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Sin doesn't change from place to place (7/29/06)"But they will not change; they do not fear God." Psalms 55:19 "All sex that leads to hell is unsafe." That roadside sign in Swaziland got mine. Maybe Swazis and South Africans are like Americans and tend to ignore road signs, because one cemetery in Durban, South Africa, that used to bury 60 people a month now buries 600 people each month. ...
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Summer's for us kids (7/15/06)"But I am like an olive tree growing in God's temple. I trust God's love forever and ever." Psalms 52:8 How can anyone doubt the goodness of God on a summer day? Smell the musky scent of greening corn as bumblebees buzz around the hosta stalks and orange lilies sway in a summer breeze. Pairs of purple martins twitter as they go about their housekeeping chores while others create diamond splashes on the lake, skimming low for a mosquito feast...
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I see a miracle in America (7/1/06)I see revival in America! I see everyone become a Christian. I see Sunday morning church services so overflowing with people that tents are set up on the lawn with loudspeakers carrying the message of God's love and forgiveness to hungry listeners. I see people stand with uplifted arms in silent adoration and surrender. I see people on their knees. I hear exuberant loud praise and heart-cleansing weeping of repentance...
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A father's love (6/17/06)There were two fathers who acted on behalf of their sons in the ninth chapter of Mark. One father stood at the bottom of a mountain waiting for Jesus to descend. He'd watched for years as other dads played catch with their sons at the park while he'd spent the last years of his life ever since his boy was born just trying to keep him from falling into the fireplace and burning himself up. ...
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God uses imperfect people like us (6/3/06)And Jesus came and spoke to them (his disciples), saying, "All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age." Matthew 28:18-20...
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What the world needs now (5/20/06)"What the world needs now is love, sweet love. It's the only thing that there's just too little ofÉNo, not just for some but for everyone." Hal David's 1965 song lyrics express a need that all of us have, and I'd guess Ruth understood that need...
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God will recompense our deeds (5/6/06)Ezekiel 9 isn't a pretty scene as the prophet envisions God sending out a writer to mark the foreheads of all Jerusalem's men "who sigh and cry over all the abominations that are done within it." Then God dispatches six angels carrying battle-axes to kill all, starting with church leaders, who don't have their foreheads marked. ...
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You want me to wait? (4/22/06)"Wait on the Lord; Be of good courage, and He shall strengthen your heart; Wait, I say, on the Lord!" Psalms 27:14 Maybe you've never had to wait on God. Maybe you're not writing a column for the religion page of a newspaper, and God's not sending your fingers flying across the keyboard with words to inspire, convict, uplift, enlighten or encourage. But here I sit at the keyboard waiting É and waiting É and waiting...
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Easter is knowing where we're going (4/8/06)For 38 years he sat by the pool -- hopeful, sometimes hopeless, praying, giving up, in faith, out of faith, questioning, believing one more time, defeated again. For 38 years he'd had lots of time to worry and wonder, "Why me?" He'd had 38 years to become a cynic, an agnostic, an atheist or a man of faith. ...
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Breaking through a web of bitterness (3/25/06)1 Samuel chapter 24 tells the story of King Saul with his troop of soldiers as they combed the En Gedi to destroy David and his small band. As David and some of his men hid in a cave, Saul approached and went into the cavern to go to the bathroom. According to some rabbinical tales, a spider wove a web across the mouth of the grotto; therefore, the royal guards made no search since they were sure no man or beast could be inside. ...
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Climbing life's mountains with Jesus (3/11/06)I spent two of my college summers as a lifeguard and camp counselor in Vermont. Camp Kokosing was a melting pot of wealthy white Jewish children and poor black New York City children because the camp's director was a Jewish principal of one of Harlem's public schools for children with discipline problems. So wealthy Jewish parents sent their children, and Harlem parents took advantage of "camperships" to get their children out of the slum for eight weeks...
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We're God's designer genes (2/25/06)Although we're too old for chewing bubblegum and collecting TOPPS baseball cards, now and then my brother and I still mourn the loss of the cards we collected when we were little. We fantasize that surely they'd be worth a bundle these days, but we figure mom probably pitched them during one of her cleaning sprees. Anyway, like a lot of chances and choices in life that might've made me rich, they're long gone...
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Throw the head over the wall (2/11/06)Brutal, wily Joab, King David's grizzled veteran commander, observed his army's battering rams as they pounded the walls of Abel-beth-maacah. The walls would soon be breached and the rebel leader Sheba, who'd taken refuge in the city, would be destroyed along with many of the city's inhabitants...
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The foolishness of faith (1/14/06)The Roman centurion wanted Jesus to heal his paralyzed servant (Matthew 8), but added, "I am not worthy that You should come under my roof. But only speak a word, and my servant will be healed." Jesus commended the soldier's "great faith" and announced, "Go your way; and as you have believed, so let it be done for you." Verse 13 reports, "And his servant was healed that same hour."...
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Racing into the new year (12/31/05)"When I view and consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, the moon and the stars, which You have ordained and established, What is man that You are mindful of him, and the son of earthborn man that You care for him?" Psalms 8:3,4 amp. Dec. 31 -- last day of our trip around the sun and time to start another lap. The Earth's clock, like a Timex, kept ticking as we Earthlings ran another stretch in the races of our lives...
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O come, all ye faithful (12/17/05)"O come, all ye faithful, joyful and triumphant, O come ye, O come ye to Bethlehem! Come and behold Him, born the King of angels! O come, let us adore Him, O come, let us adore Him, O come, let us adore Him, Christ the Lord!" -- John F. Wade When I was 16 years old, Centenary United Methodist Church sponsored a Christmas essay contest for area high school students on the topic "What is the real spirit of Christmas?"...
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Relationships reveal our Christmas spirit (12/3/05)"The Life was revealed, and we saw and are testifying to and declare to you the Life, the eternal Life Who already existed with the Father and Who was made visible to us. What we have seen and heard, we are also telling you so that you too may realize and enjoy fellowship as partners and partakers with us. And this fellowship that we have is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ (the Messiah)." 1 John 1:2,3...
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Giving thanks to my creator (11/19/05)Oh, give thanks to the LORD! Call upon His name; make known His deeds among the peoples! Sing to Him, sing psalms to Him; Talk of all His wondrous works! -- 1 Chronicles 16: 8,9 Thanksgiving? Actually, I don't know of any turkey and dressing dinners in the Bible, but Noah built an altar after his ark voyage, Miriam led the women of Israel in a joyous dance of praise after the Red Sea crossing, and David wrote numerous songs of worship as God protected and delivered him throughout his life...
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Wearing holey underwear (10/22/05)Wearing holey underwear "Therefore, to him who knows to do good and does not do it, to him it is sin. Come now, you rich, weep and howl for your miseries that are coming upon you! Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are moth-eaten. Do not grumble against one another, brethren, lest you be condemned. Behold the Judge is standing at the door." James 4:17; 5:1,2,9...
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Recovering our family birthright (7/16/05)In Genesis 25 to 33 the prizefight between Esau and Jacob is recorded. Rebekah was pregnant with twins who "fought with each other inside her." Esau, born first, won Round 1 to inherit the family birthright. Jacob, holding his brother's heel, was born a minute late and a birthright short...
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Only pigs belong in pigpens (5/21/05)Sometimes up the road from me I see a couple of pot-bellied pigs that are house pets. Call it a lack of compassion, but I can't picture myself hugging hogs. We raised pigs when I was a kid. Bristles, feeding slop to greedy oinkers, boars that were mean, sows that sometimes accidentally crushed their babies, and stinky, muddy pigpens are what I remember about swine...
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When you're a little seed ... waiting (4/23/05)"While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, winter and summer, and day and night shall not cease." Genesis 8:22 "Those who sow in tears shall reap in joy. He who continually goes forth weeping, bearing seed for sowing, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him." Psalms 126:5,6...
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What are you offering? (4/9/05)Offering time. Hurry, because the collection plate's coming down the row. Time to dig through the pockets and purse. Let's see, here's some lint, a twenty, some fives, and ones. But church is about to get out and I'm starved. I need the twenty and a couple of fives to buy lunch for me and the family. I'll keep the other fives for the children's school lunch money. So here are a couple of ones and the lint, God...
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God makes me want to dance (3/12/05)"Let the heavens be glad, and let the earth rejoice; Let the sea roar, and all it contains; Let the field exult, and all that is in it. Then all the trees of the forest will sing for joy." -- Psalm 96:11,12 Praise God forevermore! The Hebrew word for "rejoice" is "agila," meaning "to spin around."...
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Unbridling our spiritual overseers (2/26/05)I understood bridles as a youngster because I grew up outside town and my family owned horses. I knew that putting a bit in a horse's mouth allowed me to control him even though he was much bigger than I. Today the ministers of the gospel are being threatened with a bit in their mouths that will control what they are allowed to preach in the pulpits of America's churches. ...
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Bring a gift to the party (2/12/05)"Let all who are around him bring presents to him who ought to be feared." (Psalms 76:11b) If you were invited to a party to honor God, and you had to bring a gift for the guest of honor, what do you think he'd most like for you to bring? Probably most weekend blue-light specials won't get God too excited. He was already creating designer clothes for Adam and Eve as they left the garden, and he is the original, so there's nothing original outside him...
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We should fear and love God (1/29/05)The Lord sat enthroned at the flood. (Psalm 29:10) When I was a child, Grandpa and Grandma had a plaque in their dining room that read, "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom." (Proverbs 9:10) Fear God? That's right -- respect! God had whole chorus lines belting it out in heaven long before Aretha Franklin, except she sang, "Just a little bit," and God wants a whole lot...
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Don't be a dead duck (1/15/05)I watched a duck die last week. Whether he didn't know any better, was injured and couldn't stay with the others, or was just a low-IQ duck, I don't know. Anyway, he sat in the lake by himself and froze. My brother's a quail hunter. He doesn't hunt when the weather's severe, though, because he doesn't want his dogs to break up a covey of quails and leave them helpless against the cold. He knows they need to stick together...
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Christmas is the story of miracles (12/24/04)For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon Me and go and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart...
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He is the lord of the harvest (10/30/04)It's autumn -- glorious, colorful, bountiful autumn when the crops are brought in and man reaps what he has sown. It's autumn -- promised by God to Noah: "While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest." (Genesis 8:22) It's autumn, time of the harvest, and God says, "He who sleeps in harvest is a son who causes shame." (Proverbs 10:5) Jesus also said "The harvest truly is great, but the laborers are few; therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest." (Luke 10:2). ...
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America, bless God! (10/9/04)"All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the Lord, and all the families of the nations shall bow down and worship before You. For the kingship and the kingdom are the Lord's, and He is the ruler over the nations." Psalm 22:27, 28 (Amplified Bible)...
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Thy will be done in my life (9/25/04)Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven. Matthew 6:10 The will of God is the desire of a father who loves his children beyond their human comprehension. God is love (I John 4:8), and what God wants for his children always flows out of his love and good will toward them...