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Marriage is like a garden. It needs intentional care and cultivation. When weeds grow, they must be pulled up from the root immediately. If we don’t pull up weeds by the root they will continue to grow back, eventually overtaking and killing the garden.

So how do ...

Image: Erick Hodge

If you read the news or watch TV, you cannot escape the rise of extremism in the world. There are Islamic extremists, Hindu extremists, and even atheist extremists. Violence and hatred often mark the presence of extremism, but what if it was faced by something even stronger ...

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Imagine a world where people are awakened to the beautiful reality of God’s grace, mercy, and love. Imagine that the grace of God has so transformed people like you and me that we love him with all of our heart, mind, soul and strength. Through this love, we then care ...

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Sometimes life feels like being on a tiny, dilapidated boat in a big ocean in the midst of a giant storm. This feeling can be terrifying, as if impending doom surrounds us.

Unfortunately, sometimes life is like this.

Maybe your storm is being unemployed, and you’ve ...

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As leaders, there are a lot of things we guard.

We guard our weaknesses.

We guard our pain.

We guard our reputation.

The more we guard our weaknesses, the weaker we become.

The more we guard our pain, the more hurt we become and the more we hurt others.

The more ...

Image: Erick Hodge

In recent months, I have been blessed with opportunities to speak to thousands of church leaders at venues as diverse as a Willow Creek conference in Erfurt, Germany, the Kainos conference in Memphis, Tennessee, and Exponential East in Tampa, Florida, from which I am writing ...

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In Romans 5:3-5, Paul says that we can rejoice in our sufferings because we are a people of hope: “Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does ...

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When we face challenges, our culture tells us to “take care of it yourself” or “pull yourself up by your bootstraps.” But Jesus never intended for us to walk through difficult times alone. Christianity is not a faith of “I can do it” but ...

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If I had a five-dollar bill for every time I’ve been asked, “What’s God’s will for my life?,” I would be a wealthy man. The frequency with which this question comes up gives insight into just how important it is to many people. They want to know, ...

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There’s a massive difference between being a great communicator and being a great communicator of the gospel. This blog is for fellow preachers because I care about Jesus, his church, reaching the lost, and discipleship. I want to challenge preachers to preach the gospel, ...

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In Matthew 6:14-15, Jesus tells us to forgive because we have been forgiven. So, who have you not forgiven? Jesus challenges us to extend forgiveness, even when it is painful, because of the gift we have received.

Many of us have gone through difficult or even truly horrendous ...

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I celebrated my birthday last week, and as I have reflected on another year passing I know that I’ve lived an amazing life. I have lived the American Dream.

I was born to teenage parents and raised by my grandparents. Blessedly, I escaped poverty, drugs, gangs, and ...

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“God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Cor. 5:21, NIV).

Jesus did so much more than forgive our sins. Jesus actually became our sin on the cross so we could become the very righteousness of ...

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Grace is not a theme of the Christian life. Grace is the Christian life because grace is Jesus himself. Jesus is full of grace and truth, and in him, we have received grace upon grace (see John 1:14; 16).

Grace is God the Father giving us Jesus as a gift. By faith, we are ...