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If we want to be godly people, proximity to God is a necessity. I love this thought in connection with the idea of praying without ceasing. The more we are consciously aware of the presence of God and thus are in relationship to Him, the greater our chance to be
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God is amazing in His love and understanding of our nature. He knows our strengths and our weakness. He knows we won’t always get it right and He continues to call us back to Him. He is the greatest constant source of love we will ever experience. Jesus teaches
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Everyone can benefit by drawing closer to the Father’s presence. He is love; we certainly could use as much of that as possible. God is peace; the world needs more of that. God is merciful; everyone needs forgiveness in addition to learning how to be forgiving to others. There
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Profoundly deep faith takes a lifetime of work. Like all skills worth having, deep faith takes effort. It starts small and is easily overcome. As faith is exercised, it grows and strengthens and becomes more resilient. Soon what used to challenge faith can be taken in stride. A deep faith,
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Community is a pull between opposite dynamics. It is a double-edged sword. There is joy in togetherness, but also clashes between differences. There is celebration in community, but also loss. There is joy in growth, but also frustration in failure. One of the hardest parts of community is holding polar
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Our strength is always rooted in God. He is the source of everything that is good and glorious. He is the reason we have life, much less find any success at what we are doing. In our moments of struggle or weakness, we should turn to Him and He will
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We must be especially vigilant until the Lord’s return. It is easy to fall into sin when we think nobody is watching. It is easy to fall into bad habits when we are given time to relax (like summer vacation for students across the country). In those moments when
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Human beings typically need a divine assist to truly know how God’s plan is going to play out. As Jesus prepares to head to Jerusalem for the final conflict with the religious elite, the disciples are still trying to figure out what is happening. They are doing a great
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As Jesus draws closer to the cross, the disciples mature considerably in their faith. There is an underlying current of truth in this. The more serious our life situation, the more focused we can become. The more significant our need to get it right, the more we can understand our
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To understand what God is doing, we need to pay attention. We all know this. You can’t learn if you aren’t paying attention. If your attention wanes, you might miss out. As a math teacher, I know the lesson well. It pays to have good attention skills where
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Sometimes the lack of human comprehension of God’s hand in motion is nothing less than dumbfounding. In saying this, please don’t hear it in a tone of judgment. That umbrella statement needs to be applied to this entire post, which is going to focus on Peter’s reaction
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Sometimes the depths of God’s hand in motion is nothing less than awe-inspiring. I don’t know if anyone can do justice to the depth of the transfiguration in 500 words. Jesus goes up into the mountain and takes James, John, and Peter with Him. We occasionally see an