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How Would You Like To Be Spoken To?

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How would God have us speak to one another? You know.  Of course you do.  You know exactly how God would have us speak to one another.  I know too.  My mother was very clear.  And so was Jesus, and Paul, and Peter, and John— all those guys. We need to be kind.  Gentle.  Truthful yet always loving.  We need to speak in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs.  We need to speak Life into the lives of those around us, just as we shed Light into the space we occupy.  We need to respond patiently.  None of this is in our Old Self.  We need to put on the New Self daily! Most of all, we really need to consult the Holy Spirit before we speak. In the Celtic Daily Prayer , one of the prayers I especially love is this:  “Be in the heart of each to whom I speak; Be in the mouth of each who speaks to me.” As I read this Lenten Devotional from Biola ( http://ccca.biola.edu/lent/2021/#day-mar-8 ), I was struck by how seldom we take any of these admonitions to heart prior to opening our mouths.  How oft
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DEATH

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  The Call Jesus calls us to walk with Him, to follow Him, to be with Him.  He has glory for us— LIFE without measure, LOVE in abundance, JOY in all its fullness. Exactly how He lives in the Kingdom. But just like Jesus, we are called to necessary suffering in our lives. After all— Jesus had to die before He could rise from the dead and ascend into Heaven. A grain of wheat, He told us, must fall into the ground and die in order to produce fruit. Without experiencing Death, how would we ever appreciate New Life in Christ? Are suffering and dying really necessary?   Is the Spiritual Journey necessarily so difficult? If Jesus is our guide, then we would have to say Yes….  If He had to, then we must also. Let’s take a minute to look at the forms suffering and death take on in our mortal lives. What is your experience? Illness? Financial hardship?   Death of a loved one?   Being jobless and/or homeless?   Broken trust?  A broken heart?   Failure? Humiliation? Frustration at the limitations
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REPENT! BELIEVE THE GOOD NEWS! FOLLOW ME!

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  As I’m meditating on the concept of being a disciple and making disciples, I’m being led to spend time in the gospels, reading the actual words of Jesus.    After all, how can I follow Him if I don’t spend time thinking about what He said? The Lenten devotional I receive online from Biola is also focusing on the words of Jesus this year.   (Feel free to follow it online—you can even sign up to have it sent to your email if you like:   http://ccca.biola.edu/lent/2021/#day-feb-17 ) The first day of the devotional focused on Mark. I’ve always thought of Jesus commandments here as 3 different statements: Repent! Turn from sin, contemplate our spiritual condition, acknowledge how we have sinned by commission and omission Believe the Good News! Listen to the gospel.  And what IS the gospel? That God loves us and has come to live with us.   (I’m not one to think that the gospel is confined to the death and resurrection because Jesus called us to listen to it before all of that happened.  We
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How On Earth Do We Shine?

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How on earth do we shine?  Or maybe we should ask, “How do we shine on Earth?”  It sounds so esoteric.  Can you see the image in your minds eye?   Something out of a science fiction movie where the main character is transformed into a glowing version of himself.   Kind of like ET. Lately I have had several power outages.  SCE has decided that anytime the wind blows, they need to turn off the power, which also turns off our water, since the well runs on electricity.  The only thing that will run the well pump is a giant generator.  Edison will pay for batteries to run the house, and solar energy, but none of those can run the well pump as it goes on and off all day.  They don’t pay for generators.  We’re working on this dilemma.  I’m really tired of running on candle and flashlight power, so I’m also exploring their battery option for the house. Just for now, let’s imagine a lantern.  Like Diogenes, who looked for an honest man by carrying a lit lantern in the daylight, we walk th
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