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The Kiss of Judas and the Mystery of Iniquity
Iniquity is not high on my list of things I wish to write about. However, in my journey through Luke, I found myself considering Judas for the first time. In my previous post about Judas, my thoughts were on the mask he wore. But this time, I found myself caught in the moment where Jesus asks Would you betray the Son of Man with a kiss? This is where the word iniquity comes to mind for me. I feel Jesus’ hurt at this moment. Or perhaps He was astonished by the gall of it. A kiss in Jewish culture represents loyalty. It is a covenant of friendship as when Aaron…
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How to Love Your Enemies: No Faking Allowed
One of the biggest surprises that adult life has brought me is the fact that I have enemies. I’m not talking about the devil or even people who find me annoying. I am talking about bona fide enemies who actively wish me harm or who for reasons of their own, hate me. Another surprise that adult life brought my way is how easy it is to hate them back. Hatred is a bleak desert of an emotion. And it pretty much always leads to despair. After all, no life springs forth from the kind of hatred one feels towards someone similarly inclined towards oneself. And because we know that we…
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The Care and Feeding of the Human Spirit
For most of us, the line between soul and spirit is an amorphous one. In fact, many use the terms interchangeably. However, I believe they are two separate, though not unrelated, parts of our identity. Just as God exists in a trinity, so do we, being made up of body, soul, and spirit. Because of this, I think a quick definition of the soul and the spirit is in order. The soul is the seat of your thoughts and emotions. The soul often receives a bad rap. To behave in a soulish way is Christianspeak for acting poorly. But the soul is an important part of our makeup. We spend…
Healing Through Art & Words
