Spring arrives with blessings and curses. Daylight lasts longer, days warm up, plants grow. Consider those not only as blessings but also as curses. Why? Undesired weeds abound along with desired plants. While I put in a front patio with pavers and a lattice cover and pots and a drip system and plants, the weeds on our south bank took full advantage of my neglect and spring’s blessings. The curse of spring. Four days of weeding on a steep slope moved the undesired plants into four wheelbarrow loads, like the one above. I couldn’t avoid...
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Give It Up
If Jesus asked you to give up your biggest obstacle to following him, what would it be? No, that’s not rhetorical, but real. Here are some ...
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image from NBC News
I Am The Greatest!
When we hear the line, “I am the greatest,” many think of Muhammad Ali. Even before some current politicians. He crashed into our awareness when he took the Olympic gold medal in 1960 and smashed the invincible Sonny Liston for the heavyweight championship in 1964 (above pic). This remarkable athlete and poet described himself as “pretty,” loved the limelight and adulation, and even took on the US government and won. Quite a man, who later fought Parkinson’s until his death in 2016. But before we mourn his and other’s lack of humility, maybe we need to look inward a bit. Don’t we all face the same issue? What caused Adam and Eve to change the outcome of the world? They wanted importance and power. What caused Cain to kill Abel? He wanted to do things as he desired. And as I studied “Just Jesus” this week, another example crushed me.
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Chaotic Devotions
I love Jesus. I appreciate personally knowing the transcendent Creator of the universe (one of my books, A Passionate Pursuit of God, focuses on this). I realize the need to nurture this relationship regularly. Not once a week, not even once a day, but moment by moment. And I’ve tried just about every method suggested by those who know. Daily devotion books. Christian living books. Study guides. Practicing the presence. And they have all worked. Until…
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America's Greatest Idol
OK, true confession time. I watched “American Idol.” Not recently, mostly in the early years. Some performers caused me to cringe and almost resurrected my desire to be a rock star—almost. Others I grew to appreciate, and enjoy hearing their music on the radio or Pandora. However, the premise of the show stimulated some thoughts. If an idol represents ultimate value, then what is America’s idol? Or, more specifically, might the American church, at times, have an idol we value more than God?
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Take Five...Or Fifteen
The stack of pavers, the kneeling pad, the hammer and brick set chisel, the wheelbarrow with a shovel, and the saw, all suggest a work scene. And it even has a worker, with torn jeans and a sore on the knee…and the sweat stains on his chest indicate some work might have been done. But no one’s working. He’s sitting back with a cold drink. Why? He’s trying to copy Jesus. Really?
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Image by Lynden Huggins
Your Spiritual Target
If you aim at nothing, you’re bound to hit it. But if you aim at a target, nail it dead center, yet choose the wrong target, you hit the same thing—nothing. Think of the above target, all of it, as faith. What’s the bull’s eye at the center? What’s the core of following Jesus? Some state verbal assent will do it, saying Jesus is Savior. That’s certainly a ring—confessing Jesus. Others proclaim the importance of being a good person. That’s another ring—obedience. Yet more will tell you that believing the right things hits the bull’s eye. That’s another ring—correct doctrine.
But while good, these all miss the core, which Jesus gave...
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"Men's Journal"
Do you sometimes feel like two totally different, contradictory people? Compassionate at times, inconsiderate at others. Generous and stingy. Spiritual and sinful. And do you wonder which is the real you? Or are both? I share that dilemma. Some anonymous friend, knowing my soul…
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