Tag: Grace
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The Heart of God vs the Hardened Heart
There’s a scene from the first Incredibles movie that reminds me of the text we’ll be reading this Sunday. Mr. Incredible is a superhero forced into retirement who had taken on a job as an insurance salesman. He keeps looking after his customers best interests, which gets him called into his boss’s office. Rather than…
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The Gospel in Unity
The most tolerant dog in the world. Tolerance is a oft-used word in our present world. I’m not always convinced we are using the word correctly. Tolerance implies that there is an objection to something – but that objection is intentionally set aside for the sake of peace or unity. Unfortunately, tolerance, as presented on…
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The Struggle is Real
Have you ever seen one of those experiments where they secretly record what happens when someone encounters a sign which says “wet paint, do not touch”? It’s pretty amazing to see how often people, and especially children, seem compelled to touch what has been forbidden. Come to think of it…have you ever encountered a sign…
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Grace and Rewards
N.T. Wright, in his “Everyone” commentary on Matthew, shares a story, in typical British fashion, about a fox hunt he had witnessed as a boy (this is not to endorse such a thing, just his account). He described the riders in red coats atop of fine brown horses that blew trumpets and led the way…
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Traditional Troubles
Apparently, Christmas isn’t a national holiday in Japan, but they still celebrate it. How they celebrate, however, is somewhat unusual. It seems that back in the 1970’s, the company behind KFC decided to do some intense marketing to the Japanese people, so they pushed KFC as the perfect way to celebrate Christmas. The idea caught on, and…
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The Folly of Mere Religion
Did you know that according to a law in Orlando, if you leave an Elephant at a parking meter, you have to pay the full fee that you would pay for a car? Some insist that no such law ever existed, but others are adamant about it. It’s hard to say, but we do know…
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God’s Healing Rule
What are your first thoughts when you read the letters IRS together? Do you have negative or positive feelings about this agency? That’s sort of a rhetorical question, I don’t know many people who get the warm and fuzzies when it comes to our government tax agency. As John Oliver says, “It’s no wonder people…
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An Unsettling Grace
Whoops! Got invited to go fishing and forgot to update Wonderwhat. Sorry about that. This Sunday we will be doing our final study in the book of Jonah. What a fun ride this has been! We’ll be reading all of Jonah 4. Does a movie with really happy ending ever cause you to be furious…
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A Scandalous Love
Imagine you’ve been asked to a dinner party for the small company you work for. When dinner is done and people are sitting and chatting while dishes are being taken away, your boss has quietly gone to the corner of the room and stripped down to his underwear and with a jug of bottled water,…
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The Sign in the Wine
Our passage for this Sunday is John 2:1-12 as we continue our study in the Gospel of John. It’s a very famous story – Jesus doing the remarkable thing of transforming ordinary water into extraordinary wine. It is the opening story in a section of stories that have the theme of the old being…
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