Author: Bo Parker
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Tree Rings & Spiritual Growth II
From previous post…..”What if there are two aspects to healthy spiritual growth, like there are two rings of growth in a tree? There is growth that comes out of abundant spiritual experience, but there is also growth that comes out of a withdrawing of that experience. And what if the healthy spiritual life consists of…
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Tree Rings & Spiritual Growth
On Saturday I was attending a conference and heard Frog Orr-Ewing speak. Something he shared caught my attention. The tree rings that indicate the age of a tree are of two types. The wider, lighter color rings indicate growth during the Spring and Summer and the narrower, darker rings indicate growth during the late Summer…
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Embracing Self-Denial IV
Another reason that we balk at the call to self-denial is that it seems so unnatural not to care for ourselves. There is an element of our concern for ourselves that is not sinful, but rather just human. Paul talks about this in reference to husbands loving their wives, “husbands should love their wives as…
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Embracing Self-Denial III
he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised. 2 Cor 5:15 No longer live for themselves.…We have a hard time viewing our lives through any other lens than living for ourselves. We evaluate everything with an eye ultimately…
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Embracing Self-Denial II
For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. Hebrews 12:11 Recalling the quote from Francis Schaeffer in blog post Self Denial…. No Thanks, “Is it not true that our thoughts, our prayers for ourselves and those…
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Embracing Self-Denial
There is a disturbing level of self-denial that is a part of the discipleship of gay Christians who choose to remain committed to a traditional sexual ethic and the self denial that is a part of the lives of persecuted Christians who choose to remain committed to Jesus. However, the vast majority of Western Christians…
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Self-Denial….. No Thanks Part III
More and more Christians are adopting the belief that churches should not prohibit gay marriage for disciples of Jesus. They see this as requiring too much self-denial for their brothers and sisters in Christ whose sexual orientation is toward the same sex. And many Christians who remain opposed to gay marriage for followers of Jesus…
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Self-Denial…No Thanks Part II
The role of self-denial is a difficult topic to get a handle on. Part of that may be that we do not want to get a handle on it because we do not want to do it. So much of our human nature and cultural values are focused on self-fulfillment, not self-denial. I am still…
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Self-Denial….No Thanks
Now great crowds accompanied him, and he turned and said to them,“If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot…
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Thanksgiving and Cross Bearing
And he said to all, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.” In his book True Spirituality, Francis Schaeffer offers his explanation for the lack of Christlike spiritual growth in our lives. He tells of a time in his life when, “it seemed…