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You Never Know What Someone Else is Going Through
Understand this, my dear brothers and sisters! Let every person be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger (James 1:19, NET). “You never know what someone else is going through” sounds like a mother’s well-worn admonition to her children. I know I say it often to mine, and the words ring true if we stop a moment to think about it. In our fast-paced, busy culture, we race past one another, forming immediate… Read More
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When the Ground Gives Way Beneath You
I sink in the miry depths, where there is no foothold. I have come into the deep waters; the floods engulf me (Psalm 69:2). The Lord lives! Praise be to my Rock! Exalted be my God, the Rock, my Savior! (2 Samuel 22:47) The sand sucked away beneath my feet as the waves pushed in and pulled out on the seashore where I stood. The ground was literally giving way from beneath my feet. Looking… Read More
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Assigned to Bear Burdens
And Solomon assigned 70,000 men to bear burdens… 2 Chronicles 2:2 There are projects in God’s kingdom that cannot be completed without burden bearers. Those stones hewn from the mountain would not carry themselves, assemble themselves into towering walls forming Solomon’s glorious temple. They needed strong arms to bear them to their purpose. To think burden-bearing may be one’s assignment! I daresay not many would choose it voluntarily. God’s assigned burden bearer must be careful… Read More
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Unforgettable Me
The old me, like a seed in the ground, can be forgotten after all. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory (Colossians 3:2-4). The closer the hour drew to the seminar I was to teach, the more anxious I became. I obsessed about… Read More
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Jesus is the Savior, Not Me
No one can redeem the life of another or give to God a ransom for them—the ransom for a life is costly, no payment is ever enough—so that they should live on forever and not see decay (Psalm 49:7-9). The smiling children in the slides were emaciated but their stomachs bulged grotesquely, skin stretched shiny and taut. I stared in the way a nine-year-old child stares, without inhibition, fascinated and horrified. The missionary man standing… Read More
