I ask people why Jesus had to get strung up on a Roman cross and die. The typical answer I get from Christians is, “to save us from our sins.” I can tell they don’t know why and are just repeating what the preacher or Sunday school teacher told them. So why do Christians insist Jesus had to die? Why couldn’t God just shout from heaven, “I forgive you!” and be done with it? And why, oh why, isn’t it enough to simply be a good person? Let’s cut through the theological complexities to this: God is Holy. God is…
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Our church is home to little lizards. They eat bugs, leave no mess, and scare no one. They’re my friends, and I name them all Leonard. Every one of them—Leonard. One weekday afternoon I took my little dog to the church office with me. I left her in the hallway for less than a minute and came back to see the carnage of dead Leonard lying on the carpet. His neck was bitten wide open, body crushed, and tail bitten off. My little Yorkshire Terrier, barely ten pounds and always cute, paced back and forth, apparently proud of her warrior’s…
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As a pastor, I have no problem with people putting $100 bills into the offering. Except when they’re fake. Like this one. When we deposited the church funds, the bank machine wouldn’t accept this bill. I thought it was because it was wrinkled or folded at the end. The machine wouldn’t accept a smoothed-out bill either. I brought it to a banker, who required all of five seconds to determine it was counterfeit. The banker kindly said things like, “Look at the color…the paper…the lack of fine wavy lines…the sharpness of image…even the size is 1/16 inch too large all around.”…
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Are you thankful for Christmas? Or are you thankful it’s over? I’ve been asking that question and found a correlation: On one hand: The more we get caught up in or feel pressured to buy presents, put up decorations, or perform Christmas-related activities like feasts and card sending, the more thankful we are when it’s over. (Some of us enjoy these things, and the rest of us are blessed to receive. I’m just talking about those who feel caught up or pressured.) On the other hand: The more we choose to ignore what pressures us and instead keep things simple…
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When someone I care for is deeply hurt: I feel their pain with them. I feel burning anger. I weep from the depth of my gut. I speak encouragement at some points, and keep my mouth shut at others. I hug—a lot, whether in person or in my heart. And we do not need to hear the bumper-sticker platitude that “Everything has a purpose.” If that’s true, some things have an evil purpose, authored by the devil. And other things happen out of human fallenness, chance, heredity, or laws of physics. And a few things we just don’t understand until…
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