Author: Crystal Stine

Complete Obedience

Everything I know about Bible stories for kids I learned from Veggie Tales. Honestly, not everything, but I didn’t grow up going to Sunday School, so I have no emotional attachment or fond memories of flannel graphs, puppet shows, or whatever other culturally relevant and cartoony format teachers used to

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What God Has Joined Together

Do you want to know a secret about my wedding? Most of the guests never knew this, but the beautiful music that was playing as they waited for the service to begin wasn’t from some carefully curated wedding playlist. Oh, it was a playlist, and we definitely took our time

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Jesus, The Messiah

A thread has been woven from Genesis to Revelation that has perfectly placed Jesus in the position to let the world know who He truly is: the Messiah. We know of Jesus’ miraculous birth. We have seen John the Baptizer prepare the way. We have witnessed His miracles and ministry.

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Chosen

Today’s reading shares an answer to one of the questions that appears frequently throughout the Gospel of Mark: “Who is Jesus?” As Jesus went home after appointing the twelve disciples, experts of the law gathered around and tried to answer that question by claiming Jesus was simply a man possessed

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The Shame of Barrenness

In our Scripture today we find ourselves in Abraham and Sarah’s story. Abraham (called Abram at this point) had already received God’s promise to give him an heir and descendants more numerous than the stars in the sky (Genesis 15:1-6). It was an unbelievable promise to make to a couple

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Christ Fulfills the Law

Our reading today comes from Matthew 5, which is referred to as the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus is shifting into His public ministry and is preparing His disciples for all the ways they are to be set apart from the the scribes, Pharisees, and Gentiles. Jesus focuses on the

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The Blessing of Christ

My daughter has a very special ability to say in ten minutes and a thousand words a story that would take me one sentence and less than a minute. You would assume she had inherited that skill from the author in the family, but no – that is a gift

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Love Wins

I sat at our kitchen table as conversations swirled around me. There were empty pizza boxes, sticky bowls from ice cream, games waiting to be played, but what drew my attention were the soft voices of the three cousins I could see in our living room. I could tell by

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Deep Roots

Do not grow weary.  Are you there, too? Weary and wondering where the space to slow down and take a deep breath will be. Running on empty, pouring out constantly, doing all the right and necessary and good things but feeling like you have nothing left to give. Burdened by

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Unlimited Love

Have you ever read anything about love languages, or spent some time figuring out how you prefer to receive love? When my husband and I were going through our pre-marital counseling we took a test to see what our love languages were. Over the past fourteen years of marriage I

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