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Spiritual Warfare: The Right Tool for the Job
In seminary, I had a Greek professor that drilled a mantra into our heads. Every day he reminded us,“You must have the right tools for the job.” There was even a song and a video to further bring this point home. What he meant was, when parsing Greek verbs and drawing countless diagrams you must have the right study tools to get the job done. Not employing the right tool for such a job would leave you frustrated having wasted way too much time and energy. This mantra can be applied in almost any circumstance but I want to focus our attention on the necessary tools for the job of…
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Convenient Christianity
I love Southwest Airlines. Must be the heart logo. And their employees seem to love their jobs. Which is a pleasantry in a world where many airlines seem to dip their employees in lemon juice. But Southwest imposes one inconvenience. Passengers must check in 24 hours beforehand to get their boarding assignments—really a race to see who can click their mice the fastest, lest one end up with the dreaded middle seat. This 24-hour check-in process works great if you face a computer all day. I don’t. Enter: early bird check-in. For $15 Southwest Airlines will check me in automatically, which precludes the setting of an alarm 24…
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Keep Christians Weird
Christians feel a supreme love for someone we have never seen. We empty ourselves to experience fullness, go down to get up, die in order to live, forsake in order to have, give in order to keep. We become strongest when weakest, richest while poorest, happiest when saddest. We admit wrongness in order to receive forgiveness and base our righteousness on Another’s.We see the invisible, hear the inaudible, and know the unknowable. Face it, that’s weird; but so is the guy we follow. Jesus invites Himself to dinner parties and makes eye patches from mudpies. He wanders about homeless, hangs out with rejects, and pops through walls, unannounced. He dispatches…
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A House Divided
“If a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand” (Mark 3:25). The headlines recently, in America, were certainly unsettling for a news and commentary junkie like myself. The United States seemed to be imploding, committing suicide on live television. For some time now I have believed that we are witnessing the self-destruction of the United States. I often think of the words of Abraham Lincoln, who said, “America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.” History will show whether this proves true or not. On Friday morning July 8th, many…
