Matthew

Matthew 6:13

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Oh let me never set my foot
Into this hellish place again,
This cesspool of the vilest strain,
This fountain of the blackest soot,
For I would sooner face my death
Than dare depart into the deep
Where devils in the darkness sleep
In wait for any sound of breath.
Alas, this place is never far,
For scorching fire doth walk with me,
Subverting any good I see,
Revealing this, my hidden scar,
The fatal wound within my heart
That came when I chose to rebel
And, left unhealed, will lead to hell
This soul who seeks to just depart
To freedom from the curse of sin.
O Jesus, can you save this wretch?
Can you before damnation catch
My soul and make my life begin?
Forgive me for my wicked ways
And rescue from temptation’s snares;
Keep me from loving what impairs
And make me yours for all my days.

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The Gospel According to Die Hard

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I spent roughly the first seventeen and a half years of my life in the same city. I only ever attended my home church, I was homeschooled from kindergarten through high school, and my circle of friends consisted almost solely of kids I’d grown up with at church and a handful of students I’d met through state youth choirs and events. My parents and extended family are largely Christian, and the friends I made in my neighborhood growing up were from much the same background as I. All in all, I lived a somewhat sheltered life.
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Trusting When We Do Not Understand

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Here’s the setting: You’re sitting in a restaurant with your friends enjoying dinner. This is one of those restaurants that offers complimentary ice cream cones after every meal, and the ice cream machine has been getting a steady stream of traffic since you sat down. As you watch, kids all across the building scarf down their food with enthusiasm before turning (with mouths still full of their last bites) to their parents to get permission to go get ice cream. The kids can hardly stay in their chairs, hopping down and running to the ice cream machine as soon as they get the go ahead. You watch as little boys and girls figure out just how high they can get their soft serve to go on their little cones, and you laugh as the once clean faces are now being painted with vanilla. But then you notice one little boy crying.
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The Great Commandment

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And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment.”
Matthew 22:37-38

“Little children, keep yourselves from idols.”
1 John 5:21

Question: Do I love the Lord my God with all my heart and with all my soul and with all my mind?

Answer: No. I do not. Continue reading →

You Sneaky Sin

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The Ten Commandments.

When you read those words, you probably thought about one of three things: The Law of God, Moses, or Charlton Heston. It’s possible that you pictured Christian Bale, but I’m assuming there aren’t many who made that specific connection. Regardless of what your mind associates that title with, I doubt that the Ten Commandments are totally foreign to you. You may even be trying to count how many you know from memory, listing them off in classic King James Version English (“Thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not commit adultery, thou shalt not steal,” etc. (Exodus 20:13-15, KJV)). Continue reading →