Category: Encouragement
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Side Blooms of the Spirit
With the recent drought, a saguaro cactus copes with the lack of water by conserving its vertical growth and opening unused budding locations further down the side of the cactus. These “side blooms” are both a cause of distress and a rare display of extra beauty. Colossians 1:28–29 says, ” Him we proclaim, warning everyone…
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A Reiki Master, A Muslim, and the World Belongs to the Lord
Three beautiful stories, all from Christianity Today: A New Age Healer Discovers a Greater Healer But I was becoming increasingly uncomfortable with the Reiki world. Every day I felt a greater burden of conviction to tell people that whatever healing they experienced during Reiki sessions was a gift from God, not me. He was the…
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Not Just a God of Something
Our modern world is filled with people and emptied of gods. In the ancient world, the reverse was true. Nearly every culture had a pantheon of deities, and every god was a god of something. These gods were vain and petty and murderous, but each had a role to play in the operation of the…
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“Come to Me”
And when Jesus completed these words, the crowds were astounded by his teaching, for he was teaching them as one who had authority and not as one of their scribes. Matthew 7:28–29 Many misinterpret the Sermon as nothing more than good advice. Matthew 7:12 (the “Golden Rule”) may in this sense be the most abused…
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“But Miss Mills was praying, and the Word of God was working…”
God picked out a couple of schoolteachers, Miss Mills and Miss Thomas, to have a large part in my coming to Christ. Miss Mills was a general science teacher, and I was one of her problem pupils. She wrote my name on her prayer list and prayed for me every day for six solid years.…
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“To what end does he bother to speak to us?”
The truly staggering answer which the Bible gives to this question is that God’s purpose in revelation is to make friends with us. It was to this end that He created us rational beings, bearing his image, able to think and hear and speak and love; He wanted there to be genuine personal affection and friendship,…