“He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief, and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not” (Isaiah 53:3 KJV). Lashes from one who should love us lacerate like sharp fangs. Rejection curls its snarling lips, extends its cavernous jaws […]
-Read More“But you are a God ready to forgive, gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love…” (Nehemiah 9:17) They each blundered big under a varying set of circumstances. Eve reached for the fruit, Sarah handed over her maid, Moses slammed the rock, David hatched a deadly plot, and the children of Israel […]
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“She has done a beautiful thing to me” (Mark 14:6). Their names are not even mentioned, and yet the Lord bestowed the highest praise on three women who demonstrated courage in difficult circumstances. Their ordinary lives are not memorials for us to simply admire, but to emulate, compelling us to love the Lord more deeply […]
-Read More“You shall walk in all the way that the LORD your God has commanded you, that you may live, and that it may go well with you…” (Deuteronomy 5:33). Babies do a lot of sleeping (When we desperately need some, they usually quit!). In the first few months of life, babies could almost be called […]
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“Weeping may tarry for the night,” (Psalm 30:5) It matters that they lived, regardless how short the span. It matters on a scale of enormous significance that your friends’ loved ones drew breath for a wisp of time or for a lengthy chain of years. A life that was loved is worthy to matter to […]
-Read More“Our help is in the name of the Lord, who made heaven and earth” (Psalm 124:8). Heavy-hearted and under siege, we hunker down and hide, fearful of the onslaught from the enemy intent on our destruction. At the very least, he plots to capture us in his cavern of discouragement by providing a hundred reasons […]
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“The point is this: whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully” (2 Corinthians 9:6). In all likelihood, nothing fits in a fist closed tight. A clenched hand, fingers turned inward with nails pressed into palm will never hold a thing, will never be on the receiving side. […]
-Read More“And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger because there was no place for them in the inn” (Luke 2:7). “No room in the inn” would become a signature piece for how the Son of Man would be regularly excluded from the world […]
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“Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me” (John 15:4). It was never designed as an entry in the “have to” category, but we shoved it into that column, making it a chore rather […]
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