Our Father . . . , Give us . . . forgive us . . . deliver us. Matthew 6:9–13 There is not a single first-person pronoun in the model prayer. Most people pray about “I,” “me,” and “my,” but none of these words appear in this prayer that Jesus taught His disciples to pray....
We all carry our own personal atmosphere with us wherever we go. All of us live in an environment, be it peace or anger, joy or sadness, hope or despair. Just like individuals and churches have a “personality,” so do marriages. There are things that you do, or don’t do, that create the atmosphere in...
There’s a time to walk away from harmful relationships, but there are many times when you just need some space. When someone blows up, you may need to back away from them for a season. But never allow an isolated incident or difference of opinion be the cause of severing a meaningful relationship. Sooner or...
You attract what you are... right? Churches tend to assimilate people who look alike, think alike, vote alike, dress alike, sound/sing alike, earn alike, sin alike, etc., right? So what about the mixture of nationalities and cultures that comprised the early church: Greeks, Jews, Barbarians, Scythians, etc. (see Col. 3:11)? How were they able to unite such cultural diversity in this new organism called the church?
"Heretic" means divider or one who causes schism. We think of modern heresy-hunters as those who sniff out doctrinal error and expose it. But Biblically speaking, heretics are those who bring needless division. They use a magnifying glass to discover blemishes, or points of disagreement, in and with others.