Contributed by Johnny Creasong on Apr 23, 2009
Most of us have never been to Nisswa, Minnesota, but I, for one, would like to go there someday. And when I go, I need to plan to stay over for Wednesday night. Not that I want to go to church there (Sorry about that, Chief!). No, the reason I want to visit Nisswa is for the Turtle Races. Every
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Contributed by Johnny Creasong on Apr 23, 2009
WORSHIP WILL NEVER CEASE
There is coming a day when witnessing will cease; preaching will cease; in fact, praying will cease. But worship will never cease! The
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Contributed by Johnny Wilson on Apr 26, 2009
LEGACY: THE AMAZING RANDI
How many of you have heard of "The Amazing Randi?" He was a stage magician, "mentalist," and escape artist (in the tradition of Houdini). He once escaped from a block of ice and once escaped from a straitjacket while hanging upside-down over Niagara Falls. He once broke a
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Contributed by Johnny Wilson on May 21, 2009
I didn’t get an allowance when I was in high school and any kind of paying work was few and far between. My parents expected me to come to them when I needed money for lunch money, class rings, yearbooks, books, gas money, dates, or anything. Instead of being thankful that they wanted to give me
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Contributed by Johnny Wilson on May 25, 2009
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OBJECT LESSON: HOLY SPIRIT
I have a children's sermon to try to explain the Holy Spirit. It isn't original to me or to the first person I heard use it, but I think it's powerful.
I take an empty glove and tell the kids that it's a magic glove. I tell them it is amazing because it can pick things
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Contributed by Johnny Wilson on Jun 4, 2009
Here’s the question. Do we really want to get rid of all the devious, carnal, and despicable people around us? C. S. Lewis suggested in his Reflections on the Psalms that we are really only opposed to the enemies of God when they cease to amuse us, flatter us, and serve some utility for us (p. 74).
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Contributed by Johnny Wilson on Jun 4, 2009
Verse 14 (where the psalmist calls God awesome and says he needs to fall down to the ground in adoration of God) is often misunderstood, though. There is a scene in a very cynical, satirical movie that applies to the world’s misunderstanding of praise. It is a scene from a Python film called "The
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Contributed by Johnny Wilson on Jun 27, 2009
HEAR O ISRAEL: LISTEN UP!
I served in a volunteer capacity as an unofficial chaplain to the Redondo Beach (California) police force. About seven or eight of us who were ministers would rotate so that we rode entire shifts with some of the officers.
Police work is a contrast between tedium and
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Contributed by Johnny Wilson on Jun 27, 2009
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SERVANTHOOD: THE SOLOIST
There was an interesting movie recently. It bombed at the box office, but it was a very interesting film. "The Soloist" was a true story about a Los Angeles Times columnist named Steve Lopez who discovered a homeless person on the street who, in turn, was a Julliard School
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Contributed by Johnny Wilson on Jun 27, 2009
REVELATION AND OVALTINE
The word often translated "revelation" or as I translated it, "unveiling," could also be understood as "decoding." Ever heard of those Ovaltine Decoder Rings in the '40s? Ovaltine drink advertisements used to have a coded message on them (as did some of the Ovaltine radio
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Contributed by Johnny Wilson on Jun 27, 2009
I want to give you a silly illustration of one way this can work. When I was a teenager and just starting to enjoy coffee, I liked to take a cup of coffee with me wherever I went. Of course, those of you who’ve seen me play softball are well aware that I have trouble walking and talking at the same
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Contributed by Johnny Wilson on Aug 11, 2009
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EYES AND TOES
There is a terrific story I once heard in a taped message from a marvelous Baptist pastor named Ron Dunn. Dunn's parable suggested that once upon a time there was a body where the eyes convinced all of the other parts of the body that the gift of SIGHT was the only important gift.
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Contributed by Johnny Wilson on Aug 11, 2009
BUYING THEM BACK
We're told about a gift of grace (singular) and informed that it will help us to build up the church in LOVE. Do you see a pattern, here?
Whatever we have to use in God's service comes directly from God.
It's a lot like a former colleague experienced at Ziff-Davis Publishing. He
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Contributed by Johnny Wilson on Aug 11, 2009
BEGINNING AND ENDING
A Connecticut Baptist named A. Roger Williams (a modern pastor, not the one who founded Rhode Island) once preached, "It is true that if religion begins with the individual--it begins, but if it ends with the individual--it ends." [A. Roger Williams, "The Kingdom of God," in
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Contributed by Johnny Wilson on Aug 11, 2009
But proffering our physical lives as living sacrifices, we get the benefit of living life to its fullest because we are in agreement with God as to priorities and purpose. We aren’t really giving up our lives. We are learning to stand beside ourselves and see ourselves as God sees us. We see our
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Contributed by Johnny Wilson on Aug 24, 2009
Sin separates us from God and from each other. I recently read about an interesting scientific phenomenon with fluorophores. Fluorophores are molecules that glow when they are excited by the right kind of light source. They’re usually found in amino acids and proteins. (There is an illustration at:
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Contributed by Johnny Creasong on Aug 28, 2009
DADDY’S EMPTY CHAIR
A man’s daughter had asked the local minister to come and pray with her father. When the minister arrived, he found the man lying in bed with his head propped up on two pillows.
An empty chair sat beside his bed. The minister assumed that the old fellow had been informed of
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Contributed by Johnny Creasong on Aug 28, 2009
When you pray do you seek His Face or His Hand?
In most of our praying we are not seeking God’s Face, but rather seeking His hand, looking for God to provide something for us. While Jesus instructed us to pray,
“Give us today our daily bread.”
(Matt 6:11 NIV)
I believe He intended our prayers to
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Contributed by Johnny Creasong on Aug 28, 2009
When you pray, do you seek His Face or His Arm?
In some of our prayers, if we are honest to God, we will find that rather than seeking His Face we are simply seeking His Arm. We pray because we find ourselves in a position where we need His Strength. We believe that
“…nothing is impossible with
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