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The Creative Love of God

“Human love, Martin Luther claims, is reactive: it responds to something intrinsically attractive in an object, which consequently draws it out. In other words, human love is attracted to what it first finds lovely. When a husband recalls the moment he fell in love with his wife, he remembers that he saw something intrinsically attractive …

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A Blessing

“The Lord our God be with you, as he was with our fathers. May he not leave you or forsake you, that he may incline your hearts to him, to walk in all his ways and to keep his commandments, his statutes, and his rules, which he commanded our fathers. Let these words of mine, …

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Public Prayer in our Public Worship

Public Prayer in our Public Worship Dr. Jerry Nelson www.soundliving.org It was over 30 years ago that Gordon MacDonald changed my understanding and practice on the subject of public prayer in worship (“The Cleansing Power of Public Prayer” in Leadership, Winter Quarter, 1987).   Since then I have read a number of books and articles on …

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This ONE Thing!

I recently read Ron Chernow’s massive biography of General/President U.S. Grant. It awakened in me a renewed sadness over how long it took for a significant percentage of our citizenry to acknowledge the evil of how Native Americans and African Americans have been treated.  Thousands (yes, thousands) of our fellow-humans were murdered, while many more …

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SECOND THOUGHTS ON CREMATION

I am a pragmatist and thus cremation of the dead has seemed to me to be the sensible way to avoid the cost and sometimes macabre aspects of funerals. My mother, though well-schooled in the reality of decay and the theology of resurrection, said she wanted to be buried, not cremated, because she wanted Jesus …

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