“Born of the virgin Mary,” so goes many an ancient creed. Modern people can sometimes snicker at the idea, but God thought it important enough to make it a point of emphasis in the Christmas story (See Matthew 1:18-25). Why is Jesus’ birth from the womb of a virgin so important? If Jesus is just the…
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Often times, we look forward to Christmas with great expectations. But frequently, Christmas comes and goes and leaves us feeling empty; like we missed out on it. Part of the reason for that stems from what we’re looking for and how we’re trying to obtain what we want at Christmas. Imagine being the first readers…
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Ray Ortlund Jr. once posted a provocative blog entitled, “One Anothers I Can’t Find in the New Testament.” His list is both somewhat amusing and gut-wrenching: How often are we Christians really good at doing these “one anothers”? I know. It’s sad. But if the church is going to be a harbinger of the new heavens and the new…
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Work makes up a significant portion of our lives. One would hope God’s Word would help us think about and approach our work in healthy ways. It does. Four God-Honoring Ways to Approach Work: 1. We were made to work God made galaxies, animals, plants, and human beings. All of it is called his ‘work’…
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Anxiety and anger are staples in our lives. There probably isn’t a day that goes by where we don’t feel a twinge of worry or some shred of underlying irritation. Why is that? And what do we do about it? 1. The anatomy of anxiety and anger “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your…
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Almost any genuine Bible-believing Christian will be able to articulate we are saved by grace not through our works. Salvation by grace is a uniqueness to Christianity not seen in any other world religion or philosophy. But in many instances the Christian church is missing something: we love our doctrine of grace, but we can be horrible…
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The Bible is very nuanced in its discussion of money. Within its pages, money falls into two different categories. It’s either a “danger” or a “blessing.” If money is a life-pressure, it’s not my financial position that needs to change. It’s my attitude towards it and my relationship with it that needs to change. How…
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I’m in a blog series trying to make the case what a church ought to provide its people is: lots of gospel, lots of safety, and lots of time. Today I want to hone in on the necessity of the gospel being central in the life of a church. A lot of people think the gospel is the…
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“Why do I do the things I do?” Answering that question is the key to unlocking our busyness problem. We have “heart motivations” that drive why our calendars and to-do lists fill up. We have to rethink our lives at a deep level to discover what those heart motivations are so we can address them….
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In my previous post, I made the case that the church is meant to be a harbinger of the new heavens and the new earth. That is, when people experience the community of people called ‘the church’ they should be given a taste of the new heavens and the new earth. In order for that to…
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