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Real-World Family Devotional

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This week, I talked with a friend about the family devotionals that we do with our kids, or at least that we try to do. I pulled back the curtain and let him peak inside the family devotional time at the Aguilar house, which is not very impressive. On Saturday mornings, we read a short passage, and I try to ask some basic comprehension questions. Then we share what we are grateful for and what we are struggling with (prayer requests). Then we pray for each other, and Tina and I usually end up leading each kid in the prayers that they are trying to pray. We try to walk the fine line of forcing them to do something they don’t want to do without making Bible time something they hate. It doesn’t feel magical or even meaningful most times. I realize, however, that the majority of our discipleship happens in other real-world scenarios that I try to take advantage of. For example, our kids will often say they are afraid of one thing or another at bed time. That’s when I teach them how to deal...
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The Goodness of Good Friday

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My kids are at the age where they understand just enough to NOT understand why we call it Good Friday. I've been swimming in Christian lingo and mindset for so long that the utter strangeness of the cross starts to "make sense" in ways that it really doesn't from a merely human perspective. I say it "makes sense" because we talk about it so much that it starts to feel normal: that our God would die on a cross. We sing songs about the cross. We wear them around our necks, and we talk effortlessly about Jesus dying on the cross for our sins. It has begun to feel almost obvious--as though the one through whom all things were created would obviously  die on a cross for us.  In my seminary class, we're looking at the works of Paul as he helped the early church deal with the newness of faith in Jesus. One of the big hangups was the idea that anyone of any importance could possibly have been crucified. It was, likewise, strange to think of a multinational grou...
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What do we do in the midst of all this exposure?

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  In Kenya, a young man asked me if I thought God gave special grace to major church leaders so that they could say and do the kinds of unbiblical things he is seeing from the American church without losing their anointing. He asked this because of a preacher he listened to out of Tulsa OK, who uses profanity in sermons, wears women's clothes to preach in, and among other antics, squirted syrup all over an open Bible during a sermon to illustrate, well, no one really knows. Does God give a guy like that special grace to teach nonsense? I told the young man in Kenya that I thought it was the exact opposite. I told him what the Bible says about teachers, that we will be held to a higher standard for what we teach, not given special passes. ____ If you're wondering what that story has to do with the video above, it's this: Recently, a number of prominent leaders, ministries, movements, and "prophets" have been coming under considerable scrutiny for being lovers of mo...
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The Hand of God was Upon Me...

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Last week, I brought up the topic of spiritual attack coming against the church. In my previous post, I said that I get strangely rejuvenated in situations like these. It may be as simple as the fact that the reality of the darkness always makes me more aware of the light, but it may be something more spiritual. I think God manifests himself more in and through us when we are more aware of our need for Him. Obviously, we need Him all the time, but in the midst of attack, we REALIZE we need Him. One thing I'm noticing across our church body is that we seem to be hearing God speak more clearly than usual. In a normal month, I'll usually come across 2 or 3 stories where people hear God speak and receive some kind of confirmation. However, in the 30 minutes following the sermon last week, I heard 5 or 6! I've continued to hear more and more throughout the week. Most of these testimonies would be a bit difficult to try to explain here, but one excellent example gives us the titl...
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Rejuvenated by Spiritual Attack?

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We have begun our season of prayer and fasting--incase you were wondering why you were so hungry! We kicked things off on Wednesday with a worship night that felt quite powerful to me. I was on stage banging away on a hand drum called a cajón, but I could hear the congregation singing and shouting pretty passionately the entire time.  That worship night marked the first of several special prayer nights that we will hold throughout the season of prayer and fasting. We're hoping that people make a special effort to join in to corporate prayer if possible.  On Sunday, we are also planning on changing up the liturgy a little by moving the sermon earlier in the service to leave more time for worship and ministry time at the end. Even though it wasn't originally a part of the plan, this first Sunday of Lent will have a couple of baptisms to kick it all off.  ______ As this season of prayer and fasting kicks off, I find myself rejuvenated in prayer , not necessarily because of t...
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The Benefits and Risks of Fasting as a Church

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Around this time last year, I preached a sermon simply called Fasting in a sermon series called Make Disciples. In that sermon, I gave the following definition of Biblical Fasting: Abstaining from food and sometimes water for spiritual purposes: expressing sorrow, seeking intervention from God, and subjugating your flesh to the Spirit .  Starting on February 18, we will enter into a time of fasting as a church. In my last post, Anyone Up for a Nice Long Fast? , I described the two fasts we will be choosing from: The Daniel Fast or a Sun-up to Sun-down fast. Again, you're free to modify either of those to make them less or more extreme. Go check out that post for the logistics. In this post, we need to focus on the benefits and risks of fasting as a church.
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Anyone up for a nice long fast?

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The season of Lent starts February 18 and ends on Easter Sunday, April 5. As a church, we will be joining together in fasting.  We will choose a type of fast that works for us individually, and we will fast from Monday through Saturday, and break the fast each week on Sunday as we celebrate together.  For more information on the theology of Fasting, please watch this message called Sermon on the Mount: When you Fast   Here are two options to choose from for a fast that you can dive into for this season of Lent.
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