October 19, 2023
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Our life is a story. A rather long and complicated story that has unfolded over time. There are many scenes, large and small, and many "firsts." Your first step; your first word; your first day of school. There was your first best friend; your...

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October 18, 2023
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God created us in freedom to be his intimate allies, and he will not give up on us. He seeks his allies still. Not religion. Not good church people. Lovers. Allies. Friends of the deepest sort.


I will give them a heart to know me,...

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October 17, 2023
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Today’s Daily Reading is an excerpt from Morgan Snyder's new book, Becoming a King


“What does a man need to survive?” I posed this question years ago to my very young son as we were headed out on an adventure.

After...

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October 16, 2023
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"The King is enthralled by your beauty." Psalm 45:11


Lovely little six-year-old Lacey was visiting our ministry headquarters the other day, going from office to office, swinging on the door frame and asking with a smile, "...

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October 15, 2023
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The word I choose to describe Jesus is life. Pure, lush, exuberant Life. Life that proves to be unquenchable, unstoppable, indestructible. As John summarized the whole affair, “In him was life, and that light was the light of men” (1:4...

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October 14, 2023
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I had my own tin-foil-brain, fried-soul kind of day. My rescue didn't take place until I had thrashed through most of the calamity. It was the kind of day when everything seems to go sideways from the moment you get out of bed; I’ll bet you’ve...

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October 13, 2023
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Life is a journey of the heart that requires the mind—not the other way around. The church sometimes gets this backward and makes knowing the right things the center of life. It’s not; the heart is the center of life. Desire is always where the...

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October 12, 2023
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Love your neighbor, Jesus urged, as you love yourself. (Which, as C. S. Lewis pointed out, is a pretty sick command if we are to hate ourselves.) How you handle people is the second great test of your character.

 

Again, Jesus is...

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October 11, 2023
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The book “Killing Lions” is a conversation between John and Sam Eldredge about the trials young men face.

 

 

[Sam]  I know so many of us long for words of validation, but few ever hear them. An acquaintance...

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October 10, 2023
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What do I pray, Lord? What is this about?

 

Pause. This is a really, really helpful place to begin — to ask God what to pray. I don’t know what’s going on. I’m looking at the equivalent of a two-headed rooster on my...

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October 09, 2023
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I thought of Jesus’ warning about the end of the age, how as times grow dark and people feel more keenly pressed, love will grow rare. “Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom … Because of the increase of wickedness, the love...

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October 08, 2023
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But you have come to Mount Zion, to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem. You have come to thousands upon thousands of angels in joyful assembly, to the church of the firstborn, whose names are written in heaven. You have come...

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October 07, 2023
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I cannot say this more emphatically—life affected Jesus. “We have spread so many ashes over the historical Jesus that we scarcely feel the glow of His presence anymore,” lamented Brennan Manning. “He is a man in a way that we have forgotten men...

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October 06, 2023
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We value independence. Mobility. Self-sufficiency. Yay. But we are a dependent people. Dependent on air, food, water. Needful of others. Needful of God. He is our divine helper, our ezer, without whom we will not be able to live a life...

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October 05, 2023
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One of the saddest of all the sad stories in the history of the people of God comes shortly after the dramatic exodus from Egypt, as they stand on the brink of a whole new life in the land God had promised:

 

But you were unwilling...

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October 04, 2023
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Sometimes we feel hopeless to ever change simply because our personal history is filled with our failed attempts to change. Where was that angel who was supposed to be guarding our tongue and preventing those harsh words from lashing out at our...

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October 03, 2023
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Where do we go from here? "This life," wrote Jonathan Edwards, "ought to be spent by us only as a journey towards heaven." That's the only story worth living in now. The road goes out before us and our destination awaits. In the imagery of...

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October 02, 2023
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The deeper reason we fear our own glory is that once we let others see it, they will have seen the truest us, and that is nakedness indeed. We can repent of our sin. We can work on our "issues." But there is nothing to be "done" about our glory....

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October 01, 2023
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Believing in God is not the same thing as union with God. Doing various God — activities is not the same as union with God. Obeying God isn’t necessarily union with God. 


These things can all be done while there is a kind of distance...

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September 30, 2023
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Do not give way to fear. (1 Peter 3:6)

 

The reason we fear to step out is because we know that it might not go well (is that an understatement?). We have a history of wounds screaming at us to play it safe. We feel so...

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