Across Church Street

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It would be just like him

The God of the Bible looks like Jesus, the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being. It would be just like him to go to the cross.

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Practicing Our Scales

Imagine if our walk with Christ, representing his kingdom in the world, were as practiced and pure as Hania Rani’s fingers on the piano keys.

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Rescue

I practice the spiritual discipline of rescuing earthworms on paved surfaces. It's a reminder to me that I can pause what I'm doing, get a little dirty, and help. Also, that I've been given the responsibility to care.

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Your Roots Are Showing

The life that I bring to the world can only be found in my attachment to Christ. His presence with me is essential.

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Connection

I live in a U.S. county with traffic problems. It's a peninsula, and what's not swamp land has been developed. Building new roads is difficult and expensive. Making things worse, roads that could connect don't.

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What's in the Bowl?

During a spring trip, my wife and I purchased a glass bowl. It's colorful and handmade. When I turn the bowl upside down, nothing falls out. Does that make it empty?

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living living

Left Untried

“‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” — Matthew 22:37-40

Theoretical, academic, ethereal, cerebral – words some retreat into when given broad, all-encompassing instructions. What if these were treated as down-to-earth and practical? What might the Church be like? Jesus' ministry was a practical working-out of these commands. Might it be that they seem impractical to us only because they've been left untried?

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living living

That is the Question

This is what the Lord says: “Stand at the crossroads and look; ask for the ancient paths, ask where the good way is, and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls. But you said, ‘We will not walk in it.’ ⏤ Jeremiah 6:16

I'm at the crossing. Which is the good way? Do I have time to stand still, study the terrain, ask, and wait for an answer? Suppose I actually do all of that, then say, Nah, I'll go the other way.

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living living

With Me

“Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters." — Luke 11:23

Religion has its own swift current. Routinely, I need to paddle into a quiet eddy and reflect: How is my relationship with the Christ of Christianity? Are my aims consistent with his? Am I gathering with him, to him?

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