still need forgiveness. As Christians, it is easy to take this forgiveness for granted, and leave our lives unchanged. It is tempting to sin... -
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Only the Penitent Man Shall Pass
With the recent release of a new installment in the Indiana Jones movie series, our family decided to re-watch the original trilogy (I like to act as though Kingdom of the Crystal Skull never existe... -
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A recovery of the old sense of sin is essential to Christianity. Christ takes it for granted that men are bad. Until we really feel this assumption of His to be true, though we are part of the world H... -
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The Christian life is a great paradox. Those who die to self, find self. Those who die to their cravings will receive many times as much in this age, and, in the age to come, eternal life (Luke 18:29)... -
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That which of all things unfits man for the reception of Christ as a Savior, is not gross profligacy and outward, vehement transgression, but it is self-complacency, fatal self-righteousness and self-... -
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God is none other than the Savior of our wretchedness. So we can only know God well by knowing our iniquities... Those who have known God without knowing their wretchedness have not glorified Him, but... -
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Self-righteousness is a sense of moral superiority that appoints us as prosecutor of other people’s sinfulness. We relate to others as if we are incapable of the sins they commit. Self-righteousness w... -
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Beware of self-righteousness in every possible shape and form. Some people get as much harm from their "virtues" as others do from their sins. -
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The kingdom of heaven is worth infinitely more than the cost of discipleship, and those who know where the treasure lies joyfully abandon everything else to secure it. -
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One of the most difficult defilements of the spirit to deal with is the critical spirit. A critical spirit has its root in pride. Because of the ‘plank’ of pride in our own eye, we are not capable of ... -
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Our vision is more obstructed by what we think we know than by our lack of knowledge. -
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Two Ways to Reject Jesus as Savior
…there are two ways to fail to let Jesus be your Savior. One is by being too proud, having a superiority complex—not to accept his challenge [to accept what the gospel says about our unworthiness]. Bu... -
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Reducing People to the Madness of a Single Moment
In his thoughtful book, Our Good Crisis: Overcoming Moral Chaos with the Beatitudes , Jonathan K. Dodson points out our blind-spots with respect to pride: We rarely think of ourselves as proud. I... -
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Performance-Oriented Worship
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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What is Wrong with Us according to Traditional and Modern Cultures
Up until the twentieth century, traditional cultures (and this is still true of most cultures in the world) always believed that too high a view of yourself was the root cause of all the evil in the w... -
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Our Problem
Dear Everybody, We have a serious problem: All of us think we’re good people. But Jesus says we’re not. Sincerely, Brant P. Hansen …PS. IF YOU THINK I’M WRONG—about how we think we’re good people... -
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Addicted to Putting People In their Place
As long as we continue to live as if we are what we do, what we have, and what other people think about us, we will be filled with judgments, opinions, evaluations, and condemnations. We will remain a... -
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Our Moral Superiority
Researchers at the University of London concluded that “a substantial majority of individuals believe themselves to be morally superior to the average person” and that this illusion of ours is “unique... -
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A Wretch Like Me
Before I spoke at a conference, a soloist sang one of my favorite songs, “Amazing Grace.” It was beautiful. Until she got to the tenth word. “Amazing grace! How sweet the sound that saved a soul like ... -
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The Two Ladders
In her short story Revelation, Flannery O’Connor describes a woman sitting in a Doctor’s office, gossiping away without concern for who hears her questionable commentary: This woman says to hersel... -
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Confession is not…
Confession is not telling God what he doesn’t know. Impossible. Confession is not complaining. If I merely recite my problems and rehash my woes, I’m whining. Confession is not blaming. Pointing finge... -
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The One Thing Going For Us
As for Christians, well, we really have just one thing going for us. We have publicly declared… that we are desperately in need of Another to give us his righteousness, to complete us, to live in us. ... -
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Acknowledging our Shadows
Almost every parent experiences that lovely moment when small child says, “Mommy, Daddy, my shadow is following me. I remember my daughter Maggie, maybe two or three years old. Dancing around our driv...
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