Heart---how many ways that word is used to describe an inner mood, sense and feeling. You can be brokenhearted, wholehearted, downhearted, fainthearted, hardhearted. You can have heartache, be heartless, kindhearted, simplehearted, stouthearted and stubbornhearted. We can be described as someone who does or does not have ‘his heart in it,’ his or her heart ‘wanders’ or as one country song moans, “One has my money, the other has my heart.’ We need to have a 'heart to heart' talk. We also may say…
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Added by HKHaugan on April 30, 2010 at 9:42am —
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“The heart is that indefinable place within where who we are connects the dots of our thinking, emotions and spirit. It is the resting place of who we really are in attitude, character and behavior (Resurrection 13).”
Because the heart is indefinable but real, elusive yet always prompting, struggling to express itself while smitten with insecurity, the heart can be buffeted by the winds of its emotional sensitivity. The heart can be both a battleground and an oasis where indecision…
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Added by HKHaugan on April 29, 2010 at 12:08pm —
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Of the several concordances available the word ‘heart’ is significant in the number of times it appears in the Bible. One of them has 791 listings. That offers the potential for 791 sermons, lectures and discussions. The heart is that indefinable place within where who we are connects the dots of our thinking, emotions and spirit. It is the resting place of who we really are in attitude, character and behavior. Jeremiah tells us that it is deceitful above all things (17:9), it can be pierced…
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Added by HKHaugan on April 26, 2010 at 9:30am —
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The mind is the gateway to the heart. How we think will be processed in the heart. It is one thing to have a concept but still another to trust that concept to work. Trust is what takes place in the heart. We have a concept about God but the question is, do we trust Him? Jesus says it plainly, “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me (Jn.14:1).” There is a three-fold call here.
First, Jesus makes a blanket statement about humanity: all people have troubled…
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Added by HKHaugan on April 25, 2010 at 8:33am —
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Remember those realities we talked about when we looked at our humanity apart from God? Let’s revisit them for a moment.
The first reality we all share is self-consciousness.
The second reality we all share is our physicality.
The third reality we share with every other human being is being alone.
The fourth reality we all share is relationships.
The fifth reality we all share is having a common material environment.
The sixth reality we all share is…
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Added by HKHaugan on April 24, 2010 at 9:00am —
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Matthew Henry in his Commentary on Ps.84:10 said this: “If we cannot go to the house of the Lord, we may go by faith to the Lord of the house; in him we shall be happy…”
A longtime Christian said to me last summer, “I’m still amazed at the stuff that goes through my mind even after living a life of faith these many years.” He was referring to the world’s darkness that lingers in the hallways of our sinful nature. Across the centuries you can find in the diaries, memoirs, plays and…
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Added by HKHaugan on April 22, 2010 at 9:46am —
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In London, UK when you get on the Underground a voice comes on the loudspeaker, “Mind the gap, mind the gap.” It refers to the gap between the station platform and the floor of the train door. But it also offers us a further reminder to think about the gap between the world and God. It’s all about context (our personal worldview).
There is a huge gap between thinking in the context of eternity and thinking in the context of time. It’s a mind gap. The mind of Jesus thinks in forever concepts…
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Added by HKHaugan on April 19, 2010 at 8:00am —
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The world hates you. Subtle though it be, it hates your mind, heart and spirit. That is the final truth about the ‘world.’ The reason will emerge here shortly. We want to make clear the world is not the earth. The world the Bible describes is a spiritual structure of thought, principle, spirit and behavior operating apart from God. The world is the summation of a God-made structure that has been taken over by sin and all that is not of God. The original world came through Jesus but sinful…
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Added by HKHaugan on April 15, 2010 at 1:29pm —
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If you’ve ever been in a boat going through a fog you know you lose sense of direction, you peer into the mist trying to figure out if anything is near you and you pick your way through the invisible. With modern technology a boat finds its way through the fog, can sense where the hidden channels are and what the depth is. The reality is that you trust yourself to something outside yourself to maneuver whether it’s in a fog or in the darkness. This is precisely what takes place in the ‘world.’…
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Added by HKHaugan on April 13, 2010 at 4:40pm —
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When asked which was the greatest commandment, Jesus replied, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind (Matt.22:37).” Mark and Luke add, “…and with all your strength.”
“Have you heard the latest about the movie star, the golfer, the preacher, the lawyer, the politician, what Sally said about Joe next door, what I saw on TV about that senator and his girlfriend, about what is really going on in DC, the nation and the world?” and on and…
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Added by HKHaugan on April 11, 2010 at 2:55pm —
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The eighteen realities we have covered describe the human condition, the fragmented confusion resulting from our spiritual separation from God. The only One who understands all of this is God and He has sent His Son to reveal everything necessary to overcome the complicated conditions in which we find ourselves. The realities that have been described above are the realities Jesus took upon Himself. The Father sent His Son into the aloneness we all experience from birth by being born into the…
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Added by HKHaugan on April 8, 2010 at 3:22pm —
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A fifteenth reality we all share is the need to hide like Adam did. It seems everyone is looking for a safe haven, a retreat house, a cave, a place to feel emotionally and physically secure. It’s a place or an activity we can rationalize as a need and justify its importance. The more obvious are those that are socially acceptable like our jobs, families, clubs, games, leisure activities, degrees, diplomas, projects, homes, possessions, church, charities, TV, radio, computers and other general…
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Added by HKHaugan on April 7, 2010 at 2:56pm —
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The eighth reality is belief. Belief moves us into the inner realities that drive how we manage our life experience. The first and third realities, self-consciousness and aloneness, depend on how and why we manage what we know to be reality. What we believe about who we are, what we are and why we exist is the basis for how we process our experience.
The ninth reality is needs. We are conscious of the needs proceeding from what we discover about being an individual in the midst of…
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Added by HKHaugan on April 6, 2010 at 7:42am —
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What the Resurrection of Jesus Christ has done is to challenge what we believe about reality. If we look around us it has to be obvious that we live in two realities, the seen and the unseen. There is a sequence that followed mankind’s fall from the presence of God. There was separation between the physical and the spiritual, separation from the presence, the mind, the heart and the Spirit of God. Adam said, "I heard you in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked. And I hid." (Gen.3:7)…
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Added by HKHaugan on April 5, 2010 at 2:30pm —
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The Resurrection of Jesus is the most important, significant and dynamic event in all of human history. The brutally crucified itinerant rabbi-carpenter from an obscure province and an obscure people rose from the dead to be the central focal point in all of human existence. There is nothing that supercedes Him. All human existence, past, present and future, has to be sifted through Him, who He is and what He came to do. Our perception of life, its meaning, structure and purpose, can never find…
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Added by HKHaugan on April 3, 2010 at 5:20pm —
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“If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.”---Mt.16:24
There is no configuration of lines, figures or symbols that embraces existence like the Cross. It points to two realities, the seen and the unseen. What we take in with our eyes is the horizontal dimension of the physical universe in all its grandeur, the cross beam. What we take in with our hearts is from the unseen, that which motivates us, the values we use to move in what is seen,…
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Added by HKHaugan on April 2, 2010 at 7:30am —
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"You don’t realize NOW what I am doing, but later you will understand. Jn.13:7
NOW that you know these things…Jn.13:17
I am telling you NOW before it happens, so that when it does happen you will believe that I am He. Jn.13:19
NOW is the Son of Man glorified and God is glorified in Him and if God is glorified in Him, God will glorify the Son in Himself, and will glorify Him at once. Jn.13:31-32.
NOW [Father] they know everything you have given me comes from you.…
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Added by HKHaugan on April 1, 2010 at 5:30pm —
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The Question
Where do the gifts of administration fit in the Body? First, we need to ask, is there a clear picture in everyone’s mind what the mission of the Body of Christ is, what the consequent vision to fulfill it is in a specific geographical area, what structure is necessary to see that the local vision is accomplished in terms of leadership, committees, training, evaluation of performance and so on? These all need supervision (literally, vision from above, ‘super’ vision) and…
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Added by HKHaugan on April 1, 2010 at 11:30am —
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