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Written by Parker Palmer, an American author, educator, and activist. This is an excerpt from his book “Let Your Life Speak.”

A leader is someone with the power to project either shadow or light onto some part of the world and onto the lives of the people who dwell there. A leader shapes the ethos in which others must live, an ethos as light-filled as heaven or as shadowy as hell.

For at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light. [Ephesians 5:8]

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Written by Karen Ehman and Ruth Schwenk, contemporary authors. This is an excerpt from their book “Settle My Soul.”

Sometimes anger reveals not what we want, but what we have and are afraid of losing.  Maybe it’s a sense of control, someone’s approval, or security. Often times when what we value most is threatened, we act out in anger to prevent losing it. Is your anger revealing something you are fearful of losing? What does your anger reveal that you treasure most? The next time you get angry, learn to ask, “Why?” Allow God to show you what is really driving your anger. God wants to change us from the inside out. Not just our actions, but our hearts.

  Do not let the sun go down on your anger. [Ephesians 4:26]

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Written by Janice Mayo Mathers, a contemporary speaker and author. This is an excerpt from her book “Discovering God’s Good News for You.

Lord, because of your glory and excellence, you have given me great and precious promises. These are the promises that enable me to share your divine nature and escape the world’s corruption caused by human desires. You have given me the gift of peace of mind and heart; it’s a gift that doesn’t come from the world; and because of it, I never have to be troubled or afraid. You take care of me and supply all my needs from your glorious riches, which ou have given to me in Christ Jesus.

His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness.Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature, having escaped the corruption in the world caused by evil desires. [2 Peter 1:3-4]  

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Written by Mark Roberts, a contemporary author and pastor.

As a pastor, I have been privileged to listen to people who, after years of struggling with guilt, have finally been able to confess their sin to God. The resulting experience of forgiveness and peace often leads to exultant joy. The very sins that haunt us the most, the sins for which we most need to experience God’s forgiveness, are usually the ones we have the hardest time confessing. Our shame over our failure keeps us from telling God the truth of what we have done. Yet, by the power of the Holy Spirit, when we are set free to be honest about our worst offenses, then we are finally able to know the transforming power of divine forgiveness… God will not just forgive us, but also cleanse us from all the ways we are not right with God and each other. Now that’s what I call good news.

If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he who is faithful and just will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. [1 John 1:8-9]

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Written by C.S. Lewis (1898-1963) a British writer, theologian, and literary scholar. This is an excerpt from his book “Mere Christianity.”

Imagine yourself a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps you can understand what he is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on: you knew that those jobs needed doing so you are not surprised. But presently he starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make sense. What on earth is he up to? The explanation is that he is building quite a different house from the one you thought of—throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were going to be made into a decent little cottage: but he is building a palace. If we let him—for we can prevent him, if we choose—he will make the feeblest and filthiest of us into a…dazzling, radiant, immortal creature, pulsating all through with such energy and joy and wisdom and love as we cannot now imagine, a bright, stainless mirror which reflects back to God perfectly (though, of course, on a smaller scale) his own boundless power and delight and goodness.

A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you. I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. [Ezekiel 36:26]

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Written by Carl Trueman, a contemporary professor.

The challenge for religious communities—the challenge for the church, the challenge for Christians—is that we need, in the coming generation, to be a community that’s certainly connected to the world. We’re still going to have mortgages, student loans, et cetera, et cetera, but a community that is able to be so strong that it fosters and informs the way that Christians imagine the world to be—that is what will allow them to resist the enticements and the plausibilities of the world around us. What that looks like, I don’t know. It may look different in different circumstances, but I’ll leave you with this thought: I think it looks local. I don’t think it looks national. Not yet, anyway. I think Christianity has been so rapidly disemboweled and so rapidly shunted to the margins of Western society that the hope for a national transformation has to be very small at this point. The place where we can work against this most effectively is in our families, in our churches, and in our local communities.

Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven. [Matthew 5:15-16]

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Written by Augustine of Hippo (354-430), a theologian and philosopher.

People travel to wonder at the height of the mountains, at the huge waves of the seas, at the long course of the rivers, at the vast compass of the ocean, at the circular motion of the stars, and yet they pass by themselves without wondering.

Let us examine and probe our ways and let us return to the Lord. [Lamentations 3:40]

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Written by Dietrich Bonhoffer (1906-1945), a German Lutheran pastor, theologian, and Nazi dissident., This is an excerpt from his book “Life Together.”

Confess your faults to one another. He who is alone with his sin is utterly alone. It may be that Christians, notwithstanding corporate worship, common prayer, and all their fellowship and service, may still be left to their loneliness. The final breakthrough to fellowship does not occur because, although they have fellowship with one another as believers and as devout people, they do not have fellowship as the undevout, as sinners. The pious fellowship permits no one to be a sinner. So everyone must conceal his sin from himself and from the fellowship. We dare not be sinners. Many Christians are unthinkably horrified when a real sinner is discovered among the righteous.

So I said: “Woe is me, for I am undone! Because I am a man of unclean lips.” [Isaiah 6:5]

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Written by A.B. Simpson (1843-1919), a Canadian preacher, theologian, and author.

In the old creation, the week began with work and ended with Sabbath rest. The resurrection week begins with the first day-first rest, then labor. So we must first cease from our own works as God did from His, and enter into His rest. And then, with rested hearts, we will work His works with effectual power. But why labor to enter into rest? See that sailing craft — how restfully it glides over the waters, its canvas swelling with the wind and borne without an effort! And yet, look at that man at the helm. See how firmly he holds the rudder, bearing against the wind, and holding her steady to her position. Let him for a moment relax his steady hold and the vessel will fall listlessly along the wind. The sails will flap, the waves will toss the craft at their will, and all rest and power will have gone. It is the fixed helm that brings the steadying power of the wind. The steady will and stayed heart are ours. The keeping is the Lord’s. So let us labor to enter and abide in His rest.

Rest in the Lord [Psalm 37:1-7]

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Written by Ole Hallesby (1879-1961), a Norwegian theologian and author.    This is an excerpt from his book “Prayer.”

Unbelief is something very different from doubt. Unbelief is an attribute of the will, and consists in a man’s refusal to believe, that is, refusal to see his own need, acknowledge his helplessness, go to Jesus, and speak candidly and confidently with him about his sin and distress. Doubt, on the other hand, is an anguish, a pain, a weakness, which at times affects our faith. We could therefore call it Faith Distress: Faith Anguish, Faith Suffering, Faith Tribulation. Such faith illness can be more or less painful and more or less protracted, like all other ailments, but if we can begin to look upon it as suffering that has been laid upon us, it will lose its sting of distress and confusion.

Immediately the boy’s father exclaimed, “I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!” [Mark 9:24]

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