Jay McCarl
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“The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried.” —G.K Chesterton God has called me to many things, and in light of the fact that I’m not getting any younger, I’m frequently asked how I do it. “Don’t you get tired?” “Where do you find the time?” “Doesn’t it hurt?”
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(An Elementary School teacher’s poem…) He came to my desk with a quivering lip, the lesson was done; “Have you a new sheet for me, dear teacher, I’ve spoiled this one?” I took his sheet, all soiled and blotted, Gave him a new one, all unspotted; And into his tired heart I cried, “Do better
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Three apprentice devils were preparing to come to the earth to finish their apprenticeship. They first spent time talking to Satan about their plans to tempt and ruin men. The first devil declared “I will tell men that there is no God” Satan said to him, “That will not delude many, for they know there
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“If through a broken heart God can bring His purposes to pass in the world, then thank Him for breaking your heart.” —Chaplain John Akers, PCLEC What God is doing is greater than we know, even when it hurts. He never told His kids that life in Him was bliss—quite the opposite. But He said He’d be there when
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“If God is for us, who can be against us?” the Apostle Paul asked. The question itself is the answer… “God is for us. Paul here arrives at the mountain height of the Christian position! And that, so to speak, by way of experience. He does indeed, in the word “us” bring all the saints with
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Victorian preacher C.H. Spurgeon had a way of cutting through Christian excuses… “If sinners be damned, at least let them leap to hell over our dead bodies. And if they perish, let them perish with our arms wrapped about their knees, imploring them to stay. If hell must be filled, let it be filled in the
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Jesus is coming back—His followers know it and most are thrilled at the immanent possibility. My friend Don Stewart, however, reminds us to be careful about one important detail… “Do not make the mistake of replacing the Gospel with talk of the end times events—our main message isn’t the second coming of Christ, but the first.” Preach it.
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Where will you go in 2017? “I have learned…to let God be the mystery that He is and, with eyes wide open, to pursue Him, not with the precision of a crossword puzzle fanatic but with the reckless passion of a pilot flying into the Bermuda Triangle. Following Christ is a wild adventure full of risk, frustration, excitement,
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Lord of the Rings author J.R.R. Tolkien declared, “The Incarnation of God is an infinitely greater thing than anything I would dare to write…” (italics in the original). But later on he tried. Here is what he wrote… “The Gospels contain a fairy-story, or a story of a larger kind which embraces all the essence of fairy stories.
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Come and behold Him, born the King of angels… “Here from this stable, here, from this Nazareth, this stony beach, this Jerusalem, this market place, this garden, this Praetorium, this Cross, this mountain, I announce it to you. I announce to you what is guessed at in all the phenomena of your world. You see
Jay McCarl 