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Two Trees, One Path
In the Garden of Eden, God planted two trees: the Tree of Life and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Both trees were his. The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil was not the devil’s creation. Satan simply used it as a tool to draw Adam and Eve away from…
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A Day in Father’s Arms
(3-minute read) For the past few months, with increasing frequency, a picture would pop into my head of something that happened when I was four years old. We were living in Houston, Texas, at the time, and my dad took my brothers and me to Galveston, Texas, where the giant ships would come in. I…
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John of Doe
(4-minute read) I’ve been on the quest to understand the common man that Jesus spoke to when he walked the roads of Israel. Understanding the common man is part of the context of understanding what Jesus said. The largest and most significant city in Israel is Jerusalem. The religious life in Jerusalem was primarily controlled…
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Something New
(2-minute read) I’ve been trying to study to understand the crowd’s beliefs as Jesus spoke. Often, he put together what they already knew in a simple way that gave them a greater understanding. But he also taught something they found fresh and new. He spoke of the Kingdom of God. Jesus spoke to crowds about…
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View From the Tree
(2-minute read) It started out as a matter of curiosity. The reaction of the people to Jesus’s sermon on the mount seems different from what I expected, and I wanted to know why. What I discovered surprised me and has changed my life. Jesus was on the earth at a unique time in Jewish history.…
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My Shepherd
The Lord is my shepherd. When I wander away to an unsafe place, he misses me and comes to find me. At first, I thought I was holding his hand, but as he carried me down from the dangerous rocks, I realized he was holding mine. He hears the noise in my stomach as we…
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Become One of Us
(2-minute read) I learned many years ago that my identity, what I think of myself, significantly affects my life, whether I succeed or fail at what I’m trying to do. When I identify with a condition, thought, or organization, it subconsciously influences me. Recently, I’ve been struggling with a health issue and realized that the…
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Snakes In My Brain
(2-minute read) One morning, my wife stepped into our bedroom closet, turned on the light, and saw a snake on the floor. I was out of town, but she heard voices at the back of our house and ran for help. They got the snake and took it away. A week or two later, I…
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Quiet Please, I’m Trying to Love My Enemies
(3-minute read) Every major religion has some form of “Love your neighbor as yourself.” This wasn’t a big problem because all I had to do was define who my neighbor was. I could get this down to a tiny number. But when I read the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said, “Love your enemies.” Bummer!…
Walking the path 