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A faithful presence of love in the absences of our city.

Posts by Josh Spare

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Filled with the Spirit

blog of Pentecost Sunday

"This past Pentecost Sunday, we are reminded of the answer: my friends, we must be filled with the Spirit. When our emotions surge and our passions rise for truth and justice, we must be filled with the Spirit, for the Spirit, unlike our emotions, does not usurp the place of truth, but takes us to the person who is Truth Himself. When we think all the people around us are ...

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See Jesus!

See Jesus!

"Into this uncertainty and lack of control, I see Jesus! Jesus, who is “the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities...

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Balance is Stupid

Balance is stupid

"As I have considered this inevitability of balance in the Star Wars universe, I have been reflecting upon how much better the Christian story is. Where the Star Wars universe is left with either adhering to the rules of the universe and leaving off a story in a “balanced” state of good and evil or breaking the rules and allowing good to triumph, we live in a story whe...

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Whoosh & Boom of Christmas

Woosh & Boom of christmas2

"My friends, beholding Christ this season is not merely finding out how Christ can augment our understanding and our experience of Christmas. Behold our Christ means perceiving how Christ, taking on human form and coming as a crying and mewling babe, fundamentally reorients all of our traditions, all of our experiences, all of our joys, all of our sorrows, all of our hopes...

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Sin & The Righteous Older Brother

SIn & The righteous older brother

"At the end of the story, we are left with the younger son reconciled to his father while we are uncertain as to the status of the older son; though the sins of the younger may have been more severe, the ultimate reconciliation of the younger son to the father made any gradations of sin irrelevant in light of the category of being in grace. And this, then, is the principle...

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We Will Feast

we will feast

"Paul is calling us to remember that the kingdom of God is forever, that the work we put into justice and goodness and sanctification and edification, that work will endure while our weak and frail bodies will pass away to be replaced with immortal bodies, freed from the limitations and weaknesses that we endure now! And so, in light of that, we fast. We take opportunities...

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The Practices of Song

The practices of song

"As I stand to sing, I rarely feel like singing; the words seem rote, the melodies too familiar. But herein lies the great opportunity for song to lift you from your reverie, to consider God, to consider your impoverished state, and to consider how Christ has raised you up to new life. In this way, the practices of song have great opportunity to raise your eyes to properly...

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Sermon Reflection: Genesis 16

the chaos monster (2)

The question that rattled around in my head as I listened and reflected on Pastor Justin's sermon this week was "What promise?" Before I expand on that, let me take a few steps back to explain how I ended up where I am in my thinking. In this Series,The Gospel According to Abraham, we have returned to Genesis and have begun tracing the story of Abraham from his calling ou...

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The Time is Near

the time is near

Augustine wrote in hisConfessions, "What, then, is time? If no one asks me, I know; but if I wish to explain it to one who asks, I know not." I think this is a most astute observation of time, for I spend all my waking moments oriented around time - I wake up at this time; I go to work at this time; I spend this amount of time doing this task; I wasted this amount of time ...

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O' Doyles Rule!

Believe &Perceive

...the Revelation of John for things to come points to a people so engrossed in their self-sufficiency that the thunder of heaven cannot turn their unrepentant hearts - how much like that are we? How much like that am I? ...

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A Paradox

A Paradox

Our common sense, our most natural desire, as we face the icy challenges that life throws at us is to “white-knuckle” it; to strive to control and over-power difficulty by making our name great, or by demonstrating our own righteousness, or by building up our own little kingdom. And yet, the paradox is that it is precisely by relinquishing control to God, by forgoing o...

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Hasten

Hasten

We look forward and say there is a better day coming because of Jesus. And not only do we look forward, but we hasten it by living today as a renewed people in the midst of that broken world. ...

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Real Rest

Real Rest

How often do I “rest” by binging on show after show? Or fritter my time away on silly articles on Twitter or Reddit? Or squander my Saturday on a unimportant book?...

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Captain of My Soul

Captain Of MY Soul

How silly to think that large statutes and grand works will last beyond a lifetime! And yet, as Pastor Justin reminds us, we must see ourselves in Nebuchadnezzar’s quest for transcendence, for meaning, for a legacy. ...

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The Problem of Suffering: Habakkuk

We, as Christians, have the privilege of engaging with our Creator, demanding a response for evil that seems contrary to His very character, and throwing ourselves into the eternal love that began between the Trinity and has been mercifully extended to us....

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Technology for God's Glory

Leave it to sinful man to conflate their good, God-given capability for developing technology and for building wonderful things with their own ego-driven self-aggrandizement....

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A grace-filled family is loud, not with its criticism, but with its affirmation.

There was a phrase that Pastor Justin emphasized in his sermon this week. I don't know if you caught it, but he stopped and repeated it very slowly, almost as if he was waiting for me to write it down in order to be able to reflect on it more fully later on. "A grace-filled family is loud, not with its criticism, but with its affirmation."...

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