Whose Kingdom is It Anyway?

One of the great things about living in Florida is being able to go to the beach 3 days before Christmas. That is how this year found me, skimboarding on the ocean waves lapping up onto the shore well until past twilight. If you live in the North, (or anywhere else above South Florida) you might be jealous to hear that even the onset of night didn't make it too cold to continue enjoying the water and sand. (No hate mail, please.) As it got later and the lifeguards had finished their shift and closed up shop, I drew near to the pier. (They don't...

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Walking Mud

One of the original bands that got me into music was Switchfoot. We were on our way home from church and my brother had bought a CD called, "The Beautiful Letdown." I didn't know that what I was listening to would go double platinum. I don't know that a fact like that would have even mattered to me. All I knew was that I soon memorized almost every single track on that album (I checked Spotify and saw a track I'd never heard. Musta been an easter egg). A few years later, I got one of my own CD's from a band called Relient K. The Anatomy of the...

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Two Approaches to Sin

If you've ever known... well... anyone, you know one thing: sin sucks. You may not verbalize it in this way. You may not even cognitively process the fact that sin sucks, but, oh, you have felt this truth. Whether it was your own sin or another's, you have experienced what it means to be damaged and bruised by the decision to rebel against God's natural order. There are usually two responses to sin: either you do not realize it's gravity, or you dwell upon it entirely too much. Let's tackle the first situation. God abhors sin. If you don't...

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