Tag: God’s love
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For the Joy Set Before Him
Imagine you can have everything you’ve ever truly wanted. Deep, perfect relationships with everyone you love. Life with God, seeing Him face to face without any cause to doubt that you are fully known and fully loved. Freedom from fear, want, and pain. Access to every answer, every good opportunity, every wonderful place and experience….
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Love Isn’t a Feeling, But We Feel It
Love isn’t a feeling, but we feel it. Sometimes with a smile, a blush, and a racing heart. Sometimes with a tear as we grieve a loved one’s death. We feel it beyond the milestone moments, mindlessly saying it back to the person we just feel so comfortable with we’ve lost track of the weight…
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What Can Separate Us?
Words like those in Romans 8:35-39 tend to come to mind and comfort us in deep hardship, like when facing death, demons, uncertain futures, and the depths suffering. But it isn’t just the “negatives” of life we feel keep us from God. “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?….. For I am convinced that…
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Just For Me
A group of us gathered in someone’s living room to work our way through the next session of a Bible study. We sat quietly as the video component ended, surprised by who spoke up in response first. “Sorry you all had to sit through that,” the quietest woman in the room grinned, “because that was…
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What You’ll Find In a Stronghold
THE LORD IS GOOD, A STRONGHOLD IN THE DAY OF TROUBLE, AND HE KNOWS THOSE WHO TAKE REFUGE IN HIM.” –NAHUM 1:7 A refuge, by itself, is a place that offers sanctuary and safety. It is a figurative expression in Scripture describing God as our security. He offers us a place that we can retreat…
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Childlike Fear
At a large event, I watched as a toddler played gleefully on the bleachers. She was unaware of her fancy dress and the decorum around her. Free and safe as she wriggled between her parents, she was happy. Then…her foot slipped. With a terrified wail, she announced to everyone in the crowd her fear and…
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A Sneaky Strategy of Sin
One of the strategies of sin is to wear us down. My husband recently said that to me, and oh did it resonate. Often, we think of temptation as a flashing sign, a beautiful handwritten invitation, or the suggestion of something alluring. We say “that’s tempting” to junk food and vacations and fun plans when…
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Why It’s Impossible to Keep God’s Love to Yourself
A sweet older lady sat in the middle of the sunlit room. Visitors gathered as she looked around the space lovingly. She spoke of the woman who lived there, and the children that woman raised. One of the children was Billy Graham. His mother’s caregiver and friend, this sweet lady had come to share stories…
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One Kind of Love I Want to Emulate
7 ½ years ago, a goofy guy made an ice cream cone man using spinach leaves and other veggies. He walked up and introduced me to his frozen friend. Ever unable to keep a straight face, I tried to hold a serious conversation with the melting monster. I don’t know if he knew I needed…
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2 Good Reasons to Trade In Self-Esteem
I have a few qualms with the simplified self-esteem mantra “you are enough.” Mostly because the statement raises more questions than it answers. What are we “enough” for? What qualifies as “enough”? Does “enough” run out, making it not enough? Who determines what “enough” is? How do we quantify “enoughness?” Is there a context for…