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Glorious Grace
Now the Word became flesh and took up residence among us. We saw his glory—the glory of the one and only, full of grace and truth, who came from the Father (John 1:14). Today we gather around tables and sit around Christmas trees to celebrate God’s interjection into our ordinary world. This day is unlike any other on the calendar because 2,000 years ago, the Son did the unbelievable—he put on our flesh. And as the Message reads, “. . . moved into [our] neighborhood." Who is this God who came to dwell with us? John summarizes his glorious existence in two simple words—grace and truth. These two five-letter…
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Unitarian Universalism: “It Means Whatever You Want it to Mean.” (A Christian Conservative Goes to College, part 20)
“He who stands for nothing will fall for anything” – Unknown. “Groups that stand for everything stand for nothing or else they deceive” – a former Unitarian Universalist pastor who is now a full-fledged Humanist.[1] “For although they knew God, they did not glorify him as God or give him thanks, but they became futile in their thoughts and their senseless hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools….” (Romans 1:21-22). The World Religions class assignment was that each student attend the service of a religion that was not “one’s own”. I chose to attend a Unitarian Universalist church with my analytical Christian friend Chris. As…
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You Can’t Handle the Truth!
Echoing from the movie courtroom this bold assertion, “You can’t handle the truth” resonates beyond that stirring scene. Between accusations going viral on social media and salacious reports many years old about those we have admired how does one even determine what is true. Add to the confusion that Satan is the "Father of Lies." In today’s generation, doubt exists that such a thing is possible. So where can “true truth” be found? Leaders and media filter information and between edits and photo-shop, determining fact and accuracy becomes increasingly difficult. Often that filter conforms to the assertion above that “we” can’t handle the truth. Dictionary.com offers this definition of…
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Photoshopping Life, Take 2
When Ray and I visited the Galapagos Islands, one of my favorite pictures was the two of us with a gigantic tortoise. Unfortunately, my big ol’ red purse was on the ground in the picture too. So I photoshopped it out. At our son’s wedding, one of the ushers wasn’t wearing his boutonniere when it was time for the formal pictures. “Not to worry,” the photographer said. “We can photoshop it in later.” During my daughter-in-law’s holiday family picture taking, someone suggested photoshopping in a beloved uncle, since they were missing him. “No! He’s been dead for two years!,” someone else responded. “You don’t photoshop in a dead person who…
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Should a Christian Attend a Homosexual Wedding?
“Do not participate in the unfruitful deeds of darkness, but rather expose them. For the things they do in secret are shameful even to mention” (Ephesians 5:11-12). Not too long ago my wife was listening to New Life Live, a Christian radio and counseling program she has listened to for years. But she was shocked when she heard one of the hosts, Stephen Arterburn, say he would attend a homosexual marriage; though he admitted the other hosts might not agree with him on this decision. I was also stunned to hear about this, so I searched the web to find out what he and/or others were saying about this. I…
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What Does The Bible SAY…..
By now, you may have heard the song, “What Does the Fox Say.” Yes, the words were written about a fox and the sound that it makes, or doesn’t make. According to the lyrics no one knows the sound of a fox and if you have watched the hilarious video, the vocalists make odd noises to portray the possible sounds of a fox. Two Norwegian brothers put the lyrics to a catchy beat, dressed up in fox costumes, and made one of the funniest videos ever. According to some sources this video has gained such popularity that they have over 360,000,000 people who have watched and laughed to their humor online. Old MacDonald, move…
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Stay Encouraged…The Next Generation of Christians Needs You!
“…we face a generation of young people who no longer hold to what most evangelicals consider to be the true foundations of the Christian faith: belief in the deity of Christ, the reliability of Scripture, and the bodily resurrection of Jesus.” Josh McDowell and David H. Bellis, The Last Christian Generation (Holiday, FL: Green Key Books), 27. The preceding observation by Josh McDowell and David Bellis is sobering to say the least. The reality is that we are progressively living in a world where the basic tenants of the Christian faith are no longer believed, taught, or consistently championed. Relativism has taken root and has such a stronghold in our…
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The Real Truthiness of Stories that Have Changed the World
An October, 1998 Time magazine cover article, “War on Gays,” declared, “What people mean when they say Matthew Shepard's murder was a lynching is that he was killed to make a point…he was stretched along a Wyoming fence…as a signpost. 'When push comes to shove,' it says, 'this is what we have in mind for gays.'" But what if, as a new bombshell book contends, it wasn’t so much a hate crime, but rather a drug crime? Also in 1998 two Texas men were arrested for having sex in their own bedroom. The Supreme Court’s ruling on the case, Lawrence v. Texas, affirmed the right of gay couples to have…
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“The Confessions of St. Augustine” (A Conservative Christian Goes to College, part 18)
“Whom could I find to reconcile me to you? Was I to seek the help of angels? By what prayer, what sacraments? Many people in their attempts to return to you and not being able to do so by their own strength have, so I hear, tried this way and have fallen into a desire for strange visions and have become, rightly, the victim of delusions…. They were seeking a mediator through whom to become clean, but this was not he. It was the devil” – “The Confessions of St. Augustine”, Book X, Chapter 42.[1] World Religions Class. It was time for our book reviews to be presented in front…
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How Well Do You Know…HIM?
How well do you know HIM? He is the resurrection and the reason we have hope of everlasting live. Jesus Christ died on the cross for the forgiveness of our sins and He said it is finished, but on the third day He rose again…Great News for all of mankind…Now He lives in heaven sitting at the right hand of God…As we approach Resurrection Sunday, I would like to encourage those of you who work with children to ask them the following questions…