One year when my kids were in high school, their football team played its local rival in our "Hometown Throwdown." As usual, it was a nail-biter of a game. They were ahead for a long time. Then we caught up. Then they were ahead, then we caught up. The final score was determined in the last 2-3 ...
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faith
Filled WITH the Fruit of Faith
Have you ever visited a magnificent garden? The kind you see in movies? An expansive, perfectly manicured lawn. Walkways with row after row of fragrant flowers in perfect bloom. Hanging bridges that span across small lakes. We have such a place in Houston. And it's open to the public.
Every ...
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Faith WITHOUT Good Works is Useless
Have you ever been grocery shopping for your evening meal and had someone come to mind and you thought, Hmmm. I need to make an extra pan and take it over them. Maybe you knew what was going on with them, maybe you didn't. But when you delivered dinner, you were met with surprise and deep ...
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We Can’t Please God WITHOUT Faith
The assignment was due at 11:59 p.m. She uploaded it a few minutes after 11:00. Then...I heard a gasp and, "Only two pages?"
Yesterday I wrote about Hope--not earthly hope, but biblical hope. I was fixing to be (yes, I am from Texas) tested in this very area--although it took me a while to ...
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Are You Drowning, Desperate, Confused? What Is Your Lifeline?
I stood in a wide hallway, crowded with bewildered parents--all in a rush to find their way to the next class. In an attempt to block out the noise, I pressed my phone tightly to my ear so I could hear my daughter's voice. I had just five minutes to make it from one end of the school to the other. I ...
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The Struggle is Real!
Several months ago, while dropping off one of my daughter’s friends, I heard from the backseat, Strugggulll! Apparently she was having difficulty unlatching her seatbelt. A few weeks later I heard her say, The struggle is real!
Curious, I asked my girls about it. Because really, I don’t think ...
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![This week in our small group study, I felt the Lord’s gentle chastisement.
We looked at the promise in Luke 11:28, “He [Jesus] replied, ‘Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it.’”
At first glance, the promise of blessing comes from obedience. But it’s much more.
In the preceding verses, Jesus had cast out a demon that caused a man to be mute. The crowd accused Him of casting out a demon with Satan’s power.
Jesus explained how ridiculous it would be for Satan to drive out his own demons. Then a woman cries out, “Blessed is the mother who gave you birth and nursed you,” (v 27).
This is the sticking point. Jesus was in the middle of an important discourse when this woman interrupts Him. He corrects her with this:
✨ Blessed are those who HEAR the word of God and obey it.
That word HEAR means to LISTEN with FULL ATTENTION.
✨ We cannot truly obey God if we don’t know what He’s saying to us.
Basically, Jesus told this woman, and the others in the crowd, “Pay attention!! Don’t get distracted from my voice. I have important things to tell you. You won’t know what they are and what I want you to do, if all you’re thinking about is what you want to say or how you can gain attention. Put your attention on ME.”
It’s never fun to be Jesus’s object lesson.
The questions I’m asking myself …
✨ What keeps me from spending time alone with Jesus?
✨ When I finally get alone with Him, what distracts me?
✨ What keeps me from focusing on God’s Word?
✨ What causes my kind to wander when I’m praying?
➡️ Eliminating distractions …
➡️ Exercising discipline …
… to bring every thought captive to the obedience of Christ (2 Corinthians 10:5)
… brings true blessing.
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