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Christian Living

Who Teaches You?

Do Sermons Belong in Church? We go to church to learn about God, right? So sermons belong in church, right? Who told you that? It was likely the minister at your local church. That’s who I’ve heard it from, and church is always the place where I heard it. Isn’t that self-serving? Think about it. […]

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Christian Living

Don’t Compartmentalize Your Faith

If Our Beliefs Are Important to Us, We’ll Make Them Part of Every Aspect of Our Life Have you ever met someone out of your normal context and were surprised at what you saw or heard? This is a person who compartmentalizes their faith. They have a work persona, a leisure-time persona, and a family […]

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Christian Living

Freedom in Jesus

Our Right Standing with Christ Frees Us from Rules, but Don’t Abuse This Freedom Jesus’s sacrificial death releases us from the obligation of Old Testament laws. We have freedom in Jesus and don’t need to follow rules. Instead, we follow Jesus. Yet we need to guard against getting carried away with our freedom. The Bible […]

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Christian Living

Let’s Reclaim Easter Before It Loses All Meaning

Remember to Celebrate Jesus this Easter According to those who track public thought and opinion, the majority of people don’t realize that Easter is a religious holiday—or at least a holiday with a religious origin. Given this, we must reclaim Easter for what it means. The commercialization of Easter is strange. To start, we have […]

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Christian Living

Which is More Important, Good Friday or Easter?

Should Christians Focus on Worshiping Jesus Who Suffered or Jesus Who Rose from the Dead? As we moved through Lent to approach Holy Week we anticipate four significant days: Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter (which some call Resurrection Sunday). The last two, Good Friday and Easter, stand as momentous occasions for all […]

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Christian Living

What Happened to the Emergent Church?

The Emergent Church Seeks to be Biblically Relevant for Postmodern People Ten to fifteen years ago, it seemed that every time I turned around I heard something about the emergent church. I wrote about this in my dissertation, with one long chapter devoted to the topic. My thoughts on the emergent church were greatly influenced […]

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Christian Living

Thoughts We Should Avoid

We Must Take Care What We Put in Our Minds for They Drive Our Attitudes and Actions We talked about why we need to be careful with what we say. Then we shared some biblical tips to guard our thoughts, since what we think about often flows out of our mouth. Let’s consider some thoughts […]

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Christian Living

What Is a Micro Church?

Bigger Isn’t Always Better and the Micro Church Proves This In another post we discussed the emergent church. Today we shift the discussion to micro church. Emergent church and micro church, are these alternate labels for the same thing or different? The answer is maybe. The concept of a micro church can go by different […]

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Christian Living

Take Every Thought Captive

Discover How to Control Your Thoughts Our brain is our most powerful organ, which makes our mind a significant part of us. That’s how God created us. With our mind we can accomplish much, but through it is also the potential to lead us into wrong thinking, guide us into sin, and take us away […]

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Christian Living

Who Says We Should Give 10 Percent to the Local Church?

Fundamentalist preachers twist what the Bible says and misapply it for their own benefit I was taught to give 10 percent of my money to church. I’ve heard many evangelical preachers assert that their followers had to give 10 percent to the local church. It was a tithe, an obligation. You could, of course, give […]