Monday, August 23, 2004
Turn the other cheek.
This is one of the hardest teachings of the sermon on the mount. Some people dismiss it and say the sermon was for people in Jesus' time and not for us. Some make it the foundation of the practical side of theology. (Faith and Practice is the general term for Christian theology.) When I was young, I...
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Saturday, August 21, 2004
Denominational Boundaries
are disappearing. A lot of people think its a bad thing. I think it is good. Denominations were formed out of past controversies and ethnic differences. Even the divisions between Catholics and Protestants are disappearing. The divide now is between liberals and conservatives. In many places the...
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Friday, August 20, 2004
Forgiveness can be hard
if you misunderstand what forgiveness is. First of all it is not excusing the hurtful actions. Second it is not a healing of the relationship. Third it is not a sign of weakness. Fourth, its requires help from a higher power. Forgiveness is divine. So what is it? Forgiveness is saying that you no...
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Participation
This is a sore point for me in churches. I am welcome to bring cookies, to wait on tables, even work on the bulletin in the office. I am not welcome to teach Sundday School, lead a Bible study or assist the pastor. Why? Because I have never been "loyal" or to pretend that I'm dumber than the others...
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Thursday, August 19, 2004
Prayer
I've had too many of those "please help me, God," prayers and not enough of the actual conversations. When I have those type of prayers, my situations are elevated to a spiritual level instead of the level of the mundane or despair. If we believe that we are going to live forever and believe that...
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Wednesday, August 18, 2004
Compassion and Ethics
This is a response to Evangeline's argument concerning stem cell research. It can be argued that we must do whatever we can to prevent the deaths of young adults and children to painful illness. After all they are our loved ones and they deserve better. There was an experiment on black prisoners in...
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Tuesday, August 17, 2004
Kim and God
Kim is my sponsee. She met God in jail. Her grandmother was a Catholic and she wanted to find out more information about Catholics. She went to the library and organized all of the books into categories. She found books about other religions and general religious books, but nothing about...
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Monday, August 16, 2004
Truth in Cliches
One of the cliches is "It is always darket before the dawn. There seems to be a point when things get so bad and then the relief starts and things improve. One of the good things that came out of Brenda's crisis was that she became willing to d something about her problem. Without her cooperations,...
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Sunday, August 15, 2004
LIving by Faith
One of the hardest things for Christians to grasp is that we live by faith not by sight. Many Christians would like to have visions and a prophetic word, but most of the time, God speaks to our spirit and that is how we know what to do. During times of stress when everything seems upside down, then...
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Saturday, August 14, 2004
Long Term Marriage
My husband and I have been married 26 years. When our twin daughters were small, our marriage was difficult, but with the help of counseling, we muddled through. Since then our marriage has been basically good. The illness of our daughters has been stressful but we have pulled together rather than...
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