Devotion
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Devotion: Advent – Vertical Relationship with God – part 1
We tend to do a lot of waiting this time of year. Waiting often seems to be a waste of our valuable time. Whether it is standing behind a line of people at the checkout lane, being stuck in traffic or anticipating test results, waiting is not a very appealing activity, and certainly not productive. I…
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Devotion: Advent – New Beginnings
Over the last year-and-a-half, Bethel’s Long Range Planning Task Force spent a lot of time reading, praying, thinking, talking, listening, and organizing. This may sound odd, but much of their time was actually spent dwelling on two questions: “Who are we?” and “Who has God called us to be?” I say it might sound odd…
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Devotions: Facing the Giants
Bethel will press pause on The Story through the Advent and Christmas seasons as we prepare for the coming of a king. This is the one for whom John the Baptist prepares the way declaring that he is “the voice of one crying out in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight’”…
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Devotion: Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening
My mom served as an elementary school teacher for about 31 years. Toward the end of her career, she grew more frustrated at some of the teaching techniques that were being championed as “new” and “more effective” when, in actuality, they were cleaned up versions of techniques used a dozen or more years earlier. Like…
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Devotion: The Softer Side of the Old Testament
After some pretty rough weeks in The Story as we read about battles and God seemingly being pretty hard-nosed about the rules (for example, Moses didn’t get to cross over into the Promised Land because he struck a rock to bring about water rather than just speaking to it), we some real gems through the…
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Devotion: Can God Possibly Want Me?
All Christians want a relationship with God, but we’re not always clear on what that relationship should be or about our part in it. We hear stories of faithful people from long ago or more contemporary people of faith like Mother Theresa and we think that we could never have faith like theirs. And, if…
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Devotion: How Complete Is Our Obedience?
The Story | The Battle Begins I cringed a bit when I wrote the title for this week’s devotion: “How complete is our obedience?” But, as you read chapter 7 from The Story, I think this ends up directing our thoughts toward God’s Upper Story. As I read and talked with people on Sunday morning, I…
Epicurious Lutheran 