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Sabbath Devotional :: The Artifice of Fear
“God hath not given us the spirit of fear.” ~2 Timothy 1:7 “Perfect love casteth out fear.” ~ 1 John 4:18 Fear is a frequently invoked motivating force in our world today. Parents use it, marketers use it, and friends use it. It has been used for generations. On the lighthearted end, we have the phrase and culture of “fear of missing out.” On the darker side, we have politicians and forces who use fear to “other” and dehumanize, to divide and stir up conflict intentionally. Fear-motivated anything can lead to bad results; fear-motivated politics can lead to particularly horrific results, especially when coupled with violent rhetoric. History proves that.…
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Sabbath Devotional :: Choose Love
MWEG’s fifth Principle of Peacemaking says, “Peacemaking chooses love instead of hate.” This seems like a fairly easy one in the abstract, the theoretical. I don’t think many people consider themselves hateful or relish or seek out feelings of hatred. Most people want to love and be loved. But it gets more complicated in the concrete, the specific, the up-close-and-personal and daily. So how do we choose love? Chapter 4 in 1 John is a master class on love, and I want to highlight a few verses here: 7. Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God.8. He that loveth…
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Sabbath Devotional :: Fear, Faith, and Focus
I have been thinking a lot about fear. This is partly because I have been noticing a lot of fear around me. I see it in news headlines and election strategies. I see it in my Facebook feed and on campaign flyers in my mailbox. But the truth is that fear is not just something I have been observing in other people. I have been thinking a lot about fear because I have been feeling a lot of fear myself. I fear big things, like government corruption and global pandemics. I fear not-so-big things, like my children getting their drivers’ licenses. I feel fear when my children are sick or…
