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Backsliding is Like Sending God's Call to Voicemail

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You know that feeling when your phone lights up with a name you’d rather not see? You already know the conversation will be uncomfortable—maybe challenging, maybe calling you out a little. So you do what any “responsible adult” does in that moment: you flip the phone over, pretend you didn’t see it, and tell yourself you’ll deal with it later. We don’t just do this with people. We do it with the deeper stuff too. You sense that nudge: You shouldn’t be here. You know this isn’t who you are. You can’t keep living like this. And instead of answering, you drown it out with noise—more work, more scrolling, more distraction. It’s not that you don’t hear. It’s that you don’t want to. Backsliding rarely looks like a dramatic press conference: “I, hereby, officially walk away from my faith.” It’s quieter. You stop praying as much. Church becomes optional. Old habits slip back in, and you start telling yourself, I just need some space. I just want to do what I want for a while. You might not...
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The Three Leading Processed Food Diseases

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The three leading chronic diseases linked to high consumption of ultra-processed foods (packaged snacks, sugary drinks, frozen meals) are cardiovascular diseases (heart disease and stroke), type 2 diabetes, and obesity. These conditions arise from high levels of saturated fat, sugar, salt, and low nutritional value. 1 - Obesity . The World Health Organization says processed foods are to blame for the sharp rise in obesity, and much of the chronic disease seen around the world. 2 - Diabetes .  Researchers have found that, in the last 50 years, the extent of processing has increased so much that prepared breakfast cereals, even without added sugar act exactly like sugar itself. 3 – Heart Disease . Many processed foods contain trans fatty acids, a dangerous type of fat. According to the American Heart Association, trans fatty acids tend to raise bad cholesterol and lower good cholesterol. These changes can increase the risk of heart disease. In addition, most processed foods are extre...
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When the Storm Is Loud, Don’t Let Your Heart Go Silent

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It’s strange how much power we give to things we can’t control. The weather turns gray, the news turns heavy, plans fall apart, and suddenly our hearts follow suit. We grow cold. Distant. Numb. Not because God moved—but because we let circumstances dictate our devotion. Jesus never promised calm skies. He promised His presence. Yet somehow, when the outside world feels harsh, our love grows thin. A stressful season hits, and prayer becomes optional. A discouraging headline appears, and worship feels forced. The temperature drops around us, and without realizing it, the temperature drops inside us too. That should alarm us. Because the warmth of our hearts was never meant to be fueled by comfort. It was meant to be sustained by the Spirit. Think about it—Paul didn’t write letters about joy from a beach. He wrote them from prison. The early church didn’t explode with passion because life was easy; it burned brightly because Christ was worth everything . They didn’t let persecution, ...
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When Storms Remind Us About The Deepest Danger

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Everyone is watching the weather…Emotions Are High. Forecasts are checked. Alerts are shared. Plans are made. We prepare, adjust, and respond—and that is wise. But storms and frigid weather patterns do something else, if we let them. They remind us that control has limits. No matter how advanced our systems are, no matter how prepared we feel, no one commands the wind. No one schedules the rain. No one tells the storm where to stop. And that truth makes us uncomfortable. Because our culture is built on the belief that control equals safety. If we plan enough, organize enough, explain enough, we believe we can manage anything. Storms interrupt that story. They don’t ask permission. They don’t follow our preferences. They expose a reality we often try to ignore: we are not in charge . Scripture has never hidden this. “He makes the clouds rise… He sends lightning with the rain and brings out the wind from His storehouses.” (Psalm 135:7) The Bible does not present nature as chaos. It prese...
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Outrage Can Be Easy. Today, Compassion Requires Strength.

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  When Did We Stop Feeling? When did injustice stop shocking us—and start exhausting us? When did human suffering become something we scroll past instead of something we stop for? When did being correct begin to matter more than being compassionate ? If these questions feel uncomfortable, that’s a sign of life. Discomfort means something in us still cares. Here is the truth we avoid: we did not suddenly become cruel. We became numb . We are surrounded by stories of pain—loss, injustice, violence, division—every day. At first, it moved us. Then it overwhelmed us. Eventually, it trained us. We learned how to watch suffering without feeling it. We learned how to discuss pain without carrying it. We learned how to protect ourselves by staying detached. Pain became background noise. This is not strength. It is erosion. A numb culture does not fight injustice. It manages it. It organizes it. It debates it. It schedules it. And then it moves on. This is the cultural shift we are living th...
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When Sin Stops Shocking Us

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Sin never introduces itself as a tyrant. It comes softly, almost politely, asking only for a small corner of the heart. Scripture warns us that sin is deceitful—not merely because it breaks God’s law, but because it numbs our sensitivity to that very law. “Then when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death” (James 1:15). Notice the progression. Sin grows. And what grows must first be tolerated. The first sin rarely feels comfortable. Conscience protests. The Spirit convicts. The heart feels tension. But when sin is repeated, something dangerous happens—it becomes familiar. What once startled us now barely registers. The problem is not that sin changes, but that we do . Paul describes this tragedy with sobering clarity: “Having their understanding darkened… being past feeling, have given themselves over to lewdness” (Ephesians 4:18–19). Sin dulls spiritual nerves. Like hands hardened by repeated friction, the soul develops calluses....
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When the Storm Breaks You Open -- But Not Apart!: Appreciating Life's Storms

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  The storm didn’t come to destroy your life—it came to reveal the life that could only be seen once everything else was stripped away. There are moments when fear roars so loudly that it strips life down to its rawest elements. A major storm like Melissa does not politely disrupt—it dismantles. Roofs torn away. Farms erased. Income gone. Water unsafe. Power silent. Banking frozen. Voices cut off from the world. And for some, the heaviest loss of all: people they loved, gone forever. In those moments, survival becomes the only language. And then—weeks later—something holy begins to stir. Lights return. Clean water flows again. Food shows up. Messages finally send. Help arrives—not only through supplies and money, but through something deeper: human hearts choosing to move toward suffering rather than away from it . Here is the truth we rarely say out loud: Destruction has a strange way of revealing who we really are—and what we truly trust. Loss does not become good. Death does not...
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