daily word - progress

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Submitted by Dale Cresap on June 05, 2024 - 15:33

Do you believe in progress? What do you think it consists of? Does the term make you think of the latest electronic gadget? It began much earlier. The rise of agriculture allowed the development of cities. Mechanized agriculture, fertilizer, and irrigation allowed the development of very large cities. And so population and affluence have grown. What other sorts of progress can you think of? Knowledge has increased, so more things are known, and this information is available to more and more people. What about spiritual progress? Has it kept up with these other areas?

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daily word - occupy

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Submitted by Dale Cresap on June 05, 2024 - 15:31

Do you look for my return? I promised to return and you can count on this, but the wait is longer than anyone expected. What are you to do in the meanwhile? For you do not know when your master will return. I told a story about a master who went on a long journey and left his servants to take care of the place in his absence. The story implies that there was enough time for the servants to run successful businesses. Are you doing this? You can apply the principle of the story to your own life.

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daily word - purpose of liberty

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Submitted by Dale Cresap on June 05, 2024 - 15:30

Are you serious about standing fast in the liberty in which I have made you free? To what end? For I also told you to lay down your life and pick up your cross and follow me, to die daily, to be the servant of all. Do these visions seem to be in conflict? There is a resolution that satisfies both conditions. You are indeed called to be a servant of all, and I have given you the liberty to do this. Therefore you should steadfastly oppose any constraint that would interfere with your ability to serve others.

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daily word - listening

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Submitted by Dale Cresap on June 05, 2024 - 15:29

Do you think listening is the same as not talking? But you can remain silent and ignore people. Isn’t it blatantly obvious when people are paying attention to you and when they are not? True listening is a very intensive and demanding activity. It requires full empathetic engagement, and identifying with the emotional content of the story you are hearing. Have you ever had anyone pay attention to you at this level? How did it feel? Most people have nothing more to offer than clouded or distracted presence.

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daily word - journey?

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Submitted by Dale Cresap on June 05, 2024 - 15:28

Do you see the practice of your faith as a journey or a destination? Everyone uses the terminology of journey, but does the life you lead reflect this concept more than destination? You accepted certain premises when you first believed. Have you added to these? Have you added things and later reconsidered and let them go? Revelation is the process of revealing. Are you receiving revelation on a regular basis? This is living water and the bread of life that you need for nourishment even as you need food to sustain your body, because man does not live by bread alone.

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daily word - imagining?

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Submitted by Dale Cresap on June 05, 2024 - 15:26

Do you think that you are just making up the things that you imagine? When you express a concern to someone have you ever been told that you are just imagining it? This is a dismissive rather than an affirmative statement. Yet everything you do or make or say exists in your mind before it is a manifested reality. Can imagination be sanctified?  I promised that my sheep would hear my voice. How do you hear from me? Do you assume that every thought you have originates within you? Have you ever had thoughts that came to you that didn’t belong to the usual sequence of flow?

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daily word - adventure

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Submitted by Dale Cresap on June 05, 2024 - 15:25

Do you like to go on adventures? Do you like to travel with a schedule of destinations and activities determined in advance? Do you think you can do both or is there an unavoidable conflict between these approaches? This is a valid question even if you don’t travel, for your life is subject to influences beyond your control. Would you like to know every step going forward? But this is not given to you and you could not bear it. Can you still have peace and contentment? Do you realize that you live a charmed life in an enchanted world?

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daily word - eternal value

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Submitted by Dale Cresap on June 05, 2024 - 15:22

Does your life seem frantic? Are you achieving your goals with the effort you put forth? Do your goals and achievements create eternal value? Have you ever been busy but not accomplished anything? Do you insist on value for the money you spend? You should. Do you realize that your time budget is even more rigidly enforced than your monetary budget? Time will pass one way or another, but time can be redeemed and turned into eternal value. It is a bargain to give what you cannot keep to gain what you cannot lose. Follow my advice to lay up for yourself treasure in heaven.

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daily word - essence of faith

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Submitted by Dale Cresap on June 05, 2024 - 15:17

What is the essence of your faith? What are the distinctive features that you use to describe it to others? Do you emphasize the supernatural aspects of your faith? For you live in an era dominated by rationalism in which there is no respect for the supernatural. As a result believers are embarrassed by the supernatural aspects of their faith and diminish them. But what does that leave you with? Can you refute or even contend with rationalism on a purely rational basis? Can you articulate the supernatural distinctives of your faith and explain why they are essential to it?

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daily word - enthralled?

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Submitted by Dale Cresap on June 05, 2024 - 15:14

Are you enthralled? How strongly do you support your team or your candidate in an election or the leader of your church? There is nothing wrong with having preferences and providing support for those you favor but you can do so without yielding your personal sovereignty or identity. False messiahs are always looking for disciples and are eager to exert undue influence and control over those willing to follow them. You are bought with a price and you are not your own, and it was I who paid that price. Do not willingly become the captive of any man.

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