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Jesus has patience and wisdom like no other. How many times am I the victim of other people’s sinfulness and I want to lash out and expose how violated I feel? How many times do I want to turn around and gossip about how wrong the other person was?
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To receive forgiveness, relationship must exist. If I do something wrong and hurt another person, unless I have relationship with them, I cannot apologize to them. Likewise, unless they have relationship with me, they cannot express forgiveness to me. Relationship is not forgiveness. Relationship is the conduit through which forgiveness
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Jesus doesn’t mess around. One might say He came to take the world by storm. He knows there is no question about His role as teacher, disciple maker, and savior. The Father sent Him to accomplish a particular mission and nothing is going to get in His way. Jesus
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The power that comes from popularity is all about connection. This dynamic is at work all over the place. In middle school and high school, this is how the mean girls function: they maintain power by socially connecting their enemies with undesirable qualities. This is how our legislative system works:
The Christian worldview may cause people to think you’re strange. Jesus doesn’t call us to the path that makes the most money. Jesus doesn’t call us to the path that makes us the most popular. Jesus calls us to a path that glorifies God. Jesus calls us
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How does Jesus know you? Are you the quiet kid who sits in the back of the room silently soaking up everything you can learn about Him? Are you the kid in the front row who wants to interact with Him as often as possible, frequently wrong but still putting
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What does the process of being an apostle look like? One of my favorite ways of expressing the call of apostleship is becoming like Jesus so much that when people take notice of us they actually see Christ instead. That image affects my actions whenever I am in leadership. I
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Who do you trust? What do you trust with other people? How do you determine who can be trusted with what? Is it easy or difficult for you to place trust in others? How do people earn your trust? Closing out the passage about Jesus and the crowds, notice Mark
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Establishing meaningful boundaries is an important survival skill. Sometimes you should put the phone down and not answer it, even if it makes your friends mad. Maybe you don't answer that text as soon as it comes in. There is a right time to say no, even to
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What will Jesus use you to restore today? Some days my hope is to merely survive the day and return to my pillow alive. Other days my hope is to return to the pillow not just alive but a different man than I left it. Perhaps more often I should
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Are you willing to follow Jesus? If this is a Sunday School question, the answer is yes. Following Jesus is the effect that comes with a restored relationship with God. Becoming more like Jesus is one of our primary goals. What Christian wouldn’t follow Jesus, right? Jesus once more
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Doing God’s work is never wrong. Don’t confuse this with thinking that God’s work is easy. Doing what God asks may be difficult. It might involve sacrifice. It might put us at odds with other people. It might give other people cause to raise their eyebrows and