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Sing a New Song
We all love old music. Whether it’s centuries old or even just a few months, the tunes we enjoy most are unavoidably the ones we already know. And there’s no getting around it. Music has a strange...
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Jack Is Back: Why We Want More
Our heroes — fictional or nonfictional — inevitably end up shaping our picture of God. Consciously or not we will project what we admire or praise in others onto the supremely admirable and...
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When Mission Gets Real
We make an inevitable understatement.Jesus tells his disciples in Matthew 28:18, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.” The right to rule everything belongs to him. All existence...
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Our Last Child Leaves Home
Our last child — our only daughter, our only adopted one — just graduated from high school. As you may imagine, this is a time for reflection. We have had children in our home — in our marriage — for...
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You Won’t Waste Your Life
Could you give your life to making Jesus known in an obscure, rural area?This is a good question to ask ourselves. While the statistics say that an increasing percentage of the world’s population lives...
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Walking the Wedding Aisle Without Your Virginity
A young man recently emailed this question in to the Ask Pastor John podcast:Pastor John, I want to propose to my girlfriend, and as I prepare for marriage thoughts of my past mistakes come to mind. I...
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When Joy Is Hard to Come By
You’re not alone in your struggle for joy.With remaining sin in our hearts, brokenness in our lives, and fallenness in our world, every Christian experiences seasons where we simply don’t feel the joy....
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Why We Educate Our Girls
On April 14, 2014, the terrorist Islamist group called Boko Haram kidnapped over 270 girls, most between 16 and 18, from the Chibok Government Girls Secondary School in northeast Nigeria.Boko Haram...
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Hope for the Despairing Heart
The gospel saved me.“That’s elementary,” you might be thinking. Yes, the gospel, the truths of Jesus’s life, death, and resurrection, appropriated by faith, have saved me for all eternity. But that’s...
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Preparing to Worship in Attending a Wedding
It’s the beginning of the wedding season, which for many of us will mean multiple opportunities to witness afresh the symbolic representation of Christ’s covenant with his church.Of course, this is...
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Confessions of a Grown-Up Momma’s Boy
Mothers are mind-blowing people if you stop to look at them.In their body, they can carry, feed, protect, and eventually deliver a child — a human being, like you or me. They often set aside personal...
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The Long Arc of Real Love
Packed away in the laundry room of my basement, off the beaten paths of normal household traffic, smashed together with the dried-up ladybugs and an occasional spider, are twenty garbage bags filled...
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When Waiting Doesn’t Work
Fifty-one years ago this spring, thirty-four-year-old Martin Luther King, Jr. sat in a Birmingham jail cell, technically because he had been “parading without a permit.” But that was a sham. Everyone...
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Don’t Give Up on Don
This weekend, in an interview with Anderson Cooper, Donald Sterling has asked for forgiveness.Now, you won’t have to listen to the interview very long before you’ll be tempted to raise questions about...
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Soul Food for Mom
Is it normal to wander into the kitchen and open the refrigerator multiple times while you are standing there? (I’m asking for a friend.)It’s a mindless, yet hopeful habit. Who knows? Maybe something...
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Finding Joy in the Clouds
A few months ago, I made a startling discovery.In Scripture, clouds are associated with the very presence of God.Before my surprising insight, my view of clouds had been entirely negative. I’d never...
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Good News: You Can’t Do It
It’s common practice among some Christians to say, “You must be born again,” in such a way that it is equivalent to the command to repent and trust in Christ. However, as Sinclair Ferguson reminds us,...
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True Kinship in God’s Family
Recently, I had the amazing joy of welcoming into the world my newest niece and nephew. It’s a privilege beyond measure to be called an uncle.However, by all natural accounts, this is an impossible...
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Getting Clear on Evangelism
We might have evangelism mixed up.When evangelism is often discussed, it tends to focus on how churches mobilize their people to get out and connect with unbelievers. But when we think in these terms,...
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Ten Reasons to Memorize Big Chunks of the Bible
You can memorize big chunks, even books, of the Bible. Unless you’re part of the very small percentage of us who’ve suffer from a traumatic brain injury or stroke or disability, you really can. And you...
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