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LAYING DOWN OUR LIVES

At a certain point in Jesus’ earthly ministry, He began to show His disciples the truth concerning His Passion.   He told them plainly that He was to suffer at the hands of the elders and chief priests, and that He would be killed by them; but, after three days, He would be raised from the dead.   This was, indeed, a difficult concept to comprehend.   It was hard to wrap one’s mind around.   After all, Jesus was the mighty Son of God, the promised Messiah, and the Prince of Peace.   How could they kill Him?   Hadn’t He come to establish God’s heavenly Kingdom on earth and reign forever?   Peter was especially affected by this revelation, and, acting as a friend and one who loved Jesus, he began to rebuke his Lord saying, “Be it far from Thee, Lord: this shall not be unto Thee.” (Matthew 16:22). I’m sure that Peter’s whole intent was to comfort His Lord, and encourage Him that He would overcome these difficulties, and go on to be the King of Israel...
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GAINING EXPERIENCE

“THEREFORE BEING JUSTIFIED by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ: by Whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.  And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience; and patience, experience; and experience, hope : and hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us.” (Romans 5:1-5).   The year before I retired from the job I had for 42 years was a very difficult one.   I was asked to supervise five separate departments, all of which were “problem areas.”   I was forced to ask a lot from the people who reported to me, and I was asked to give more of my time to try to turn some of the worst operations around.   The problems were mostly engineering and maintenance issues resulting from the purchase of new equipment that wasn’t robust enough to do what the eng...
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A HIGHWAY OF HOLINESS

Sometime around 1491 B.C., God sent a savior to deliver His people Israel from the terrible bondage that they were suffering at the hands of a cruel Egyptian Pharaoh.  Israel had been in Egypt for four hundred years, and their experience there had gone from “fruitful” to “bitter” during that time.  Things were good for them after their ancestor Joseph brought them to Egypt to save them from the great famine that he had foreseen.  While Joseph was alive, the Egyptian Pharaoh that he served treated the Israelites kindly and with respect for Joseph’s sake.  After Joseph and that Pharaoh died, however, another Pharaoh began to reign who didn’t know Joseph and didn’t honor the memory of what Joseph had done.  This new Egyptian king enslaved the children of Israel and forced them to work on his vast building projects.  Eventually, he grew suspicious of the Jews as they began to multiply and arranged for the Egyptian midwives to murder the male Hebrew babies as t...
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