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Did You Know You Are Free?
This difference between possession and enjoyment is well illustrated in the story of Louis Delcourt. He was a young French soldier during the First World War who overstayed his leave and, fearing disg... -
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A Neglected Garden & The Right to Choose your Religion
The British poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge was once engaged in a conversation with a man who believed children should never receive any kind of religious education or instruction, not until they were ol... -
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Carrying a Human-Sized Weight Around
In May 2018, in a Connecticut hospital, a group of twelve surgeons worked for five hours to remove a tumor from the abdomen of a thirty-eight-year-old woman. That may seem like a lot of doctors and a ... -
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We cannot have true justice unless
We cannot have true justice unless it is motivated by love, just as God’s greatest act of justice, sending Jesus to die for us, was motivated by love. Years ago, before the emancipation of slaves, Fre... -
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Until the Snake Has No Head
My grandad told me a story once and that story became a light. A light that unlocks the dark and releases you into the land of a thousand suns. Apparently, so the story went, there had been a tropical... -
scripture guide
Scripture Guide, Genesis 9:8-17
Ancient Lens What can we learn from the historical context? How did we get here? When relationships disintegrate and fall apart it is a fair question to ask. The question may come on the brink of... -
lectionary
First Sunday in Lent
Lent 2021: A 40-day Heart Restoration Destruction No More Bonus Content: Video prep session with Scott Bullock on Genesis 9:8-17 . Password: fHUk*p2* AIM Commentary Ancient Lens What can we ... -
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The Gospel is Freedom
Its [Romans] message is not that ‘man was born free, and everywhere he is in chains’, as Rousseau put it at the beginning of The Social Contract (1762); it is rather that human beings are born in sin ... -
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What is Freedom?
Freedom is not what our culture tells us it is. Freedom is not my deciding, from the urges and longings of my sinful nature, to do what I want to do, when I want to do it, how I want to do it, with wh... -
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The Truth Will Set You Free
Dallas Willard gave a series of lectures on the kingdom of God. In one, he discussed the popularity of the phrase, “The truth will set you free” by putting it in its proper kingdom context: The whole... -
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Mandela's Choice to Be Free
After meeting Nelson Mandela, President Bill Clinton asked him how he felt as he left the prison: “Tell me the truth: when you were walking down the road that last time didn’t you hate them?” Mandela ... -
liturgy
In the name of the Father, and of the Son
Pastor: In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. People: Amen. Pastor: We gather today to offer praise and worship to our God, People: Who offers us ... -
Quote
“You are fettered," said Scrooge, trembling. "Tell me why?" "I wear the chain I forged in life," replied the Ghost. "I made it link by link, and yard by yard; I girded it... -
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Persuading Ourselves of the Truth
When we observe evil, sinful behavior from a distance, the inclination is simply to see people as acting with malicious intent. We assume they are “bad people.” But often the motivations that lead to ... -
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Accepting Guilt and Sinfulness, A Psychologist’s Perspective
Hobart Mowrer was Research Professor of Psychology at the University of Illinois. Mowrer critiqued Freudian psychology and its assertion that guilt was merely a pathology to be dispensed with. In this... -
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Postmodernism (the thinking of our age) is fiercely antinomian (without law). It is admitted that people make mistakes, but the word ‘sin’ is seldom mentioned and the idea that we all sin against God ... -
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The Christian Self-Actualization Plan
In her excellent book on following Jesus in the suburbs, Ashley Hales describes one of the ways in which our discipleship has been influenced by modern secular trends such as the desire for self-actua... -
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The sin both of men and of angels, was rendered possible by the fact that God gave us free will. . -
liturgy
Adapted from Deuteronomy 7:6-11
Pastor: For you are a people holy to the LORD your God. The LORD your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth. It was no... -
liturgy
Adapted from Psalm 119:25-32
Leader: My soul is laid low in the dust. Revive me according to your word! People: I declared my ways, and you answered me. Teach me your statutes. Leader: Let me understand the teaching of yo... -
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Being Formed in Christ’s Image
In their excellent book Invitation to a Journey, M. Robert Mulholland and Ruth Haley Barton describe the Biblical understanding of the process of spiritual formation over and against the “self-help” p... -
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The more enlightened we are, the more greatness and vileness we discover in man. -
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The Problem with the Human Race
Imagine you have an invisible recorder around your neck that, for all your life, records every time you say to somebody else, “You ought.” It only turns on when you tell somebody else how to live. In ... -
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That fierce imprisonment in the self is but the obverse of the self-giving which is absolute reality. -
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The Ring of Desire
The central plot device of The Lord of the Rings is the Dark Lord Sauron’s Ring of Power, which corrupts anyone who tries to use it, however good his or her intentions. The Ring is what Professor To... -
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What is Wrong with the World Today?
“What is wrong with the world today?” a Times newspaper editorial once asked. G. K. Chesterton wrote in reply, “Dear sirs, I am. Yours faithfully, G.K. Chesterton.” -
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Distancing Ourselves with our Simplistic Plotines
If my testimony of the gospel revolves around a plotline of, “I used to struggle with this, but God gave me the victory and now I’m free/healed/saved/fill in the blank,” I have immediately distanced m... -
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Luther's Overwhelming Guilt
In a way, the Reformation began in one monk's overwhelming guilt. Martin Luther was riddled with guilt and filled with anxiety because he could see that he could not live up to God's standard ... -
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Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession, absolution without personal confession. Cheap grace is grace ... -
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These, then, are the two points I wanted to make. First, that human beings, all over the earth, have this curious idea that they ought to behave in a certain way, and cannot really get rid of it. Seco...
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