The word Noel stems from a Latin word that means "to be born." Jehovah Jireh, Yahweh Nissi, Jehovah Raphe, all those many beautiful names for God from the Old Testament found themselves in the company of another name for God when Jesus was born… Immanuel. God with us. I long for Noel but I’m reminded that birth is messy business. If we've...
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If you and I want gratitude to grow in our lives, we may need to look for weeds and be prepared to eliminate them. Guilt is a weed that can choke out gratitude. If we’re not careful, we may feel so guilty over what we have that we overlook that God has been our Great Provider. Busyness can keep gratitude from growing....
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Our bodies are marvels of engineering. • Our tongue is covered in about 8,000 taste buds, each containing up to 100 cells helping you taste your food! All in all, God gave us some 800,000 cells in our tongues just for the pleasure of taste! • The entire surface of our skin is replaced every month, which means we have approximately 1,000...
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Years ago, I had been working on a writing project. As I shared my vision for it, the listener asked me about my motivation for writing. She caught me off-guard, and I responded in a way that surprised me. I told her I never knew life would be so hard and wanted to write something that offered hope. I didn't intend to...
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"God is love." The Apostle John wrote it. In today's culture, we often hear, "Love is love." As if love is the defining characteristic––the seat of identification. But A.W. Tozer doesn't let us off the hook with this line of thinking. In fact, he's in our faces about the importance of grasping what "God is love" really means. He says, "Equating love...
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It’s taken me until my late 50’s to finally understand the phrase “watershed moment.” I’ve heard it many times. I probably have used it many times, but I don’t think I really appreciated all the nuances of the phrase. I was reading a book describing a pivot point in the life of a US President. This president was faced with a...
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Service rooted in anything other than love for another isn't service. It is slavery. God wants more than that for us and more than that for the ones we serve. I'm guessing that many of us could look back and recall a situation in which we were indeed served. I'll also guess that we may be able to remember a time...
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I'm reading a great book on how to understand your dog. The author is intelligent, so she uses big words. Are you ready for one? Anthropomorphism. The word describes what we do when we attribute human characteristics to non-human beings or things. My new, big word nagged at me as a shift occurred in my heart this past week. I was reading...
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Years ago, a friend and I were lamenting over our overwhelming "to-do lists" when she said something that, to this day, I still think about. She said, "The thing I keep reminding myself of is this… I'm an infinite being, and my to-do lists are finite. Somehow that helps me keep things in perspective." We are infinite beings! Even though the lists,...
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Stillness is often synonymous with quiet. When we are still we are experiencing a complete lack of movement, or change of position. How ironic. Because I could testify that in moments of my stillness God has moved mountains. Mountains of doubt. Mountains of fear. Mountains of confusion. Mountains of unforgiveness. Pick a mountain and my God has moved it when I am still. My position changes from...
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