Blog Posts
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More Like Jesus, Week 2–Honesty
Read more: More Like Jesus, Week 2–Honesty“So, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I am about to spit you out of my mouth.” –Revelation 3:16 The words above come from the last of seven letters to a first-century church. Each letter was shared by John as part of Revelation, but unlike the other…
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More Like Jesus, Week 1–Compassion
Read more: More Like Jesus, Week 1–Compassion“When Jesus saw the crowds, he had compassion for them” –Matthew 9:36a As many readers of this blog know, I’m a life-long fan of the Atlanta Braves. My family of origin lived in metro Atlanta when that baseball team moved there in 1966 and we went to the very first…
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Fruitful Labors
Read more: Fruitful Labors“I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last.” –John 15:16b For the first three years after college, I worked for the Bell System in North Carolina. As an undergraduate economics major, my goal had been to climb the corporate ladder and in those days AT&T was…
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The Gift of Sight
Read more: The Gift of Sight“And immediately something like scales fell from his eyes, and his sight was restored.”–Acts 9:18a This week marks one year since my retirement. The past twelve months have brought all kinds of adjustments and nearly all of them good ones. Yet the anniversary has also caused me to think back…
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Living with the Questions
Read more: Living with the Questions“As Jesus walked along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, ‘Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents that he was born blind?’–John 9:1-2 Ten years ago this month, I visited the community where three wonderful chapters of my life began. A few days after…
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Believe it or Not
Read more: Believe it or Not“They said to her, ‘You are out of your mind’” –Acts 12:15a As part of a family vacation a few years back, we spent a week at a North Carolina beach. The coast south of Wilmington has long been a favorite and as part of this journey we made a…
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Learning From Him
Read more: Learning From Him“Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.”–Matthew 11:29 In officiating at funerals, I often open with these words of Jesus: “Come unto me, all you who are weary and are carrying heavy…
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Weep or Laugh?
Read more: Weep or Laugh?“A time to weep, and a time to laugh”–Ecclesiastes 3:4a Once as part of a summer trip, Lori and I pulled into a hotel lot in Milwaukee. We had been on the road since early that morning, having had a good visit with family in Michigan’s upper peninsula, but the…
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Brave Words
Read more: Brave Words“Nathan said to David, ‘You are the man!’”––2 Samuel 12:7a One summer during my seminary years I worked for a cooperative ministry group in Huttonsville, West Virginia. The purpose of that organization was to provide assistance to the poorest individuals of that county who couldn’t afford needed repairs on their…
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A VBS Threat
Read more: A VBS Threat“But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the age to remove sins by the sacrifice of himself.” –Hebrews 9:26b One day, I was waiting in line at the North Carolina Department of Motor Vehicles office. This was in the era before the improvements…