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Category: Spiritual Formation

Blessed are the Poor In Spirit

Sometimes, as Christians, we can get really good at navel-gazing. We can get so caught up in the busyness of everyday ministry, that we fail to see the people. One thing that I have often noticed is how easy it is to be so surrounded by church people that we never even encounter the outside world in a meaningful way. For me, the most important question has become, “What am I going to do about it?”

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6 Ways to Survive Mother’s Day

For many people, Mother’s Day is not a day filled with celebration. For those of us who were abandoned or have lost their mothers, it can be downright painful. In today’s post, Kathy Milans shares six ways to survive (and even grow) through a painful Mother’s Day.

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10 Little Ways to be Above Average

We all notice those people who just make other people’s lives a little brighter. They are the kind of people we all want to be around. They are…above average. So often, we wonder what makes them so different from everyone else, and sometimes, we wish we could be more like them. Marilyn Elliott has good news! We really can be more like them. Here are ten easy ways to be a light to others.

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On Suicide: The Power of Having a Marathon Partner

In the marathon of life, we’re all running the “first one,” and it is filled with countless challenges, unknowns, and “walls” that seem insurmountable. Each of us desperately needs a community that will surround us, love us, encourage us, and remind us that we can do it, to just keep putting one foot in front of the other.

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Setting the Captive Free: Domestic Violence

Will I ever be healed completely on this side of glory? I don’t know. That is why it is essential for me to take daily self-inventory and ask myself what is in the closet of my heart. That is why it is so essential for me to give Christ lordship over the whole of me, including the closet space where it is sometimes uncomfortable to let Him in.

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Choosing the Wilderness

“The good news is that beneath this wilderness is the creative Spirit of God beckoning us toward transformation.” Kathy Milans encourages us to stay the course and walk through the wilderness with Christ, trading the discomfort for transformation.

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I’m More Spiritual than You!

As I reflect on my experience of being in seminary and how I have grown, I have come to realize that there existed a heart of divisiveness and spiritual superiority in me. I look back and feel the peace within me and thank God for showing me how to be humble and consider the differences I see in others as a good and beautiful gift from God.

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Growing Churches that Grow Marriages

The marriage relationship between a man and a woman is a reflection of a deeper and more profound mystery: the unity of Christ and the church. According to Paul, this unity is for the purpose of Christ making His church holy (cf. Ephesians 5:27). If marriage is to reflect this dynamic between the Lord and the church, we have to conclude that holiness is also an integral part of the purpose of God’s presence and work in the marriage relationship.

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Good Friday: Staring through Hopelessness

My mind began to wander, and by some divine hand, it began to journey to the cross. I began to see her life and mine in the light of the suffering—the whip-marks that tore his flesh—the stripes that He says will heal me. I saw my tormented heart reflected in his agony. “Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? Behold, and see if there be any sorrow like unto his sorrow.”

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The Hope of our Dust and Ashes: Lent as Preparation for Easter and Resurrection

I was standing there watching people come forward who have become cherished family members to me, and I was dipping my thumb in this glass bowl of pitch black ashes—a symbol not only of penitence, but of mortality. I was making the sign of the cross on their foreheads. Some of them were weeping, but with all of them, the sense of heaviness was as palpable as the deep, familial love we shared.

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