jesus
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The Blessing We Didn’t Expect
Inspired by: Matthew 5:1-12 Jesus began His greatest sermon in the strangest way. He didn’t start with strength, success, or victory. He started with emptiness. “Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” I’ve often wondered what the crowd expected to hear that day. Many were looking for a Messiah…
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The Velcro and the Teflon
Have you ever noticed that burdens seem to stick to us like Velcro, while blessings slide off like they’re coated in Teflon? One unkind comment can camp out in our minds for three weeks, unpack its suitcase, rearrange the furniture, and invite relatives. Meanwhile, ten encouraging words stop by, wave politely, and leave before we’ve…
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Small Things Matter
There are certain moments in nature that almost feel too gentle for this world. A leaf drifting slowly from a tree. Snow falling in complete silence. Tiny drops of rain gathering along the edge of a windowpane before finally slipping downward. Small things. Quiet things. The kind of moments most people pass without a second…
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Some Fires Do Not Need More Wood
We live in a world that practically runs on outrage now. Everybody is offended, reacting, posting, correcting, arguing, tweeting and sub-tweeting, unfriending, reposting screenshots, and occasionally writing entire emotional dissertations over a sentence somebody probably typed while half-awake and looking for coffee. Somewhere along the line, many people started treating self-control like weakness and emotional…
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Tenderness Beneath the Turbulence
Scripture Focus: “He found him in a desert land, and in the waste howling wilderness; He led him about, He instructed him, He kept him as the apple of His eye. As an eagle stirreth up her nest, fluttereth over her young, spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them, beareth them on her wings: so the…
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When the Road Disappears Into Fog
There’s something deeply comforting about the fact that some of the greatest people of faith in Scripture were not people who always understood what God was doing. We sometimes imagine faith as fearless certainty where a person never wrestles, never grows weary, and never questions anything. But when you read the life of Abraham, you…
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When the Donkey Talks and the Bears Show Up
One thing I appreciate about Scripture is that it does not flatten people into stiff stained-glass figures who float through life without awkwardness, irony, or moments that make you stop and think, “Did that really just happen?” There are places in the Bible where the humor is so dry and understated that it is easy…
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The Whole Armor of God
In Ephesians 6:10–18 Paul writes, “Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might,” then immediately tells believers to “put on the whole armour of God.” God’s armor, not man’s armor. The armor of God is designed for a spiritual battle where the real battlefield is the mind and…
