Life on Planet Earth on Tension

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There is an optimum level of tension which we require in order to perform well. When stress exceeds that level, exhaustion and burnout are the result.

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Anxiety in Disagreements

Author

Buster Benson

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Scripture

Matthew 5:44, Colossians 3:12-13, Proverbs 29:11, 2 Timothy 2:23-24, Romans 12:18

Anxiety sparks when a perspective we value bumps into another perspective that challenges it in some way. If we find this new perspective to be unacceptable, that’s when our “Someone is wrong on the i...

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Author

F. Scott Fitzgerald

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Ecclesiastes 3:1-8, Proverbs 26:4-5, Job 2:9-10, Romans 7:19-25, 2 Corinthians 4:8-10, Psalm 42:5

The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.

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Author

Source Unknown

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Genesis 4:3–8 , Exodus 32:19–20 , Proverbs 14:29, Matthew 5:22, Ephesians 4:26–27, Psalm 37:8

Anger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything onto which it is poured.

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Doubt is a Felt Tension

Author

Travis Dickinson

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Scripture

Isaiah 40:22, Romans 1:28, Psalm 73:, Mark 9:14-29, Matthew 14:22-33

Doubt is really the felt tension that exists between a belief you have and a contrary claim you do not yet believe…Simply put, doubt is that experience of one of our beliefs seeming like it might be f...

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How Much Stress Would You Like?

Author

Richard A Swenson

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Would you like a no-stress life? A wise person would not accept that option, no matter how tempting it might sound. A stress-free life would be fatal. If we do not have change, challenge, and novelty ...

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The Root of the Word Doubt

Author

Travis Dickinson

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Scripture

Genesis 22:1-19, Numbers 13:14, Job 1:42, Matthew 14:22-33, Psalm 43:

The root of our English term doubt has to do with duplicity. It is being divided or doubled up in our thinking. But this isn’t a matter of simply being confused or unable to make up our mind or ...

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Author

Thomas Beckingham

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Vulnerability

At some point, the two worlds of who we pretend to be and who we really are must collide. It is, however, better to let those two worlds collide rather than have everything snap under the tension of k...

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God of all might and love, who has

Author

John E. Skoglund

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God of all might and love, who has given us confidence to come to you with our petitions and intercessions, we bring to you the needs of the world. In this time of global tension, when your children ...

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God of grace, power and glory, and our

God of grace, power and glory, and our Heavenly Father: You raise up nations in your grace and holiness; and You bring down nations who go after and serve other gods of their own making. You are good–...

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Leader: We are people of the

Author

Jacob Traeger

Scripture

1 Corinthians 15:20-22, Romans 6:4, 2 Corinthians 5:17, Psalm 32:5, 1 John 1:8-9, Philippians 4:6-7, Hebrews 13:5-6

Leader: We are people of the resurrection. Witnesses to God’s glorious victory in Jesus Christ, which brings peace and transforms the power structures of this world. But we also know that we live in ...

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Gracious God, for the goodness and

Author

Mark D. Roberts

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Gracious God, for the goodness and beauty of creation we thank you. For the way your creation nurtures and inspires us, we are grateful. Yet, the more we pay attention to the world, the more we see i...

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Gracious God of love–Father, Son and

Author

Richard Herman

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Scripture

Acts 16:25-34, Genesis 45:1-15, Mark 2:1-12, Psalm 46:9, Isaiah 61:1

Gracious God of love–Father, Son and Holy Spirit: We are grateful that You’ve revealed yourself to us, telling us that each of us are loved by You as children, each precious in Your sight, each a refl...

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What Jesus Intended: The Healing of Bad Religion

Author

Todd Hunter

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Scripture

Matthew 23:4, Matthew 13:54, Matthew 7:28, Revelation 2:4

Painful Truths Sandy, bravely revealing his pain, schooled me. He attended a focus group I hosted that sought to create a safe environment wherein a person could express their truest feelings about ...

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On Aging, Ash Wednesday, and Death

Author

Stuart R. Strachan, Jr.

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Do you remember the first time you started to feel your mortality? Or perhaps, the first time you realized their was something wrong with your body? Your mind? At some point (for me it was my twenties...

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Author

Belden Lane

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Scripture

2 Samuel 7:null

Yahweh, unlike the mountain and fertility gods of the ancient Canaanites, refuses to be bound by any geographical locale. All of the 'high places' pretending to capture the divine presence mus...

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The Importance of a Good Ending

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Stuart R. Strachan, Jr.

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An ending can be either good or bad. There are excellent novels that held my attention and moved me for hundreds of pages only to end in a way that made me regret reading the story. Sadly, the same ca...

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The Art of Waiting: Sermon Illustration Tuesday

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Stuart R. Strachan, Jr.

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This week, we have chosen two illustrations that describe the nature of waiting, and perhaps can inspire each of us to wait well as we long for life to return, at least in part, to normalcy: Hope y...

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The Forge

Author

Ben Patterson

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At least as important as the things we wait for is the work God wants to do in us as we wait… Picture a blazing hot forge and a piece of gold thrust into it to be heated until all that is impure and ...

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A Different Kind of Entitlement

Author

Stuart R. Strachan, Jr.

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Scripture

Philippians 2:null

September 2018 The Millennial Stereotype There is perhaps no stronger stereotype of the millennial generation than that of “entitled.” For those of us who were born between 1981-1996, we’ve been lab...

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Faith and Technology

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Stuart R. Strachan, Jr.

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What does it look like to trust in God? And how does trusting in God relate to all of the modern technologies that currently exist. We know, quite well, that for some quite close to us, technology is ...

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Tell Them About the Dream, Martin!

Author

Stuart R. Strachan, Jr.

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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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Cohabitation and the Definitely Maybe Relationship

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Jonathan Grant

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The tension between autonomy and intimacy is most clearly evidenced in the trend toward cohabitation. Today, between 50 and 70 percent of American couples are cohabiting before or instead of marrying....

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This-Sidedness and Other-Sidedness

Author

Thomas Kelly

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Scripture

Micah 6:8, Colossians 3:2, Isaiah 58:10, John 6:27, James 2:15-17, Matthew 6:33

In his excellent little book, A Testament of Devotion , written almost a hundred years ago, Thomas Kelly describes the tension that all ministries must live in; the focus on this world or the wor...

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Being A Body

Author

Liuan Huska

Keywords

The Body

Scripture

Psalm 139:13-14, 1 Corinthians 6:19-20, 1 Timothy 4:4-5, Colossians 3:17, Romans 12:1-2, Ephesians 5:29

I wasn’t raised in a Christian family. I only entered the “Christian bubble” of a Southern Baptist youth group in junior high, where I pledged myself to abstinence before marriage at a True Love Waits...

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Born Again Bodies and Christian Weight-Loss

Author

Liuan Huska

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Scripture

1 Corinthians 6:19-20, 1 Timothy 4:8, Matthew 6:25, 2 Corinthians 12:7-9, John 9:1-3, 1 Timothy 4:8

In recent decades, many Christians have tried to make sense of the tension between our bodies and spirits by swinging to the opposite pole. Instead of saying, “The body doesn’t matter,” they have said...

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Discerning Sense of Call By Paying Attention to Our Bodies

Author

Ruth Haley Barton

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Scripture

2 Timothy 1:9, Ecclesiastes 3:1, 1 Corinthians 6:19-20, Psalm 23:3, Philippians 2:13, Romans 12:1-2

As I have worked to clarify my calling, I have learned to pay attention to my energy levels in response to different activities. If I experience a particular activity as being inordinately draining, I...

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Fearing to Want

Author

Jen Pollock Michel

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Scripture

Ephesians 5:18-21, Proverbs 20:1, 1 Corinthians 10:23-24, Colossians 3:5, James 1:12-15, Matthew 6:19-24, Ecclesiastes 6:9

In her thought-provoking book, Teach us to Want , Jen Pollock Michel describes the tension in listening to our deepest desires: some of them these desires are integral to our identity, but they a...

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Author

Dick Ryan

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Suffering is a dreadful teacher but often the beginning of the best in us. Suffering and creativity arc often interdependent. Pain produces a terrible tension released in our creative response. Suffer...

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Author

Martin Luther King, Jr.

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Being Lukewarm

I must make two honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers. First, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost ...

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