He loves you and guides you!
Ask fifty people to finish the statement "Live As If" and you are likely to get fifty different answers. For Christians it will mean something different than for non-Christians. Incorporated into the top graphic are the answers given by friends of mine. It is our desire that your answer will be different each time you visit.
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Politics With The One You Love
'Inspiration For You' from Randy Mitchell
More than likely, while getting to know someone for the purpose of forming a romantic relationship, the subject of politics will eventually boil to the surface. You'll be sharing that bag of buttered popcorn waiting for a movie to start, chit chatting in a restaurant looking forward to your favorite meals to be served, watching the news, or lying in bed when all of a sudden sloppy smiles appear, or explosive hair-pulling begins making the gloves fly off while discussing the latest political headlines. After all politics, and probably religion are two of the most debated subjects
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Bible and Quote - May 19 -23
'Bible verse and quote' from Jan Couns
(after the enemy fled from battle) Joab left off fighting the Ammonites and returned to Jerusalem. the Syrians. regrouped (and) sent for the Syrians who were across the River. 2 Samuel 10:14-16
Partial defeat stirs up our foes to stronger struggles. Alexander Maclaren, 1826-1910, British Baptist expository preacher
When (the enemy’s regrouping) was told to David, he gathered all Israel, crossed over the Jordan and defeated them and they made peace with Israel. 2 Samuel 10:17-19a
Why try to fight the battle on the field of (the enemy’s)
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Eucharisteo: Jesus Saved Me
'God's Words For US' from Cecelia Lester
I write a list of God’s gifts to me throughout the year. Salvation is the best gift God gives his children.
As we enter the season of Thanksgiving, we spend time reflecting on what God has done in our lives, what he has given us, and we express our gratitude. Where would I be if Jesus hadn’t saved me? All I know is I would not be where I am nor who I am today.
Jesus spoke to an insecure teenager and said, “I can take care of those worries and fears you have.” But she really didn’t understand.
The LORD spoke
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My Dad
'Chip Shots from the Ruff of Life' from Tom Kelley
When I was six years old I noticed that there were other people who must have been a whole lot older than be just because they were all bigger. My parents kept telling me that I would grow bigger the older I got. Mom told me one time that I asked her, "Is Dad really old? He's so big." Dad was, to a six year old, huge. Now, he wouldn't have been very big at all.
Dad was, in his prime, almost six feet two inches tall. He was very slim built possessing a metabolism that could have fueled the electricity for our little town. He weighed all of one hundred and sixty five pounds
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Lest Anyone Should Boast
''Winging It' from Stan Smith
I recently finished Rosaria Butterfield's The Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert. This is not a review of the book. If you don't know who she is, she was a leftist, lesbian professor that despised Christians ... and then became one. Good story. She was redeemed and actually turned her life over to Christ. She has drawn a lot of fire from the LGBT community because she stopped being a lesbian and married a pastor. There was one part in her story, after she was a pastor's wife, that shocked me. It shouldn't have, but it did.
She wrote about talking to a woman at a church that
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The School of Hard Knocks
'The Way' from Kevin Pauley
Don’t fool yourself into thinking that you are a listener when you are anything but, letting the Word go in one ear and out the other. Act on what you hear! – Js. 1:22
There seems to be a loss of connection between what student nurses are taught and what they need when they work in hospital wards. They find it difficult to bring together and make sensible their theory (school of nursing) and their practice (hospital ward). This gap between theory and practice is not a situation confined to social work and nursing. The same problem besets those who work in
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For Love's Sake (1-25-11)
'Today's Little Lift' from Jim Bullington
As an apostle of Christ, Paul had more authority (power) at his disposal than any person now living! He could heal the sick, cast out evil spirits, strike certain people blind (such as Elymas the sorcerer), and even raise the dead (see Acts 9.12; 13.11; 20.9-12). Yet to Philemon, he wrote, "Therefore, though I might be very bold in Christ to command you what is fitting, yet for love's sake I rather appeal to you…" (Philemon 1.8-10). In spite of his tremendous authority, Paul refused to command Philemon to receive Onesimus back; rather, he appealed to him out of love
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God Undertakes a Big Job Setting His People Free from Babylon
'Word from Scotland' from Sandy Shaw
We are reading in Isaiah Chapter 41 where Isaiah speaks specifically to Babylon, which lies 60 miles south of modern Baghdad. God is speaking to Babylon through Isaiah.
I am stirring up someone from the east. God is raising up Cyrus of Persia to conquer Babylon, and set Israel free to return
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The Blame Stops Here!
'Voice of Inspiration' from Andy Castro
I’ve heard it for years. The “Blame Game”. Family, friends and co-workers blame, blame, blame. I did it for many years. But what good does it do? Does it somehow solve problems? Does it strengthen relationships? Does it insure a strong future for you or others? Of course not.
So why blame?
v Blame can give us a false sense of self-confidence.
+ If we fail at a project or relationship, blaming someone else could make us feel as if we gave it our best shot.
v It can shift negative attention off us and cast else where.
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Hard to believe people are human?
'Refreshment in Refuge' from Gina Burgess
Job 11:12 For an empty-headed man will be wise when a wild donkey's colt is born a man.
I have talked about this verse before in an earlier column. Can't you just hear the exasperation and the deep frustration? I can and it makes me laugh. It reminds me of Solomon saying "Living with a contentious woman is like incessant, dripping rain." (Loose paraphrase).
And here is another one, Proverbs 11:22 As a ring of gold in a swine's snout, So is a lovely woman who lacks discretion. That is so true and said with such a twist of humor I can't help but laugh at
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The Bible And You (2)
''Christ in You...'' from Dale Krebbs
(The following was originally posted in 2010) The Bible and You (2) God’s written Word - the Bible - has been given through the Holy Spirit, as "light" to all mankind. It is the living Word of Jesus, who IS the light of all the world, as we saw in part one last week. It is THE "lighthouse" for the stormy and frightening sea of this world - the only way to the shore for safety.. It is the compass, the point of reference for all humanity. So many analogies could be made, and still not remotely express the importance of the Bible. It is the only way home
My home congregation, the Jeffersonville (OH) Church of Christ, celebrated her fiftieth anniversary with a rather grand to do this past weekend. I was the first Timothy from my home church. I was the first person sent into the fields that are white unto the harvest by this group of people who were working their neighborhood field. I got to share my God given talent with them which I had already done while with them. I had sung a number
Daily Refractions
Words to Ponder
Try to make every message such that the most flippant shall see without any doubt that, if it is an amusement for them to hear you, it is no amusement for you to speak to them, but that you are pleading with them in downright solemn earnest about eternal matters. I have often felt just like this when I have been preaching. I have known what it is to use up all my ammunition, and then I have, as it were, rammed myself into the great gospel gun and fired myself at my hearers - all my experience of God's goodness, all my consciousness of sin, and all my sense of the power the Gospel. - Charles H. Spurgeon (1834-92)
'Daily Reading Plan'
from StudyLight.org
Bible-in-a-Year NAS
2 Chronicles 23; Psalms 80; John 15:1-16:4:
And they went throughout Judah and gathered the Levites from all the cities of Judah, and the heads of the fathers' households of Israel, and they came to Jerusalem. Then all the assembly made a covenant with the king in the house of God. And Jehoiada said to them, "Behold, the king's son shall reign, as the LORD has spoken concerning the sons of David. "This is the thing which you shall do: a third of you, of the priests and Levites who come in