Category Archives: Christianity

What Does God Think of You?

Posted on August 31, 2021 by salooper57

Louie Zamperini was a Lieutenant in the Army Air Corps in the Second World War, serving as a bombardier when his plane was badly damaged by Japanese anti-aircraft fire. The plane made it back to base but was no longer … Continue reading →

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How to Seek the Kingdom

Posted on August 22, 2021 by salooper57

…if we don’t give priority to seeking his kingdom, we’ll never find it. “Seek second the kingdom and his righteousness” and you’ll be wasting your time. But that’s the way God intended it. The half-hearted, the religious dabbler, the spiritual dilettante never see the kingdom. “The kingdom of heaven,” Jesus once said, “is like a treasure hidden in a field.” Any number of people can pass right by it and never know it’s there. It is the one who hungers and thirsts for righteousness that is filled, not the one who nibbles at it. It is “he who seeks [who] finds,” not he who daydreams. Continue reading →

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Posted on August 5, 2021 by salooper57

Coming to some Scripture passages can be like joining a conversation that is already in progress. Imagine walking up onto the porch of a house belonging to your best friends. Through the screen door you hear your friend speaking to … Continue reading →

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How to Stay Christian After Graduation

Posted on May 29, 2021 by salooper57

In a study of peer influence, psychologists displayed three charts, each with three lines of different lengths, to groups of ten teens. The teens were asked to raise their hands when the teacher pointed to the longest line on each chart. The teens in each group, minus one, had been secretly instructed to raise their hands when the teacher pointed to the second longest line. 75 percent of the time, the lone teen, wanting to blend in, joined the others in casting a wrong vote. Blending in can be deadly to the spiritual life. Continue reading →

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Going and Coming: Christian Faith in America

Posted on May 22, 2021 by salooper57

From his perspective, religion is like a physical trait. People are born with it. Yes, a person can undergo a kind of spiritual surgery to change her faith, rather like a person can undergo surgery to change her nose. But, apart from such radical intervention, a person’s faith is the faith her parents gave her.

The Bible offers a different and more nuanced perspective. It is the news and entertainment medias and, frankly, uninformed academics, that present oversimplifications. The Bible offers a rich, multi-layered, intelligent exposition of faith. Continue reading →

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What it Takes to Change: Hope for a Better Future

Posted on May 20, 2021 by salooper57

If you’re going to change in a way that leads to even better changes and does not lead back into the bondage of old habits, these three elements must be in place.

First, you have to see the benefit that change will bring. You have to think it, feel it, want it, dream it, daydream it; you have to live with a vision of what your life will be. Without that hope, change won’t last. Continue reading →

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Can People Really Change?

Posted on May 19, 2021 by salooper57

I know alcoholics who have stayed sober for decades, but they stayed sober by changing and continuing to change – by growing. But staying sober is not the only thing that requires change; staying Christian does too. It requires progressive changes, one leading to another, across the span of a lifetime. Continue reading →

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Christian Hope: Does It Differ from Optimism?

Posted on April 23, 2021 by salooper57

He then told me something – and it was hard for him to talk, so I had to listen closely – that I have never forgotten. He told me that the last two months – since he had come over to Jesus’s side – had been the two best months of his life. I looked at him in wonder. Here was a man from whom everything had been taken. His former life was gone. His world was a bed. His body was a prison. And the last two months had been the best time of his life.

How was that possible? What had happened? Continue reading →

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8 Things Hope Does for Us (According to Scripture)

Posted on April 20, 2021 by salooper57

Hopelessness makes work seem pointless, but hope has the opposite effect. It is no wonder that the New Testament’s most hopeful chapter closes with these words: “Stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain” (1 Cor. 15:58). You know that when you have hope. Continue reading →

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Hope – I Need Somebody (Hope- Not Just Anybody)

Posted on April 18, 2021 by salooper57
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