Reflections
My Lord and My God
“…Jesus came and stood among them and said, ‘Peace be with you!’Then he said to Thomas, ‘Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.’” (John 20:26b-27 NIV) A few weeks after my mom passed away last year, I was drawn to the…
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Resurrection: Saved from Self-Reliance
“For I had decided to be concerned about nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified.” (1 Corinthians 2:2 NET) “We preach Christ and Christ crucified.” I’ve said that phrase more times than I can count. I’ve meant it every time. And yet this Easter, something about it keeps stopping me mid-breath. Not because…
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GIVE LIFE!
“But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.” (Romans 8:11 NAS95) God has brought this verse to mind repeatedly in recent days. I think Easter…
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The Kingdom Moves at the Speed of Friendship
“But Ruth said, ‘Do not urge me to leave you or to return from following you. For where you go I will go, and where you lodge I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God my God.”(Ruth 1:16 ESV) I’ve been thinking a lot lately about pace. Not the pace of…
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The Surprise of Friendship
“A man of many companions may come to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.” (Proverbs 18:24 ESV) I met my best friend (the one that’s not my wife) on the first day of Hermeneutics class in our freshman year of university. To give some context, I was rigid. I had…
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Friends for Life
“Friends come and friends go, but a true friend sticks by you like family.” (Proverbs 18:24 MSG) As a global worker I find it difficult when I make new friends and then they quickly move away because of whatever reason. I remember about 20 years ago, there was a new person at our church in Prague. I…
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A Friend
“A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity.” (Proverbs 17:17 ESV) I had a conversation recently with a friend where I apologised for having been a bad friend. Basically, I was sharing some personal struggles and failures with him not because I wanted the support of a friend, but because…
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Friendship with God
“but I have called you friends, for all things that I have heard from My Father I have made known to you.” (John 15:15 NAS95) I’ve spent the last 15 years taking a daily, slow, repeated, awarenessful walk through the Gospels. I say awarenessful (odd word, right?) because my desire focused on paying attention to…
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Sharing God’s love
Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. -1 John 4:8 Making mixed CDs was all the rage when I was in middle school. There was something so enjoyable about collecting songs on your computer, selecting and arranging them, then copying them onto CDs to share with friends. If I put…
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God’s Love
“But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: the steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.”(Lamentations 3:21-23 ESV) Much of my life, I have treated love as transactional—like the formation of a hypothesis lived out. If I do…
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