What Will People Say about You?

After my father passed away, I was inundated with emails, texts, and voicemails from those offering their prayers and condolences. This was preceded by those expressing the same after the death of my wife’s dad just a week earlier. There’s no way to thank everyone for the

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Deep Thoughts on Inauguration Week

As we are in the week of President-Elect Trump’s inauguration, here are some general thoughts I have about the state of our country, its leadership, and other tidbits you might find interesting . . . Let’s agree on this right from the beginning: the greatest problems of

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Most College Students . . .

Most college students, when they get a break from school, usually just want to spend time relaxing, going to see movies, hanging out with friends, or possibly going to the beach. After spending months studying, reading, writing papers, walking across campus to get from one class to

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My Adventure with J.L.

My first real exposure to J.L. was in 1999 when I traveled to Africa with my pastor and great friend of J.L.’s, Mark Fox, through New Directions International (NDI, now Feed the Hunger). That trip changed my life! Little did I know that less than four years

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How a Church Dies

A recent study by the Pew Research Center found that mainline church membership is shrinking by a cool million per year. Ouch. For a country that gained its independence from England and based its founding principles around God, the church is losing its place in society. This

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Only God Could Do These Things in 2016!

As we turn the page from 2016 to 2017, it’s a good time to take a look back and remember the great things God did in 2016. On several occasions, God asked the Israelites to set up a memorial to remember the great things He had done

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A Tale of Two Fathers

I hope you were blessed by reading the Christmas devotional last month. This Christmas was anything but restful for my family. My father-in-law passed away on December 21st after a period of declining health. The morning after his funeral, my father had a heart attack and died

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It Came upon a New Year’s Eve

Read: Proverbs 6:6–11 Go to the ant, you sluggard; consider its ways and be wise! Proverbs 6:6 The start of another year is perhaps the most popular time in our culture to make life changes. We call them New Year’s resolutions. These changes are seemingly all for the

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The Post-Christmas Blues

Read: Philippians 3:7–16 But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead. Philippians 3:12b Okay, don’t read the partial verse quoted above and think I am asking you to apply this to Christmas. However, judging by how quickly everyone moves

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Christmas Conclusion

For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. John 3:17 I hope you have been blessed by this in-depth look at the stories surrounding the birth of Jesus. Perhaps you’ve been able to further

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