listening well

7 Tips For Listening Well & Making Someone Feel Valued

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One of the most important elements of loving people is listening well. For me, this is a skill that always has room for improvement, but it is worth the effort and discipline because often it is the one thing that tells someone I care. In other words, it is essential to Christian love and Kingdom community. How we listen is a great indicator of how much we value relationships. The challenge is that listening involves death to self and a commitment to someone else’s well-being. When I talk, I love it when I can see someone is really listening and considering what I am saying, so that is the least I can do for others when they speak. Listening well is one of the most important ways of making someone feel valued. True listening may be one of the highest of virtues, but many people are very weak in their Continue Reading →

Weekly words of encouragement

We Have Different Gifts For Blessing Each Other – Weekly Words Of Encouragement

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Just as our bodies have many parts and each part has a special function, so it is with Christ’s body. We are many parts of one body, and we all belong to each other. In his grace, God has given us different gifts for doing certain things well. Rom 12:4-5  (NLT) In God’s community everyone gets to play.  God loves us enough to make everyone important. He does this by giving everyone specific gifts and functions in the body of Christ. Regardless of our limitations, we are still valuable in the church. The desire to be productive is a basic God-given drive; God wants to fulfill this drive in everyone. We have a role that matters to God; something that makes him smile and satisfies our hearts. This truth is a powerful tool for encouraging others. We see people come into our congregation who are new to Jesus, all beaten up Continue Reading →

union of love, spiritual marriage

Your Union Of Love With God

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When you think or talk about your faith do you focus on your union of love with God or do you focus on lesser matters? How do you speak to yourself about what your faith is about? Do you understand that God is the author of ultimate relationship or do you focus on the right doctrine? I believe our union of love with God in Christ is the grand unifying theme of biblical theology and spirituality. Every element of the gospel is best understood in the context of His desire to be in a strong and loving relationship with us and His desire for us to live in a community of love with fellow believers. He wants to be our Father, our teacher, our lover, and our friend. Jesus summed this up in Matthew 22:37 by saying that the greatest commandment was to love God with all your heart, soul, Continue Reading →

more than conquerors victory

We Are More Than Conquerors – Weekly Word Of Encouragement

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“In all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.” Rom. 8:37 (ESV) In all these things (tribulation, distress, persecution etc.) we ARE more than conquerors. It doesn’t say we will be one day (though we will). Rather, it says that we are now more than conquerors. No matter what happens to us now we have victory. We are like the Roman generals who returned home in great victory processions, displaying all the fruits of their victory. What is our victory? That nothing separates us from the love of Christ; we can always defeat the forces that try to harm our relationship with God in Christ. In spite of whatever happens, our hearts are safe and victorious; we still have peace and holiness. We are still connected to the Ruler of All. He maintains our goodness in a dark world. Trials don’t defeat us; we are Continue Reading →

reach communitiies

How Do We Engage Our Communities For Jesus’ Sake?

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As Christians, how should we seek to engage our communities for Jesus? What is the highest priority? Many believers are disturbed by the decline in their country of interest in Christianity or even in living healthy constructive lives. People seem to be less able to form healthy relationships and don’t seem to seriously seek a transcendent life. This situation is not too different from what the Christians faced in the first three centuries of the Church. The early Christians did not take an adversarial approach to their society. Sometimes Christian writers would point out the sinfulness of their culture but they did not focus on this. Instead, they focused on living the Christian life. In other words, they had a different model of social engagement. Perhaps one could refer to their approach as “magnetic engagement”: the Church focused on drawing people by living attractive lives. A few believers were evangelists, Continue Reading →