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Finding Grace after Contracting Leprosy
Peter Greave (1910-1977) was a British national who endured a challenging and tumultuous life, which took a severe turn in 1939 when he contracted leprosy while stationed in India, also his birthplace... -
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Our Faith
Our faith is not a matter of our hearing what Christ said long ago and “trying to carry it out. The real Son of God is at your side. He is beginning to turn you into the same kind of thing as Himself.... -
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The transformation from water to wine is of course meant by John to signify the effect that Jesus can have, can still have today, on people’s lives. He came, as he says later, that we might have life... -
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The Creed was the focused, worshipful expression of people whose lives had been totally transformed by the Bible and by the risen Jesus Christ. The Creed’s words are not windows with the shutters pull... -
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Is it in You?
This may be a corny illustration, but I think about the Gatorade commercial where they ask, “Is it in you?” It shows athletes literally sweating Gatorade out of their pores. The point is that since Ga... -
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Beyond the Darkness of Their Blindness
One of the biggest challenges in the Christian journey is grasping the heart of grace. Oftentimes there is an internal battle between our theology and our lived experience. In this short excerpt, Fred... -
liturgy
O Holy Love, food of our souls
Leader: O Holy Love, food of our souls, living spring of the water of life, we worship you. All: Our souls thirst for your presence; and we hunger for your grace. O Christ, Bread of Life, sown... -
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Healing Wounds Never Spoken Can Lead to Spiritual Breakthroughs
Dawn grew up in a family in which she felt she had a fairly happy childhood. But in her adult years she struggled greatly with emotional, psychological, and physical maladies. She never felt a sense o... -
liturgy
Our God is not only for us
Leader: Our God is not only for us, People: He is also with us. Leader: Through His suffering, death, and resurrection, People: God’s Son, Jesus Christ, has secured our home in eternity. L... -
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Reformers' Impact on Modern Spirituality
Noteworthy in this regard is the contribution of the Reformers, particularly Martin Luther, though John Calvin’s contribution is also very significant. Both called for a spirituality in the world that... -
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Every time we say we believe in the Holy Spirit, we mean we believe that there is a living God able and willing to enter human personality and change it. -
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Brother Lawrence and Trusting God in Failure
Brother Lawrence, a 16th-century Carmelite monk, spent his days scrubbing pots and mending shoes. Largely uneducated, he filled his free time writing letters and notes that, after his death, friends g... -
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I cannot transform myself, or anyone else for that matter. What I can do is create the conditions in which spiritual transformation can take place, by developing and maintaining a rhythm of spiritual ... -
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Developing an Anthropological Foundation for the Spiritual Disciplines
Before my mentor, Dallas Willard, passed over to glory, I asked him what he thought about the rapid rise of the Christian spiritual formation movement. He said, “It is a wonderful thing, but my fear i... -
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The Discovery of Curare & Two Forms of Christianity
In the early 1800s, the German naturalist and explorer Baron Alexander von Humboldt journeyed through South America on a scientific expedition. Deep in the Amazon rainforest, he encountered Indigenous... -
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God the Artist: Crafted to Make a Statement
When I think of masterpieces, I think of art. But what is art? I like the way that Thomas Hoving, who was the director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, put it: “Art happens when anyon... -
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Many of us try to shove spiritual transformation into the nooks and crannies of a life that is already unmanageable, rather than being willing to arrange our life for what our heart most wants. We thi... -
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Sparks of Eternity
The late psychiatrist M. Scott Peck was convinced that buried in our explicit pursuit of sex is an implicit pursuit of God. He noted that sex is likely to be the closest that most people ever come to ... -
lectionary
23rd Sunday after Pentecost
preaching commentary Scripture’s proclivity for a new creation Some people have an aversion to describing a future day when the troubles of this world will have passed into oblivion, the kitchen-ta... -
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Sailing & Spiritual Formation
John Ortberg likens the transformative path of Christ to sailing. Sailors can't make the wind show up; the wind has a mind of its own. But that doesn't mean there is nothing for them to do. Sa... -
liturgy
Creator God, our Source and our Home
Leader: Creator God, our Source and our Home, we belong to you. All: We praise you, and we gather to worship you and give our lives to you. Living Christ, you establish justice, overthrow the ... -
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A glutton is one who raids the icebox for a cure for spiritual malnutrition. -
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"The Batman Effect" The Power of Identity
A group of researchers sought to study the nuances of self-control. They conducted a study with a few dozen kindergarten students and gave them a painfully boring, repetitive task designed to test how... -
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Electrical Fires and Addressing Sin at the Source
One afternoon, I was playing with my son in our living room when I suddenly smelled something burning. I stood up and walked around, nose high in the air, sniffing furiously. My wife smelled it too, s... -
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Struggle is Not Failure: A Lesson from the Desert Fathers
A Story from the Philokalia A story is told in The Philokalia about a young monk who went to an older monk to confess a struggle. The older monk was appalled, telling the young monk that his strugg... -
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The new life is not a matter of mere moral reformation, but of spiritual transformation. -
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Losing Sight of our Spiritual Longing in the Modern World
In our modern materialistic world, it is easy to lose sight of that sense of longing. In her wonderful collection of essays Teaching a Stone to Talk , Annie Dillard speaks about that growing void... -
liturgy
A Prayer for Patience
Holy One, grant me Patience in the waiting Raise in me Steadfastness Resilience Persevering Make me a child of hope and becoming New life takes time to root and grow and bear fruit It takes trus... -
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Spiritual Food Belongs in the Heart
Spiritual nourishment cannot be seen purely in our outward behavior. The process of sanctification is a deeply internal process. Outside growth is merely a symptom, and acting better does not mean our... -
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The Lion in the Marble
There was once a sculptor who worked hard with hammer and chisel on a large block of marble. A little child who was watching him saw nothing more than large and small pieces of stone falling away left...
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