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Showing posts with the label Stress

Afflicted yet free

January 28, 2014, Atlanta, GA is facing an affliction that it is for which we are never prepared. Snow! So far, we've had about a half an inch, but all we need to cause widespread panic on the streets of our Southern city. And since we only experience this once in about three or four years, we really never learn how from it. Unfortunately, we can go through life similarly. Because we manage to avoid pain, when it hits we can overreact. Certainly, we forgive the overreactions of our children when they stub their toe or pinch their finger in a door. Good parents teach their children how to anticipate and how to handle pain, which invariable comes to us all. Thankfully, those who follow Jesus Christ have the benefit of a Heavenly Father who knows how to use affliction for our good.  JI Packer, now well into his eighties, provides a great explanation for how God uses affliction in our lives: “God uses chronic pain and weakness, along with other affl...

Sermon text - Psalm 31 - Loving the LORD

Psalm 31 Sermon 3rd draft The passage of scripture we are looking at this morning is a lament Psalm of David. David may have written it about the time he faced Goliath. David could have been talking about the time when he was on the run and hiding out from King Saul.   It might be a prayer that David prayed later in his life when his own son leads a rebellion to take David’s throne. We know for sure that David is crying to the LORD for help. And then when we get the end of the prayer, he is commanding all God’s people, love the Lord. So, the Psalm focuses on two things, facing stress and loving the LORD. Stress is an in big problem for most of us. Many of you have already experienced stress today, it getting ready and making your way to church.   There is stress related to time, money, work, and relationships. We continually have more to do that we have time to do it. I don’t need to convince you that we live in a stressful world. Whether you think of the financial downturn of...