Verse of the Week
A weekly, encouraging blog
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The Lord Is For Me
What makes Psalm 118 so powerful is its context. This was a song written for and often sung at Israel’s great feast days including Passover and the high holy days. It was likely on the lips of the crowd when Jesus entered Jerusalem on Palm Sunday and possibly sung again in the Upper Room after…
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The Power of ‘Perhaps’: A Biblical Perspective
I only have about six weeks left as Lead Pastor, and for these final weeks, I want to share some of my all-time favorite verses for our “Verse of the Week.” A little context: this verse drops us into a war between the Israelites and the Philistines around 1000 BC. Saul is King, his son…
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Finding Hope in Hosea: A Verse for Easter Monday
Happy Easter Monday! Here’s your verse of the week — and fair warning, I’m pulling it a little out of context. Well, maybe a lot. Hosea wrote these words to Israel during a dark season of judgment, calling them back to God with a promise of restoration. We’re not ancient Israel, but that promise still…
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Wrestling with Confusion: Trusting God in Uncertainty
Confusing Christianity We like to call some of the deeper teachings of Christianity a mystery. The deity of Christ, the trinity, the virgin birth, election, we accept these teachings by faith. Like the size of the universe or the idea of eternity, they are a mystery to us. But somehow the things closer to home…
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Wendy’s Journey: A Testament of Faith and Healing
Well, I’m a day late getting the verse out this week — we were in Houston over the weekend for a memorial service for Wendy, my wife’s sister. Wendy had spent most of her life far from God. Here’s the embarrassing truth: we had been praying for her for years, yet when she finally turned…
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Summer In the Psalms
In CS Lewis’ classic book The Screwtape Letters a demon, Screwtape, is training his nephew on how to tempt humans. He writes, “whatever their bodies do affects their soul. It is funny how mortals always picture us as putting things into their minds: In reality, our best work is done by keeping things out.” Here…
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The Rest of the Story
[picture by Alessandro Cerino on Unsplash] When I was a kid, my dad would listen to a radio show by Paul Harvey called The Rest of the Story. Paul Harvey would tell a story but at a key point stop and say, “In a minute you will hear the rest of the story.” Then they…
Dan Cooley - An ir-reverend Christian viewpoint 