Month: June 2020

You have sorrow now, but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you. John 16:22 I had a crabby day at work recently. My irritability wasn’t due to external stressors. I was simply cutting down on carbohydrates and it made me hungry, which made…
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When a woman is giving birth, she has sorrow because her hour has come, but when she has delivered the baby, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a human being has been born into the world. John 16:21 Here, in Jesus’ metaphor of childbirth, lies the principle behind one of my greatest…
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I have said all these things to you to keep you from falling away. John 16:1 Those of us who have made an honest attempt to flee the misery of our addiction don’t often plan to go back. We don’t work at recovery day after day and then suddenly decide to use again. Relapse isn’t…
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If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have been guilty of sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin. John 15:22 Like most of you, I’ve spent considerable time over the last two weeks looking at my own views on race, law enforcement, and justice. As a child,…
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Because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. John 15:19 While in active addiction, I disliked being around those in recovery. The problem with those who are truly living in recovery, is that joy oozes out of them, expressing itself in their behavior…
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You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit . . . John 15:16 Trapped in an addiction, many of us have found some perverse comfort in the idea that we’ve got a disease over which we have no control. If we get cancer, it’s…
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You are my friends if you do what I command you. John 15:14 Many of us who have wrestled with addiction have some knowledge that we need God. We believe he exists, and we understand that he has some negative posture towards our destructive behavior. So, we make some attempt at faith. In our desire…
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Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. John 15:13 On the way into the grocery store recently, I realized I’d forgotten my coronavirus mask. I was just going to be in and out quickly though, so I proceeded bare-faced. I live in a relatively small town,…
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This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. John 15:12 Recent tragic, racially charged events in my state have caused me to question my own views on race. I’m not racist, is my first thought. No one thinks their racist though. Racism, by definition, is a flawed viewpoint, and…
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If anyone does not abide in me he is thrown away like a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. John 15:6 When it comes to my ingrained, habitual, self-destructive behaviors, I’ve usually required significant consequences to convince me to change. Transformation is often uncomfortable, and so, it’s…
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