Church Life
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Sixty Years Later — A Larger Concern
If you are reading this before January 20th, you are reading it before something happens that has happened nineteen times during my lifetime. I was only about four months old when it happened for the first time in my lifetime, so I don’t remember much about it. The same goes for the second time when I was only a little over four years old. It really wasn’t until I was a little over twelve years old that I sort of got “plugged in” to what was happening. I was intrigued with all of the pageantry that went along with a presidential inauguration ceremony. While all of that pageantry was very impressive, I…
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The Will of God
A few years ago I enjoyed reading a series of Christian fiction where the protagonist liked to refer to praying “the prayer that never fails.” I was a little dense, so it took me a few books before I realized that the prayer he referenced was “Thy will be done.” In order to really pray that prayer, we need to make sure we understand exactly what we are asking. Are we really willing to submit to His will? What if it doesn’t line up with my will? This begs another question that occurred to me in Bible class while studying John 7. In verses 16-19, Jesus is once again defending…
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If The Devil Had A Social Media Account
[NOTE: This post is my bulletin article for the Central Church of Christ for this upcoming Sunday. I do not usually re-use material in this way, but I have had the idea for this post on my mind for a long time, so I decided to share it in both locations. –Adam] Just a few years ago, we never could have imagined having such a resource as social media. Though email was a big deal, the reach and impact of such sites as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram is nothing short of remarkable. None of these sites is good or bad in themselves, but how they are used decides the proper…
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How Many Have You Broken?
We’ve just passed that time of year when many people make resolutions, and many even write them down so they will remember them for the whole year. Things like losing weight, exercising more, eating less sugar, reading their Bible, having family devotionals, and many more changes in lifestyle are put on that piece of paper. Here we are almost two weeks into the new year and I’m wondering how many of those resolutions have already been broken. They always sound so good when we are thinking about them and they even seem more doable when they are written on paper. However, as the new wears off and we begin to see how hard…
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Some Things Should Never Be Normal
Normal. It’s a word that so many of us have said in the last few months. We just want things to return to normal. As so many things have changed, many have altered that statement a bit and said that they hope things return to normal, whatever that may look like. We like normal. We like routine. We like knowing–as best we can–what to expect. There’s nothing wrong with that. However, there are certain things, if we are going to be children of light in a world of darkness, that should never be normal about us. If we are being honest, the biggest things about our lives are not going…
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My Prediction for 2021
Do you remember all of those predictions that were made a little over a year ago as we looked forward to 2020? If 2020 proved anything, it proved that we cannot see into the future with 20/20 vision. I’m guessing that, by the time you read this, some of us have already not been so resolute about some resolutions we made only a few days ago. I’m also guessing that some predictions for a year that is still in its infancy have already been proven to be wrong. Why, then, would anybody be bold enough (or stupid enough) to make any kind of prediction for 2021? The answer is actually fairly simple. It…
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How You Say It
On our way home from Christmas in Kentucky, the kids and I had to stop at an unfamiliar exit for a routine bathroom break. I noticed the sign on the door of the gas station we chose and for some reason it stuck with me. Now, we have all been seeing signs on doors for months about guidelines and restrictions related to precautions that are supposed to protect us and others from the current pandemic. But there was something different about this sign. Oh, it was about masks, but the “tone” of the sign was different. Instead of “masks required” or “do not enter without a mask” or even “protect…
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Tips For Reading Through The Bible in One Year
I suppose that, for a great number of Christians, one of their resolutions for a new year is to read the Bible through. Some will make this goal for the first time; others simply have not read the Bible through in many years; and still others make this goal each year. It is a wonderful goal, for sure, and I encourage you to have some type of goal that involves Bible reading and/or study for the upcoming year. Certainly, there is nowhere in the Bible where we are commanded to read the entire Bible through in a year, but it makes for a great goal. In fact, I think it…
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A Post That Is Twenty Years (Or Longer) In The Making
As difficult as it may be to believe, some of the items that made the news at this time of the year twenty years ago sound eerily familiar. Perhaps the best example of this is that much of the news concerned a contentious and controversial presidential election in which even the United States Supreme Court got involved. Do the names Bush and Gore and the phrase “hanging chad” ring a bell? The purpose of this post has nothing to do with major world events, news about powerful and important people, economic trends or any other matters that make national or international headlines. As I’m typing these words, my mind is on matters of…
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Father, Help Us On The Uneven Journey of Life
Have you ever had one of those men in your congregation who could lead a prayer that just left you feeling so close to the Father’s throne? We had just such a man several years ago. When he led a prayer, I hung on every word. His deep voice resonated throughout the auditorium and brought such practical and spiritual thoughts to my mind. He took his time and carefully spoke every word of praise and request. I was reminded of his prayers when one of his granddaughters was writing a reply recently to someone on Facebook. She reminded me that he always ended his prayers with, “In JESUS’S name, Amen.” His emphasis in life was on…
