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Pastor Jay's Blog

This blog is Pastor Jay's weekly musings about God's Word, God's world, and God's call to our culture.  We hope they encourage, challenge, and inform you.  Sign up to recieve them in your email. 

Posts Tagged with "Relationships"

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Why You Might Watch The Chosen

Did this blog get hacked? What's happening here? Is pastor Jay finally losing it? Just last week there was a post about why Pastor Jay did not watch the show The Chosen, and now a post about watching it? Do we need an intervention? What's happening here is a good opportunity to address something that will be a regular occurrence. God's people must always be ready to dea...

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A Quarantine Emotion Check

A state-mandated stay-at-home order has afforded us an opportunity we never would have had otherwise. What is that? It is the opportunity to feel what our longing for heaven should be more like. Emotions are tricky things, but they are real and important. You are an emotional being, and emotions reveal the true you. You might be able to hide emotions, but you can't not e...

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The Circle with Cogs

Every single person exists in circles of relationships. Maybe we could call them spheres of influence. There is the work sphere, the church sphere, the neighborhood sphere, the school sphere and more. In that circle are certain people that you basically only interact with in that sphere. There might be some overlap in those spheres, but usually the larger part of those p...

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Does the Bible Teach That God is Not Enough?

I was encouraged to listen to a podcast the other day. The title of the episode was You Need More Than God. Provocative, to say the least. What made this challenging was that these speakers were making a biblical case for this argument. The argument was thought-provoking and caused me to wrestle with the premise for weeks. Let me frame up the case they were making. The ...

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The Most Important Honor

Last Sunday I preached through the Ephesians 6 passage detailing the relationship between children and parents. The commands are clear. Children are to obey and honor. Parents are to discipline and instruct. These were things that were filled out in the sermon. However, there is one point I did not fill out properly. I would like to correct that in this blog. It has to ...

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Easy on Sin Means Hard on Forgiveness

Unintended consequences. That is what you call those events which, after certain choices, come like a bolt from the blue. You don't expect them, because the consequence seems unrelated to the original action. Slap a Gorilla, and you will get torn into like a bag of Doritos. That is not an unintended consequence because you can basically see that coming. But if you get ...

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Christlike Emotions During Relational Turmoil

One of the most difficult things you will have to go through is relational conflict. And one of the reasons it is so difficult is because it is so continual. As long as you are around people, you will be around conflict. So what do we do about this? Most do what comes natural, and it is either retreat or attack. Clearly, turning a cold shoulder or hurling sharp words i...

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When Does Servanthood Become Sin-enablement?

Servanthood is one of the marks of Christlikeness. Mark 10:45 says "For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve" Servanthood is doing what other people truly need done because they can't do it, either because of lack of ability or opportunity. The believer's heart is inclined toward this. We were created for good works (Eph 2:10), we should be zealo...

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Guilting People Will Always Backfire

Many features of God's creation showcase His intentional design. The Woodpecker has a special tongue that wraps around his skull providing a cushion for what would otherwise be a concussion-causing job. The Aye-Aye has incredibly long thin fingers for finding and pulling out grubs through small holes in trees. The Crabeater Seal doesn't actually eat crabs, but has some o...

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An Undervalued Quality of Godly Womanhood

The PBS television show Antique Roadshow is blazing into a new season with no signs of slowing down. This 13-time Emmy Award nominated show has captured the hearts of people around the globe who love the surprise of the average person finding a treasure. The basic format of the show is simply a string of 5 minute segments filmed at an antique-appraisal event. People brin...

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Husbands, Submit To Your Wives

How is that for a provocative title? I may have just lost all my conservative readers, who recognize the role of male headship in the home, as well as any liberal readers who reject the idea of roles in any form whatsoever. So, if I have anyone who is still reading, let me take you to Scripture to show you that this is far more than a provocative title, it is the teachin...

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So You Think You’re Something

Self-esteem prattle is for cowards. What we all need is to be esteemed rightly. Paul says in Romans 12:3 that everyone should "not to think more highly of himself than he ought to think; but to think so as to have sound judgment" So the goal is not high esteem but right esteem. We need to judge ourselves by the right standard for the right purposes. So what is the right...

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What to do with a Chevy owner: Conviction and Secondary Doctrines

I like a sleek sports car and a power torqueing truck as much as the next guy, but I assure you I am not a gearhead or a car enthusiast by any stretch of the imagination. I could have been pretty easily, though. My grandfather worked for a Ford dealership and mechanic shop all his life. For whatever reason, those mechanical genes didn't get passed on to me. So it always ...

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Busyness is Moral Laziness

We have all said it, and we have probably meant it when it came out of our mouth. "I don't have enough time" is a repeated refrain for many. I was once again challenged about this mindset after hearing a podcast in which a seminary professor named Bruce Hindmarsh made the following statement: "Busyness is moral laziness [because it is often a statement of our self-impor...

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A Surprising Mark of Godly Love

Are you a loving person? Your answer can help you determine your level of spiritual maturity. Christians are to be known by our love (John 13:35), and only those who love abide in the light (1 John 2:10). The attributes of biblical love listed in 1 Corinthians 13 are helpful. However, love is like an ocean with various currents constantly moving the waters. Some currents...

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A Key For Knowing What to Say

In the realm of difficult questions, we often hear, "What do I say to this person?" If you are not asking that question every now and then, it probably means one of two things. Either you are avoiding certain people so that you don't have to say anything; or you are talking without thinking. If the latter is the case, you probably have shoe leather stuck in your teeth fr...

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Questionable Charity and Immediate Needs

Almost 10 years in church ministry has allowed me to see most of what happens on a daily basis. One of the normal occurrences of church life is that people come by or call with requests for immediate help. These are never fun. What makes these so problematic is the immediacy of the request, which is the norm. They need gas, right now. They have a bill that must be paid, ...

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After the Barbeque

People. Oh, the complexities that come with people. There are so many personalities, so many backgrounds, so many ways we sin against one another. Challenges and perils aside, God calls us to love people and pour out our lives for them. So let's say you want to do better at loving people. You know this is the second greatest commandment, so it isn't effort that will be ...

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Treating Others As Royalty

Sometimes it is not a book or a chapter or a paragraph that really nails you, it is the single sentence. A solitary quote can do you more good than a whole section. I encountered one of those the other day. It has been resonating in my mind. Usually, it is there convicting me of how poorly I measure up. But at the same time, I see the hope that it holds out. This is the ...

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God’s Anger Management Tool

Anger is a difficult thing. The reason it is difficult is because there are two things that are clear from scripture about it. First, anger is not necessarily a sin. Second, most anger is sin. To illustrate the first point, we read of God's anger in the Old Testament, we see Jesus' anger in the temple, and we are instructed in Ephesians 4:26 that we can "be angry yet do ...

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Weird Taste Or Filtered Pure? Dealing With A Relationship Turned Weird

If you and your friends dog piled me, threw me in the trunk of your car, drove me away to a small town and locked me in a small room, but were kind enough to give me a cup of water, I might just know where you took me. If, perchance, you had taken me to the little town where my grandmother lives, I would know it by the cup of water. It will have "that taste." I don't kno...

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