Tag: identity
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In Your House and Beyond Your Gates
“You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates” (Deuteronomy 6:9). Sometimes we wonder … my life is a normal life, simple and unremarkable, so where can I serve God? In our homes. To friends and guests when we meet them where they are and provide a safe haven to…
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Guide My Mind; Guide My Hands
“You shall bind them [God’s words] as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes” (Deuteronomy 6:8). Our hands symbolize our actions, all we do. Our forehead or “between [our] eyes” represents our minds, all we think. And God’s Word is to be our guide for both. So when…
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Small, Simple … Sweet.
“And God said, “Let the earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind, on the earth.” And it was so” (Genesis 1:11, emphasis added). Our God is a God of both order and creativity. Right from the beginning, He created plants for…
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A New Year’s Resolution
2026 “And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh” (Ezekiel 36:26). With a new year, our thoughts turn to new beginnings. We might: But as we contemplate these things, let us…
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God Will Exult Over You With Singing!
“The Lord your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love; he will exult over you with loud singing” (Zephaniah 3:17). Sometimes I think we approach God feeling like He has to love us because He is God. Like we…
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Joyfully Celebrated…by God
“The Lord your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love; he will exult over you with loud singing” (Zephaniah 3:17). When my son was young, he was in a preschool performance for Mother’s Day. He was supposed to be…
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Becoming “Me”–through Christ
“And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another” (2 Corinthians 3:18). I am not who I once was. But I am more myself than ever before. How can that be? Our culture tends to emphasize how our life experiences shape and…
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Can God Really Use Someone Like Me?
“For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong” (1 Corinthians 1:26-27). In the…
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But Am I “Enough?”
“I am not eloquent, either in the past or since you have spoken to your servant, but I am slow of speech and of tongue” (Exodus 4:10). Sometimes being a quiet person in a noisy world can make us feel like outsiders. Sometimes we even feel that way in the church. Have you ever felt…
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Each Has Received A Gift
Praying, painting, and parenting are ministries, too. Give your gifts to God and see what He can do! “As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace: whoever speaks, as one who speaks oracles of God; whoever serves, as one who served by the strength…