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Here is today's communion meditation.

The other day my kids were watching a movie and the hero was in an impossible looking situation with several bad guys. And the hero came up with a plan to "Divide the House," by getting the bad guys to work against each other. 

In Matthew 12 Jesus is accused of driving demons out of man because he himself has demons. But Jesus responds with “Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation, and every city or house divided against itself will not stand. If Satan casts out Satan, he is divided against himself. How then will his kingdom stand?"

I think this verse has some very practical applications for us. Notice that Jesus gives several layers in this passage...house, city, nation. 

Our bodies are now God's house and the first house to get unified is ourselves. There can be times when we are divided within ourselves. These would be times when we are wavering back and forth and possibly...

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Here is today's communion meditation.

What is faith?

Hebrews 11:1 gives us a definition of faith. Here is Hebrews 11:1 in multiple versions. 

• NIV - Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.
• KJV - Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
• NASB - Now faith is the certainty of things hoped for, a proof of things not seen.

I think of faith as the emotion of believing. When we firm up the conclusions about what we really believe in our heart it generates the emotion of faith. In the NIV version above, we see that faith has confidence, and confidence is the state where all doubt is removed. 

The KJV version uses the word substance. If we break down the word substance we get "sub," and "stance." Sub means below. So, faith is the underlying reality that we are standing upon. This verse starts with... NOW. Faith is in the present moment. When we believe we receive from God the...

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Here is today's communion meditation.

Ephesians 3:12 says... In him and through faith in him we may approach God with freedom and confidence.

And Hebrews 4:16 says...Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.

When we pray and approach God we can do so with both freedom and confidence because of the sacrifice of Jesus. Sometimes we feel like we have missed it and we approach God with some doubt that he really wants to help us. But, in Christ we have been made righteous and holy, and God wants to help today.

In the Old Testament there were all sorts of regulations on approaching God. They couldn't just walk right into his presence. And even when the High Priest would approach God, he couldn't really do so confidently because there was the chance he could be killed. 

In the New Covenant we have the amazing gift of being able to approach God with freedom and...

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Here is today's communion meditation.

In Ezekiel 20:5-6 God told the people he was leading to the promised land...

With uplifted hand I said to them, “I am the LORD your God.” On that day I swore to them that I would bring them out of Egypt into a land I had searched out for them, a land flowing with milk and honey, the most beautiful of all lands.

God had searched out the most beautiful of all lands for them. Some versions of this passage interpret it as the best or most glorious of all lands. 

I think God has also searched out and prepared the best, most glorious, and most beautiful of all lands for us as well. He has a plan for each of our lives that is better than anything we could ever ask for, dream, or imagine. When we seek God, he knows how to lead us to the choices and places that are the best and most beautiful. 

But, in the Biblical model most of the people didn't get to go to the most beautiful of all lands, because they...

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Here is this week's Yearly Cycle Update.

Sometimes it’s good to be lazy.

There is the old story of the town that needs water, and there are two guys with two different strategies. The first guy grabs buckets and heads down to the river. His method is to fill up the buckets and then run back and fill them up again. The second guy sits down and makes a plan for building a pipeline. Then he gathers his friends to help him build the pipeline. The first guy starts making money right away, but it’s wearing him out and when the pipeline is done, he is out of business. The second guy took a lazier approach, in that he was looking for a better, more efficient way to do things, and the town is forever grateful to him.

The winter is the time to plan and look for ways to become more efficient. Efficiency buys time. All of the technology we have today came from this approach of trying to find a better way....

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Here is today's communion meditation.

I like to think of confidence as the state where all doubt is removed, and we move from believing to knowing. When we lack confidence, it means we have doubts that are holding us back and keeping us from moving forward. We can move to a place of full confidence because our confidence is not in ourselves but in God.  

First, we can put our confidence in what Jesus did. By his one sacrifice he made us righteous, holy, and perfect in God's sight(Hebrews 10). We can approach God with freedom and confidence because of Jesus. Sometimes we have doubts that God really wants to help us because we see the ways we have messed up. But the beauty of the New Covenant is that it is about what Jesus did. We can put full confidence in his sacrifice and that because of him, God eagerly desires to help us. 

Next, we can put our confidence not in what we can do, but in what God can do through us, and nothing is impossible for him....

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Here is today's communion meditation.

The other night my kids and I were discussing the speed of light. Light is really fast; it moves at 186,000 miles per second. This is hard for us to wrap our minds around, but think about this math...

To go all the way around the Earth is almost 25,000 miles, which means light can go around the Earth almost 7.5 times in one second. And God is light. He is really fast.

The other thing about the speed of light is that it is constant, it never changes. Since the speed of light is constant everywhere it is used in science as the reference point to compare all other speeds to. God never changes, and his word is light. It is supposed to be our reference point for truth. I learned this while studying health and fitness. Much of what I was taught went against what is in the Bible. When I learned to use the Bible as my reference point or standard for truth it allowed me to filter out so much of what is being taught about...

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Here is today's communion meditation.

Pressure can be therapeutic. Think of massage, it is pressure that we actually enjoy and it's therapeutic. 

I have found that during this season of the year God often slows things down. There may be some delays causing things to take longer than expected. God does this because his timing is perfect, and he is making sure that nothing tears or breaks. But time and pressure are very related, so whenever there are slowdowns, it increases pressure. But kind of like a massage this pressure can be therapeutic and turn into something that we actually look forward to. 

A good massage therapist knows how to find those tight restricted areas that you didn't even know were there. When they find those spots they may apply pressure, stretch it, and maybe even shake it a little to break it free and your job is to relax, be still, yield control, and let them work. I believe God does this same thing. He knows the areas of...

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Here is today's communion meditation.

In my years of working with people in the gym I learned that eye position makes a big difference. It seems like a little thing but just a small shift in eye position can eliminate pain, increase strength, and improve balance instantly. In Ephesians it tells us that Jesus is the head of the body and everything connects to the head. Therefore, how our eyes and head are positioned impact the whole body. 

I have had people do a movement that was painful and then by simply lifting up their eyes the pain goes away and their strength increases. It is also very counterintuitive but one of the best ways to increase balance is by looking slightly up. When our balance gets threatened, we all tend to look down, which just makes our balance worse. When we lift our eyes, we become more externally focused and present which increases our balance. 

The same is also true in life, when our life balance gets threatened looking up can...

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Here is today's communion meditation.

In 1 Samuel 1 is the story of Samuel's mother Hannah. Her husband had two wives, Hannah and Peninnah. Peninnah had children but God had closed Hannah's womb. Year after year Peninnah would provoke Hannah in order to irritate her because she didn't have any children.  It got to the point where Hannah was always sad, crying, and many times wouldn't even eat. 

Then one day Hannah stood up and went to the temple and poured out her soul to the Lord. The priest saw her and thought that she was drunk, but then she explained that she was pouring out her heart to God. 

Then the priest answered her, “Go in peace, and may the God of Israel grant you what you have asked of him.” 

She said, “May your servant find favor in your eyes.” Then she went her way and ate something, and her face was no longer downcast.

Immediately her whole demeanor changed. She wasn't pregnant and didn't have...