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The Power of a Penny
Jesus often used simple earthly objects to explain a spiritual concept. His listeners were asked to focus on something physical so that He could teach them something spiritual. Understanding that God is outside of time, space, and matter is difficult for His creation to comprehend. Finite sinful creatures just cannot comprehend the infinite and holy God. Jesus understood His creation and our need for hooks in our brain on which we could hang new concepts. He often taught with parables and object lessons. God, in both the Old and New Testament used parables and object lessons to help us understand our own sinfulness, His holiness, our helplessness, and His grace,…
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Pandemic: Fear, Fun, or Fatal
Growing up is hard enough. A child’s body, world, and language is in a constant mode of change. Facing change causes a certain level of anxiety all on its own. This generation is now facing a pandemic. We’ve been told that most children are not at high risk, but we know that some are. Wondering if it might be them can be truly terrifying for some children. Do you know what is going through your children’s minds?
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The Velveteen Christian
Our world is made up of a constant cacophony of voices. Truth, lies, myths, imaginations, and opinions fill our world with dissidence and confusion. We have information overload. It is difficult to discern who can be trusted because of the spin, the agendas, the omitted facts or the inserted insinuations that twist and distort. I grew up during the sex revolution. A whole generation believed that being real was living without restraints. Getting what you wanted, as much as you wanted, whenever you wanted it. No strings attached defined love for those who bought into the free love movement. Easter is coming soon and as I prepare my heart to…
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When is Good Enough… Good Enough?
Imagine that the Christian life is like learning to walk on a balance beam. The Gospel helps us to mount and stand on His promises. Staying in balance is only possible because of Jesus. Colossians 1:27 Fall to the right and be immersed in a sinful endeavor to be good, to keep all the law of Moses. Striving for perfection and trusting in the ability to get it right. It is legalism, faking it until you feel you are making it. Working harder, self-righteousness, arrogance, pride, and delusions of glory. Here, ideas of being good guide us and our self-righteousness rules us. Fall to the left, and struggle with blatant…
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Teaching Tip #4
God’s amazing grace is the heart of the Gospel message. From Genesis to Revelation grace weaves its way through every book of the Bible. Every time we see God act, we are viewing a glimpse of His amazing grace. What greater gift can we give our children than to guide them to accept God’s grace, let it empower them to overcome sinful habits, and teach them how to live out of the grace they have received becoming generous givers of grace. Grace giving or receiving does not come naturally to the human heart. Parents are inclined to teach better conduct by keeping and enforcing rules, rather than teaching a need…
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Teaching Tip # 3
Relationship! Relationship! Relationship! From the Garden to the final judgment, God is all about relationship.Triune God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are in perfect relationship. When God walked in the evenings with Adam and Eve in the Garden, He didn’t come to check up on His creation, He came with a desire to fellowship with the only aspect of His creation made in His image. As parents and teachers, we need to start as early as possible teaching our children to have a personal relationship with their Father God. It is too easy to teach children what they should and should not do as though they can do something to…
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Tips for Teaching #2
I believe that today’s tip can help us better prepare our children for the difficulties of standing strong in their faith Tip number two: Encourage children to embrace their struggles. According to Walking with God through Pain and Suffering, by Tim Keller., our culture is one of the few around the world that believes that suffering is to be avoided at any cost. Most cultures see suffering as a normal part of life and essential for becoming healthy productive adults. Though suffering is uncomfortable, and scary, it is also unavoidable. Our task is to help our children see past the difficulties. Suffering is a gift to help us grow in our…
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Tips for Teaching #1
I want to share some tips that will hopefully help us better prepare our children for the difficulties of standing strong in the faith. Encourage children to ask the hard questions. If they aren’t asking, ask them! Teach them how to wrestle with the Word of God to find the answers. We tend to shy away from the questions that are hard to answer or maybe can’t really be answered. Learning that we can’t demand answers but must be humbly thankful for the revelations God gives is a hard lesson to teach and even harder to learn. I was recently talking with a woman who grew up in a Christian…
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I Shall Not Want
“It was the best of times. It was the worst of times.” This quote from Dickens’ best describes my memories of summer days as a child. I could hardly wait for summer vacation. No school! No homework! The whole day to play. It was truly the best of times. No sooner was school out than the days became too hot to do much of anything. Friends went away on vacation or away to camp. I quickly became bored with no where to go and nothing fun to do. It was also the worst of times. Sitting in a class room on a warm May day looking out the window as…
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Eyes on Eternity
Perspective is everything. The lens we use to see will determine how we prioritize our activities, our necessities, and our indulgences. Recently a friend shared with me an illustration used by Francis Chan. He pointed to a rope on the stage where he was standing. It began on one side of the stage and extended across the stage and off the other side as though it went on forever. The beginning section of the rope was dyed red. It was just a tiny little section of a very long rope. He asked the audience to imagine that this was the extent of their life on earth. The rest of the…
