While it may not jump off the page at you, the main theme of this chapter is idolatry. So we’re going to ask and answer the following questions: 1) What is idolatry?2) How is idolatry diagnosed?3) How is idolatry cured? 1) What is idolatry? When we hear the term ‘idolatry’ we think of wooden or…
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It’s my prayer to see the local church be a place where people are given a taste of the new heavens and the new earth. The church is meant to be a harbinger of heaven to come. If the church is going to do that well, it must possess compassion. Without compassion, a church will become judgmental,…
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How does God’s grace affect change in people? I don’t know for sure, but sometimes I wonder if our mental picture of God’s grace is something that is soft, warm, and cuddly. If grace was personified it would be that newborn baby in the hospital nursery swaddled while everybody on the other side of the glass…
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As a Christian, I believe there are numerous compelling reasons to become a Christian. First, death is real. While we prefer to insulate ourselves from this hard reality, that doesn’t make it go away. By becoming a Christ-follower, however, Easter is a prediction of my future. Christians will live, even though they die (John 11:25-26). Second, Christianity is…
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Jonah is a biographical account of a man who is deeply religious, but far from God. This book gives the reader various aspects to a life that is religious, but spiritually dysfunctional. In chapter 1, we discover one aspect to a dysfunctionally religious person. Like Jonah, people like this have a category in their heads…
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There are two things every religion in the world agrees on. First, they all agree there’s something wrong with our world. Second, they all offer some ideal future. But that’s where the similarities end. In Hinduism the “problem” is Samsara, or the cycle of reincarnation. The goal is Moksha or freedom from this cycle. And…
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Our nation is experiencing some tense times internally. Battles have been and are still being waged over same-sex marriage laws and all the implications of it. Dust-ups over religious liberty and abortion rights land on news websites every day. As a pastor, moments like these are opportunities to remind Christians of the bigger picture. Sometimes…
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Jonah is a biographical account of a man who is deeply religious, but has an incredibly faulty view of God. This faulty view of God leads Jonah to demonstrate some pretty destructive attitudes and behaviors. Additionally, it becomes apparent Jonah’s view of God prevents him from keeping in step with the mission of God. The book of Jonah was…
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The term ‘Christian’ is now a voter bloc. Did you know that? This is another example of how people can come to a faulty understanding of what a word means. Because ‘Christian’ has been absorbed into the political parlance, there are many folks who think they know what being a ‘Christian’ is, but sadly, the…
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It’s no secret that one of the predominant cultural attitudes towards sex lives by the motto “if it feels good, do it.” But sexual license isn’t just from the Woodstock era. It has mutated to form dozens of strands: bi-sexuality, same-sex sexual intimacy, transgenderism, and more. The pervasiveness of sexual license hasn’t been part of…
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