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To be known and not loved is our greatest fear …
The above quote captures the essence of my day of tears. (The salt is burning my eyeballs so harshly now, that I feel quite sure that I need to find a way to stop crying, not only for my emotional health but my physical health too.) And so I will end my day with one of my all-time favorite Tim Keller sermons. I hope it is a blessing to you too. (One side note? Please ignore the description of this sermon on the Redeemer Pres. page because MAN! Does the description make it sound BOR-OR-OR-ING. It is not. It is heart and life-changing!) The Two Great Tests
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Gospel Coalition Women’s Conference 2012 — Over 6,200 LiveBlog Replays in the First Two Weeks!
I wanted to send Collin Hansen some stats for my LiveBlogs from The Gospel Coalition’s 2012 Women’s Conference, so I ran a quick report. How fun to see that I’ve already had over 6,200 replays in just the first two weeks! I really hope that they are a blessing to people and that I represented The Gospel Coalition, Kathleen Nielson, Don Carson, John Piper, Paige Benton Brown, Nancy Leigh Demoss—and, well, all of the speakers well. I just love to LiveBlog!
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Happy 4th of July!
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Pain is the Price we Pay for Love
Two of my dearest friends are facing similar “peacemaking opportunity” (i.e. CONFLICT) situations this week, although each is in a different context. One is in the church. The other is in a business situation. But both are the same issue: they have been informed that someone “out there” is upset with them and is talking to others about them behind their backs. Of all of the peacemaking scenarios, I think I dread this one the most. It is so tempting to really freak out and lose perspective when we have to go to church or go to work knowing that someone we are sharing fellowship with, taking communion with, or…
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The Greatest Danger to Your Pastor’s Spiritual Growth
Dave has a great post over at our RedeemingChurchConflicts site: The Greatest Danger to Your Pastor’s Spiritual Growth Here is just a snippet: This is what the dangerous downward spiral looks like: The pastor preaches a powerful message that really communicates. Church members congratulate him on his fine work as a powerful communicator of difficult theological material. The pastor is praised for “changing lives” and is pleased that the church members respond so positively. The next week the same thing happens—praise, adoration, applause … for “the man.” Week after week, the pastor receives this praise and feeds his ego by gathering close to himself only the people who agree with…
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Doing What is Right — Even in the Face of Unjust Treatment — is Always the Safest Path to Walk
A classic tale (and a great encouragement to keep doing the right thing!) from the consummate storyteller, Ken Sande: “When John’s wife, Karen, divorced him and moved in with her high school sweetheart, John was devastated, especially when his church refused to do anything to try to save their marriage. But he drew on God’s grace and resisted the temptation to give in to self-pity or bitterness. He refused to criticize Karen, especially in front of their children. He bent over backwards to accommodate their every-changing visitation schedule. Most of all, he continued to pray for Karen, and whenever they talked with each other, he asked God to help him speak…
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Which was worse? A woman praying LOUDLY on a plane (and then negating everything she prayed by her words and actions) OR barefeet toes wrapped around a center armrest?
As a million miler frequent flyer, I really thought I had seen everything possible on commercial air flights. But today’s flight topped them all … Just moments after the flight attendant moved past row 3 on a (TINY, 2×2 configuration, NO personal space at all) CRJ200, a woman stood up in the aisle, removed her shoes, wrapped her barefeet TOES around the center armrest, and began to do a series of yoga moves. Barefeet toes! Armpits going over other travelers! I was completely shocked. But my sister and her Fred were unimpressed when I told them the story later this evening. “That was your flight to Berkeley/San Francisco, right? Yeah. Totally normal.…
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I Belong to You and You Belong to Me (And thus, we genuinely care for one another!)
I am truly enjoying Jerry Bridges’ new book: True Community: The Biblical Practice of Koinonia Here is a quote from the final pages to give you just a taste of its wisdom: “The foundation of daily experiential fellowship among believers is found in Paul’s statement that “in Christ … each member belongs to all the others” (Romans 12:5). I belong to you and you belong to me, and we each belong to and have “ownership” in every other believer in the world. This mutual belonging to one another is the thread that ties together all the seemingly diverse elements of fellowship. As we recognize and apply the fact that we…
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The Very People We Are Called to Serve Will Break our Hearts
“If our ultimate motivation for service to God is simply because we love people, we will never be able to sustain the call to service that God has given to us because the very people we are called to serve will break our hearts. It is only the grace of Christ that enables us to persevere.” J. Ligon Duncan and Susan Hunt, Women’s Ministry in the Local Church
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The very first tear he made was so deep that I thought it had gone right into my heart.
[image_frame style=”framed_shadow” align=”left”]http://tarabarthel.com/WP/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/dragon-aslan1.jpg[/image_frame]I’m assuming that most of you are familiar with C.S. Lewsis’ masterpiece, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. If not, I hope you go out today and read it! Well. Actually read the entire Chronicles of Narnia because that’s the way to really understand the depth of everything that happens. For the past four days as I was blessed to be learning and growing at the The Gospel Coalition’s National Women’s Conference, I was also feeling a little bit like Eustace the dragon, right as he was on his back, and Aslan’s great and powerful claws were tearing off his scaly skin from head to toe. I believe the…
