Agape
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Day 5 of our Fast: Love is a Verb
By Nickole Meierotto I might be dating myself, or maybe just letting out a bit of my weird, but do any of you remember DC Talk from back in the 90s (late 19th century according to the kids these days)? I used to listen to the album “Free at Last” on repeat and one of…
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Let’s Talk about Love
Image courtesy of Dan at FreeDigitalPhotos.net Hiya! Ian from Springtime Sydney. Yes, we in the Southern Hemisphere are beginning to experience the blooming of flowers, the tweeting of baby birds (and unwanted attacks while walking by overzealous magpies) and longer days. I was excited to know that Ann is to be leading us over the…
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Learning to Love
Hello, dear Sumites. Ian from Down Under here. In this challenging year, it’s very easy to hop on the blame bandwagon and start griping about everything and anything. Life as we know it has been turned upside down and really the ‘new normal’ is still so uncertain. What will life be like in 2021, which…
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Staunch, Skeptic, and Special!
“I’ve never met a Christian I liked!” declared Seamus* to the rest of us at his table. I frowned at him quizzically. Personally, I had no problem with Christians; my thing was sheer indifference. I just couldn’t relate to their fervor. By the end of the year, however, the unexpected had happened: I had gone…
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A Testimony by SUMite Holly Boone
Dear friends, Holly Boone (a different Holly from the one I shared about in my last post) shared this with me in an email and I asked if I could share it with our community. I pray it blesses you as it did me. I remember being in a similar place in my marriage years…
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Weekend Worship – It Starts With a Willing Heart
So when they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon, son of John, do you love Me more than these?” He said to Him, “Yes, Lord; You know that I love You.” He said to him, “Tend My lambs.” He said to him again a second time, “Simon, son of John, do you…
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The Seeds of God’s Love
As I passed the vase of flowers I noticed one of the buds had fallen to the table still closed tightly like a tube. I intended to throw the bud away but something nudged me to open its petals. I gently pushed the flower open to see the seeds inside. As I examined the contents,…
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Weekend Worship – FREEDOM!
My precious friends, since our conference I am more and more convinced that God is moving is a big way and His message is all about Hi love and freedom-the freedom that comes when we walk in faith, trusting Him for our lives and knowing who ecactly we are in Jesus. Recently I wrote a couple…
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Weekend Devo – God Loved Us First!
My friends, we have a wonderful week of devotions planned for next week. Rosheeda has prayfully written something for each day so that we can walk through the week with hope, faith and love planted squarely in our Jesus, and celbrate the greatest gift of this life and the next (yep, it's the gift that…
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Weekend Worship – Let Your Love Loose!
Like Lynn said in yesterday's post, love has the power to conquer all. As I read that a fuller impact of what it means really hit home. This is something I've known since a child. Not sure how other than God just wired me that way, but I never fully understood what kind of love…
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Weekend Devo – Sifted Like Wheat
Yesterday we were blessed by a POWERFUL reader letter. In it she mentions Luke 22:31-32: “Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift all of you as wheat. But I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.” If you’ve read Peter’s story you…
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It Had to be Him…
I love my husband. No, I really, really love my husband. And it’s not the same as when I married him. It’s better. I can’t take credit for it either. At all. It’s totally God. I started praying years ago that God would help me love my husband the way Jesus did, to love him with…
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He Came Upon a Midnight Clear-For YOU!
My Bible study group completed our study yesterday. We’d walked the past 11 weeks through the story of David with Beth Moore. On this last day she shared a powerful visual of a staff that had once been a vine. The bottom was straight but about half way up, the thick stalk rose upward in…
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Spouse-Based or God-Based?
What is the difference between a spouse-based marriage and a God-based marriage? This is the question my Sunday school leader asked our group this past weekend. We’re currently doing Gary Thomas’ video series, Sacred Marriage, which goes with his book by the same title. It’s a great course, and I have loved hearing different perspectives…
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Loving God Helps Me Love My Husband
I will tell you, in all honesty, that I cannot love my husband in my own strength. It’s not possible. I tried to for a many years and would do fine for a while, but inevitably I would run out of steam. Resentment would seep back in and these feelings and thoughts that had to…
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Weekend Devo – Giving Love
On one of last week’s post, a commenter asked if God could teach her to love her husband unconditionally. This is such a good question, that I decided to share some of my answer here today. This is such a crucial area that I think we need to talk more about not only loving our…
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Weekend Devo – Love Never Fails
"Love never fails." – 1 Corinthians 13:8 I grew up thinking love was the key to everything. I don't know why, but this was my mental make-up as a child, a teenager, and then a young adult. Yet as I grew older, I started to question if love was really enough. Over time I noticed…