Getting Through YOUR Gethsemanes.

March 14, 2013 By 2 Comments
Gethsemane

Watching a 3-D movie without 3-D glasses is a bland and boring experience. Looking at your life through the wrong lens can be the same way. Without the proper lens, the picture is flat, the colors confusing and the characters lifeless. However, the moment you look through the right lens, the images come to life. The events in the life of Jesus bring meaning to the events of our own. As a matter of fact, the ups and downs, the joys and challenges of our lives as Christians can be quite confusing to us unless we learn to view our lives in the light of His. The final week in Jesus’ life … [Read more...]

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When God Sees A Soul: Jesus’ P.O.V.

August 3, 2012 By Leave a Comment
eyes of Christ

  What was Jesus’ P.O.V.? And how did he view the places, people and things around him? If you could see the world now the way Jesus saw it then, just what would it look like, how would the people appear, and what would you look like? P.O.V. is a literary and theatrical term used to describe Point Of View. POV is simply the viewpoint, angle or spectrum through which someone observes settings, situations or people. In movies and television, stories are usually seen through the “lens” of one specific character at a time. In novel writing, the story is told through one main … [Read more...]

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The Emotional Jesus: His Ups & Downs

June 15, 2012 By 1 Comment
Jesus wept

(From The Presence & The Power by Gerald Hawthorne, Wipf & Stock Publishers, 1991) “The Gospels … stress the fact that Jesus was indeed a human being simply by recording that he, too, experienced those things – little and big – that go into making up human existence, such as paying taxes, heartily eating and drinking, climbing into fishing boats, and so on (see Matt. 17:24-26; 11:19; 9:1). They note that he was hungry, thirsty, and weary (Matt. 21:18; Luke 4:2; John 4:6-8), in fact, so weary that he was able to fall sound asleep in the cramped quarters of a small boat in a … [Read more...]

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How Good is “Good Enough”?

May 9, 2012 By Leave a Comment
overcoming feelings of inadequacy

  “I’m sick of your religion, religion, religion…” - Isaiah 1:14 The Message “It will be an ill day for us if what most humans mean by ‘religion’ ever vanishes from the Earth. It can still send us the truly delicious sins. The fine flower of unholiness can grow only in the close neighborhood of the Holy. Nowhere do we tempt so successfully as on the very steps of the altar.” - Senior “devil” Screwtape in a speech at the “Annual Dinner of the Tempter’s Training College for Young Devils” (from C.S. Lewis’ popular parody, The Screwtape Letters) One of my … [Read more...]

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Was Jesus Religious?

May 8, 2012 By Leave a Comment
why-i-hate-religion-but-love-jesus-spoken-word-video

“I’m after mercy, not religion.” Hosea 6:6 The Message “Christ came when all things were growing old. He made them new.” Augustine Would Jesus be comfortable attending an average church service today? I’m not so sure. You have to wonder at least, don’t you? First, I’m not so sure he would sit still for that long. Second, in some churches, if Jesus showed up as a visitor, he would be ignored. In others, just plain bored. Even though in our church architecture we have certainly succeeded in stamping him onto our stain glass windows, I’m not so sure we could … [Read more...]

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