Category: Devotions
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Baptized in Christ
“I know full well that I cannot do a single thing that is pure. But I am baptized, and through my baptism God, who cannot lie, has bound himself in a covenant with me. He will not count my sin against me, but will slay it and blot it out.”[1] What would it be like…
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Clothed in Christ
You might be the type of person who spends a lot of time thinking about what you wear. Or you might just throw on whatever’s clean and not give it much thought. (No judgment here!) Regardless, for many adults, getting dressed and ready for the day is automatic. No one has to remind us what…
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Not One of His Good Promises Has Failed
“You know with all your heart and soul that not one of all the good promises the Lord your God gave you has failed. Every promise has been fulfilled.” (Joshua 23:14) Some years ago the Peanuts comic strip for New Year’s Eve pictured the following dialogue. “Well, here it is again,” Charlie Brown says to…
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Marvel With Mary
Things aren’t always as they seem. Carefully wrapped gifts can really be thoughtless presents. Merry-looking families can be secretly miserable. Homes lit up in Christmas lights can be empty or gloomy. Appearances can be deceiving…
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Advent
[From Our Worth to Him: Devotions for Christian Worship by Mark Paustian. All rights reserved.] “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it” (John 1:5). I, a poor John the Baptist, made my way through a tangle of wheelchairs in a run-down nursing home. I was there to mark an…
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Give Him Thanks
The people stood watching, and the rulers even sneered at him. They said, “He saved others; let him save himself if he is the Christ of God, the Chosen One.” The soldiers also came up and mocked him. They offered him wine vinegar and said, “If you are the king of the Jews, save yourself.”…
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A Life of Service
Today is World Kindness Day. This holiday was created with the intent of building a kinder and more compassionate world through the intentional deeds of kindness and love we show to others. That’s a worthy goal. It’s all too easy to view such a day with pessimism. In our self-focused society—driven by the need to…
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No Longer Any Sea
Today is World Freedom Day. This special day is an observance of the tearing down of the Berlin Wall—the vast and terrible wall of barbed wire, concrete, and watch towers separating East from West Germany, dividing friends and family members from 1961–1989. I can’t even imagine the feeling of being separated from loved ones for…