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When the Center Goes Missing
Scripture:“He is before all things, and in Him all things consist.”— Colossians 1:17 Reflection:A faith can keep many beautiful values for a while even after the center has gone missing. That is part of what makes Jesusless Christianity so persuasive. It still says yes to compassion, justice, mercy, healing, dignity, welcome, and social concern. Those…
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Language w/o the Lord
Scripture:“You search the Scriptures… and these are they which testify of Me.”— John 5:39 Reflection:One of the most unsettling truths in the gospel is that you can have the language of faith and still miss the Lord of faith. You can have Bible, religion, seriousness, morality, tradition, and spiritual vocabulary, and still fail to come…
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Podcast Episode: Consumer Christianity
Pip: If you’ve ever wondered whether your faith is a subscription service you can cancel when the benefits dry up, Eric McCrea has been writing directly at that question all week on Weekday Word. Mara: The posts this week press into what it actually means to follow Jesus rather than consume him — covering church…
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Not a Fan…
Scripture:“But you are not willing to come to Me that you may have life.”— John 5:40 Reflection:There is a real difference between admiration and relationship. You can admire a preacher, a teacher, an author, or a leader from a distance. You can read their books, quote their words, imitate their style, and still not know…
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Fear Closes the Table
Scripture:“Whoever does the will of My Father in heaven is My brother and sister and mother.”— Matthew 12:50 Reflection:Jesus says something in Matthew 12 that sounds startling at first. His mother and brothers are outside, and when he is told they are looking for him, he answers by pointing to his disciples and saying that…
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Family is a Gift, Not a God
Scripture: “He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me…”— Matthew 10:37 Reflection:Family is one of God’s great gifts. Most of us know that in some way. We know the blessing of being loved, named, fed, protected, shaped, welcomed at the table. Even when our family stories are complicated, there…
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Making Room for the Spirit
Scripture “It has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to impose on you no further burden than these essentials.”— Acts 15:28 Reflection Acts 15 tells the story of one of the church’s earliest and most important debates. Gentiles were coming to faith in Christ, and the church had to decide what that…
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Courage to Be Renewed
Scripture “Do not be conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of the mind.”— Romans 12:2 Reflection Paul’s words to the church in Rome remind us that Christian faith is not only about changed behavior. It is also about changed thinking. The mind matters. The way we see the world matters. The…
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When God Says Look Again
Scripture “Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old. I am about to do a new thing.”— Isaiah 43:18–19 Reflection There is a kind of remembering that strengthens faith. We remember God’s faithfulness. We remember the stories that formed us. We remember the people who taught us how to pray, how…
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When Jesus Questions the Questions
Scripture “Believe me, woman, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem… But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth.”— John 4:21, 23 Reflection When Jesus met the Samaritan woman at the well,…
Got any book recommendations?
Weekday Word w/ Eric 