Blog
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For those who have admitted their spiritual need before Jesus, there is a future comfort from sin and sickness which will make earthly afflictions seem like a distant dream.
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Does “true worship” include singing or silence? Giving or receiving? Standing, sitting, kneeling, dancing or walking? Does it include others or is it solitary?
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It appears as though this Jewish scribe had already come to see that genuine affection, not religious legalism, is what God desires most.
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Jesus' quotation from Isaiah 56 emphasized that the presence of the Lord has been made available to everyone – the pious and poor, the Jew and Gentile alike.
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A few weeks ago, the FMC musicians met for their monthly worship practice. Before diving into the music, they read through an article on congregational singing written by Mark Dever and Matt Merker found at www.9.marks.org journal church-singing .
The article emphasized how scarce ‘corporate singing’ has become within the... -
Two weeks ago, Janice and I spent a few days at Deer Ridge Ministries - a spiritual retreat center which accommodates couples who serve in full-time ministry. This ministry began over a decade ago to facilitate place where pastors can intentionally practice Sabbath without added responsibilities. But what is Sabbath? It is an...
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What do the story of Jesus birth, “How the Grinch Stole Christmas,” and Dicken’s “The Christmas Carol,” all have in common?
Among other answers, each story involves a character with deep-seeded bitterness and resentment – King Herod, the Grinch and Ebenezer Scrooge. Now certainly, each person... -
A couple of years ago, my wife and I celebrated our anniversary by staying in downtown Asheville, North Carolina. The city itself is beautiful and filled with locally-owned restaurants and shops. There is also a plethora of spiritually-inspired stores. In Asheville, you can easily purchase statues of Buddha, a variety of...
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Liberal. Conservative. Progressive. Traditionalist.
Hardly a day goes by without these adjectives appearing in my BBC international newsfeed or showing up in various written or spoken conversations around the topic of the climate of North American church. I don’t know if you describe yourself using any of... -
As we have been focusing on prayer through this year, my eyes have been on the lookout for various prayers that are offered to the Lord from the various writers of Scripture. This week, I was struck by the prayer which the Apostle Paul prayed for the church of the Thessalonians at the end of chapter 3.
He wrote, “May the Lord...
