Erik Reed
@ErikReed
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Jesus is King. Interests: church, leadership, business, politics, & sports. @tjclive @arisecamps @StulosNetwork @BullyPulpitPod
Nashville, TN
Joined April 2008
In all my years of pastoring, I have learned this lesson: a person's spiritual maturity is not truly visible until they DON'T get their way. Then you see the person.
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One of the big ah-ha moments from the Damar Hamlin ordeal is how many people of faith are in media and sports than anyone realized. But they feel pressure not to talk about…until tragedy happens. Imagine if we all talked this freely?.
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Tonight is poignant reminder: all men are spiritually inclined. Most may not talk about God, but the moment devastation comes, the human instinct within man knows to cry out to its Maker.
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Our family is broken-hearted to share that Kaleb went to be with Jesus this afternoon. He told us several hours earlier that he was ready. We appreciate your love and prayers for him and our family. We will miss him so much, but we do not mourn as those without hope.
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This is incredible conviction, clarity, and courage by @SethDillon. He defends the profile position on one the largest media platforms in the world as Joe keeps pressing him. “Calling abortion ‘healthcare’ is like calling rape ‘love-making.’”.
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Okay, I’ll say it. I think it’s morally reprehensible for a professing Christian to vote for the Democrat party. Their stance and policies on abortion, mutilating children’s genitals, marriage and family, and much more should make it unthinkable for Christians to vote for them.
Black Christian leaders are finding hope with Kamala Harris, reports @harvestprude. The vice president’s faith and commitment to issues is stirring enthusiasm among the traditionally Democratic voting bloc.
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We just watched the “What Is Woman?” doc. Mercy. We’re failing an entire generation of kids. If you’re a Christian leader upset by American flags in churches and Trump fans, but you’re silent about the mutilation of genitalia and chemical injections being given to kids, repent.
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Would y’all pray for my son, Kaleb, this morning? He is having a surgery to disarm the pain receptors in his legs so that he won’t have so much nerve pain. It’s been a rough road the last 18 months, but we are praying for some increased quality of life.
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If you are a Christian who is criticizing how Wes Huff articulated and defended the faith on Joe Rogan’s podcast, get a life. He was phenomenal. Wes is a gift to the church that we should thank God for.
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Christianity alone supplies the kind of foundations that give you the ability to sing with joy and hope in the midst of trials and uncertainties.
Ukrainian Christians worshipping at a metro station in Kiev. They sing of forgiveness, salvation, mercy, joy, peace, and the people of Ukraine. A biblical light in the gloom of possible war.
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All the evangelical leaders who would go into cardiac arrest if Trump did this won’t say a word about Kamala’s church visit. We won’t hear tirades about a “compromised church” or “Christian nationalism.” Just crickets.
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Okay, Sovereign Lord, we get it. We messed up. 2020 has broken us. Please retract the nunchucks bear. We beg You.
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Sometimes the godliest thing to do is shut your mouth and not respond to things. Our inner-lawyer always wants to defend ourselves or correct the record, but sometimes the holiest thing you can do is zip your lip and say nothing.
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Gov. DeSantis is saying what many Christians—even Christian leaders—refuse to say out loud.
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Churches be like:. We’re looking for a pastor. He needs a masters degree, doctorate preferable. Must be a great leader with organization skills and ability to cast vision. Must be a dynamic communicator, but able to counsel. Able to build and lead a team. Salary: $45K. 😂.
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Today is Kaleb’s birthday. He would have been 19 years old. It's strange to think about the age your kid would have been. He was 15 when he died. I'm thankful to the Lord for every day with that sweet boy that He gave our family. Each day was a gift, not a right.
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Hey gang, as someone who has experienced every parent’s worst nightmare, I’m here to tell you that Jesus is enough. He sustains you in trials, sorrows, and sufferings. He fuels you with eternal joy and hope that transcends your circumstances. Cast yourselves upon Christ.
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Young men need to be shown how to:. - pray.- study Scripture.- lead.- shake hands w/ a firm grip.- maintain eye-contact when speaking .- fight bad guys.- kill sin and harness impulses.- make & manage money.- relate to women.- find their band of brothers. What would you add?.
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My son would have graduated today. We’re so proud of his classmates. We obviously miss him like crazy, but this is another one of those milestone dates that keep us leaning into the Everlasting Arms.
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This picture popped up on social media from several years ago. Kaleb was unable to bear any weight in his legs. So I held him on the trampoline and jumped for several minutes (he was heavy 😂). He loved it. He laughed out loud, though he was non-verbal. I miss him so much.
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I didn’t have Joe Rogan posting C.S. Lewis quotes on my things that would happen in 2021. But here we are. What a time to be alive. 😂
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Let's remember to pray for Biden and his administration today. They are making decisions regarding the Russian/Ukraine conflict that effect millions of lives. May partisan politics be supplanted with wisdom and true leadership. God have mercy on them.
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The universal urge and call to prayer in response to the #DamarHamlin collapse reveals our true spiritual nature. Every human being knows there is a Maker that:. • is over all things.• is personal and accessible .• is our only true hope & help. 🧵.
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Christians need to prepare for post-election realities. If Trump wins, there will be a national meltdown like has never been witnessed. Cities will burn. If Biden wins, I suspect crackdowns on religious liberties and freedom of speech. Nothing to fear. But we should be ready.
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Dr. Moore, this is shameful and unbecoming of someone like you. You can’t claim to have the moral high ground in your crusade against Trump while blatantly lying and framing his statements to mean something different than what he said.
It is disgusting and disgraceful that our children are growing up to see this as normal. May God have mercy.
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I could really use y’all’s prayers over the next few hours as I work on my message for Kaleb’s funeral tomorrow. I’m already a sobbing mess after writing three sentences.
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A church member recently asked me, “What’s the hardest part about being a pastor?”. My answer:. Walking with people through a major life issue only for them to leave the church at some point over something petty, often without ever talking to you. STORY 👇🏼.
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I’ve pastored the same church for the last 15+ years. The hardest people to reach are those who think they’re saved because they 1. attend church, 2. walked an aisle, 3. prayed a prayer, or some other false assurance. They completely ignore what the fruit of their lives say.
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May God increase her tribe!!.
I used to identify as “queer.” I had short, shaved hair on my head but didn’t shave my legs/armpits. I spelled women with “x” & supported Planned Parenthood. Now I’m Christian & conservative, rediscovering God & femininity. I’m sorry it took me so long, but I’m glad to be here.
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I’m sitting with my 94 year old grandmother tonight who wants to live at home, but needs people there with her during waking hours. She can’t get to church anymore so I went through tomorrow’s sermon with her. I wouldn’t be a pastor today if it wasn’t for this woman’s influence.
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A deep belief in the sovereignty of God protects your heart from 10,000 different worries. But here are 10 😉. 🧵.
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A woman is an image bearer of God with XX chromosomes, adorned with distinct beauty, femininity, and design to bear children, gifted with nurturing & care-giving instincts, and a unique complement to man in marriage, parenting, vocation, and soceity to display the wisdom of God.
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Adoption is at the heart of the Christmas story, and our salvation, which is why earthly adoption is so beautiful. 😭.
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You need to catch a hermeneutics class.
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Student ministry is the HARDEST ministry in the church. Why?. - age/maturity gap (6th-12th grade).- availability (sports, dance, etc.).- cultural acceptance. The church with an effective student ministry will reach (and keep) families. 🧵 5 things you must get right:.
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So many people live in dread and anxiety of their worst fears becoming reality. Let me report from the front lines: even there He will hold you, sustain you, and guide you. He gives grace in our hour of need, not grace for us to imagine enduring it in advance.
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Do you want to be free from anxiety and panic attacks in your life? . By the grace of God, after years of dealing with them, I found freedom. 🧵 Here’s what I did, and still have to do:.
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**the kind of things we work through since Kaleb’s death**. Kyra (2nd grade) was working on math homework and the question asked how many people in her family. She asked me, “Dad, do I put 4 or 5?”. My answer: 5. We’ll always be a family of five.
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Here’s the name you should remember and lobby for: Emma Weyant. She’s at UVA. She finished second place, but would have been first place if people had the courage to speak up about the injustice of a MAN competing against women. Weyant’s time was a career best. #TheRealChamp.
Penn’s Lia Thomas won the 500-yard freestyle at the NCAA women’s swimming and diving championships. Thomas becomes the first known transgender athlete to win an NCAA Division I championship in any sport. Full story from @katie_barnes3:
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Walks away from Christ, divorces his wife, proceeds to the lecture evangelicals on morals.
to my evangelical friends who are loudly attempting to justify their votes & behaviors at the moment, despite the negotiations you’ve clearly done with your morality & savior, i would invite you to consider that you cannot build the kingdom using the devil’s tools.
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“The further a society drifts from the truth, the more it will hate those that speak it.”. — George Orwell.
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This is Holly and Rocky McMahon. They came to faith and were baptized at TJC. We’ve discipled them for over a year. God rescued them out of drugs. They had lost their kids. They got their kids back and were all at church today for the first time ever! . Jesus still redeems. 🙌🏼
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If churches are not involving women in the big decisions, strategizing, and execution of leadership, they are missing some of most important voices at the table for the future of their churches.
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Seeing Kaleb’s classmates at school as I get the girls is sobering. I stared at them walking, thinking about him with them & how big he’d be. Then it hit me: I’ll only ever see him again if the gospel is true. I’m banking everything on Jesus. Jesus alone makes it bearable.
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Churches that fail to equip their people on LGBTQ issues will lose many of them to the culture. Why?. Because our progressive society in every sphere (education, media, entertainment, sports, politics, etc.) disciples them each day. 🧵 4 actions your church can take:.
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Hey pastor friends,. Be slow to let a church put any expectation on your wife other than being a good church member. If you’re wife wants to do more, wonderful. But don’t make it the expectation.
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Hey pastors, never forget: we’re not a big deal. • be assessable to people on Sundays, don’t hideaway . • reserve time on your schedule for coffee or lunch meetings. • don’t create 10 layers of protection between you and people being able to contact you. What would you add?.
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I’ve not only lost my son recently, but I lead a church trying to understand what they hear from me (their pastor) versus what they are hearing from the pastor and folks at Bethel concerning death, faith, and where our hope lies. That’s why I wrote this.
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We met a family from Portland, Oregon this weekend at church who are moving across the country in January just to join our church. 🤯. They found us online during COVID and started growing spiritually. People are STARVING for biblical truth.
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re: Asbury revival. “So in the present case I tell you, keep away from these men and let them alone, for if this plan or this undertaking is of man, it will fail; but if it is of God, you will not be able to overthrow them. You might even be found opposing God!” — Gamaliel.
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Trials and afflictions can rock your faith. Our first child, Kaleb, had a surgery to remove his bad kidney and the surgeon accidentally removed both. I was never discipled or trained theologically to be ready for this. 🧵 God taught me 6 life-changing lessons from Daniel 1-3:.
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How much better off will our society be when we can return to this kind of common sense? Good on this coach for the guts to cut against the grain.
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A 🧵 on the growing trend of what I call progressive-“lite” evangelicals:. Holds to a conservative theology but is embarrassed by it out of a desire for progressive acceptance or avoiding deconstructionist scorn. 1/6.
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Pastors, stop accepting requests for meetings that don’t detail the reason for meeting. This will save you from the “ambush mtgs” every pastor has experienced. 🧵 How to avoid being blindsided by “no-details” mtg requests:.
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I’m perplexed by the silence of many prominent evangelicals on the Supreme Court decision. 60 MILLION lives taken since Roe. Would you have sat silent about the Emancipation Proclamation or end of slavery?. Would you have sat silent at the end of the holocaust?. I don’t get it.
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Pastors, don’t hesitate to teach what the Scriptures say about sexuality. Welcome people enslaved to every kind of sexual sin, but don’t water down biblical truth in order to “reach them.”. Check out this message I received:
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Reading books about basketball doesn’t improve your jumper. Shooting does. Reading books on running or weight-lifting will not get you in better shape. Exercising does. Reading alone will not grow your faith. Walking in faith does. Your faith is a muscle that needs use to grow.
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Here’s another politician willing to say what many influential Christians are unwilling to say because they fear losing approval from secular overlords. C’mon, Christians! A growing chorus is rising up to identify problems by name. Add your voice!.
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You guys are absolute morons. 6 innocent people died by the hands of this evil woman and you are obsessed with correcting the record for her fabricated identity. “Claiming to be wise, they became fools…” — Romans 1:22.
There was confusion later on Monday about the gender identity of the assailant in the Nashville shooting. Officials had used “she” and “her” to refer to the suspect, who, according to a social media post and a LinkedIn profile, appeared to identify as a man in recent months.
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Matt Walsh not only spoke with piercing precision on the Dr. Phil show, but he continues in his analysis here. I believe this kind of sanity being declared so clearly in the public square is jarring to people. But it’s exactly what is needed.
On the show today I delivered a compassionate response to my fellow Dr Phil panelists who claim to have been traumatized by my presence on the panel
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If you spend years telling men they’re toxic, are oppressors, saying men can have periods and get pregnant, celebrating men in women’s sports, and accusing them of sexual abuse without evidence, don’t be shocked when you can’t recover their vote a few weeks before the election.
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The progression of LGBTQ expectations:. Tolerance: respectfully let us be.Affirmation: agree with us.Celebration: cheer us.Participation: be us. Christians can be tolerant, but cannot do any of the other three.
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The fact that this is controversial with CHRISTIANS shows how far off the path we’ve gone. Our churches are filled with individuals that have been catechized more effectively by the culture and modern feminism than by Scripture.
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Don’t ever be fooled again, guys. Ever. Pence was mocked and ridiculed for following the “Billy Graham Rule.” Now Speaker Johnson is framed as a weirdo for having Covenant Eyes on he and his son’s devices. Hating conservative evangelicals was never just about voting for Trump.
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I might be crazy, but hear me out: I don’t think it’s only about what people want to do in the privacy of their homes. 🤷🏼♂️.
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This Queen dropped this 👑.
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I don’t understand the silence of evangelical leaders on the woes of the Biden presidency who were so outspoken against Trump. Biden lies, hid dealings with his son, disgraces the White House with inappropriate trans parties, has staff arrested…not a peep. No handwringing.
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Reminder pastor friends: Twitter isn’t the real world. The elders of our church and I will make the call about when our church opens, and we don’t care about what people’s political views think about that or think we mean by our choice. It’s that simple.
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As someone who has buried my son, I respectfully disagree with this statement and graphic below. How you understand what’s happening to you and where God is in the midst of it 100% matters. Bad theology not only doesn’t help, it hurts. But theology is inescapable.
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A glimpse into the emotions of the Reed home. Kaleb wants to tell his sister “happy birthday” but couldn’t. But his sister doesn’t care; she adores him. Our motto: one day at a time. Each day has laughter, sadness, joy, & pain. But in all things: Blessed be the name of the Lord.
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The reason Christians must contend for the faith is not because we think we’re going to change the culture, but because the culture is aggressively catechizing our children in godless ideologies. Whoever wants the next generation the most will get them.
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I’ve spoken to about 2,000 teenagers the last two weeks. I told them not to align themselves against God by embracing the LGTBQ movement. I encouraged them to marry young, have lots of children, honor Christ in every sphere of life, and win the culture. May the Lord do it.
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From my experience as a pastor: often when people are reconsidering whether or not they’re still Christian, it’s usually because they want to sleep with somebody the Bible says they can’t.
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I dreamt about Kaleb last night. We were floating in water and he had his arms around my neck talking to me. I knew I was dreaming, but I fully embraced it. I don’t pretend to know all the Father’s ways, but I can’t help thinking this was a foretaste of a coming Day.
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Pastors, we’re going to be dealing with the fallout and broken lives of the sexual revolution and the erasing of gender for the rest of our lives.
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I miss this boy so much. We travelled every summer together as I spoke at camps. The first picture is several months before his stroke. The second is a pic a friend of ours made for us. No more wheelchair needed for my buddy.
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If you find a young man and woman in their early twenties, married with children, who didn’t live together beforehand or marry because they were pregnant, 9 out of 10 will be Christians. It’s a dead giveaway because of how out-of-step it is with the culture.
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I miss this boy so much. We look forward in expectant hope, but the times with him in this life are gone. We can only look backwards and forward, there are no *now* moments. Treasure each *now* the Lord gives you with friends and loved ones.
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Two years ago today our precious boy went to be with the Lord. Only the grace of God has sustained us, and only grasping His sovereign goodness and wisdom has given us peace. I wrote about that here: If you think about us today, say a prayer for us.
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It really stinks to keep watching older mentors of the faith continue blowing their credibility with foolish decisions.
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Americans voted for student loan forgiveness and no more mean tweets. They got soaring gas prices, record inflation, war in Ukraine and Israel, instability across the world, and incompetence at the highest levels of government. Elections have massive consequences on real people.
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“My son did not live one more day than God planned; and he did not live one day less either.”.
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Last night was a reminder that the Republican Party doesn’t walk lockstep with the Christian worldview. That doesn’t mean the right’s follies are equal but opposite errors of the left. They are not. It’s just a reminder not to put your trust in princes (Psalm 146:3).
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We went to bubba’s grave today. These girls miss their brother, but we find hope in that passage cited. Gain.
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I can’t wait to hug this boy again one day. My son was such a joy.
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Pastors that teach rich theology in an understandable way will never lack an audience. Many pastors either: . • teach deep theology over people’s head . OR . • assume people aren’t interested in theology and steer away from it. 🧵 Here are 5 things that can distinguish you:.
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It’s a special kind of calculus when you can convince yourself that voting for the most radical left wing candidate in history is the principled choice for Christians and way we save conservatism. Eight years of dismissing why many Christians were voting for Trump as they.
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The Reed’s will always be Laviolette fans. They’ve been so kind to us. Peter came to Kaleb’s funeral, an hour away from where they live, in the middle of season. We’ll always have two favorite teams: the Preds & wherever the Laviolette’s are. Thank you for everything, Coach.
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May this man’s tribe increase.
To the liberal-progressive bishops: Do not lead us astray. You do not have the authority to bless sin. The Church is imploding. Do not accelerate its decline with heresy. Bishops are promoting the idea of sacramental sodomy. Repent!. Full speech:
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Christian music does a lot more “I’m going to sing, in the middle of the storm” kind of lyrics, and not as much on Christ who is the actual basis of our ability to sing in the storm. We seem to feed people motivational anthems more than the glories of Christ.
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