Category: Spirituality
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The Power of Religion
Yet, on the authority of God’s Word, and our own Church, I must repeat the question, “Hast thou received the Holy Ghost?” If thou hast not, thou art not yet a Christian. (From Sermon 3: Awake Thou Sleeper) As I read through John Wesley’s sermons I am amazed at how often he defined a Christian…
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It is Just Not Enough
Many people of good will strive wholeheartedly for peace, mutual understanding, human encounter, world unity, and living harmony. Yet human vulnerability in face of the divisiveness that followed the Fall can never be totally overcome by excellent intentions, marvelous slogans, peace marches and conferences, disarmaments, sensitivity training courses and group dynamics alone. All of these…
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The Illusion of Leadership
Henri Nouwen writes, The great illusion of leadership is to think that man can be led out of the desert by someone who has never been there. Our lives are filled with examples which tell us that leadership asks for understanding and that understanding requires sharing. So long as we define leadership in terms of…
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The Bitterness of the Gospel
The man walked away depressed. Jesus had just told him that to gain eternal life he would have to give up all that he had and sell everything. Since he was rich, the news wasn’t all that good. As the man walked away, Jesus told those standing around how difficult it was for the rich…
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Law of the Heart
"…did Jesus support the law or undermine it? What was at stake was his implicit, and sometimes explicit, claim: that in and through his own work Israel’s god was doing a new thing, or rather the new thing, that for which Israel had longed. And when that happened everything would be different. Torah could regulate…