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Hupomone -- A Patient Endurance

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I can remember the first time I heard this Greek word, Hupomone (noun). (pronounced hoop-om-on-ay') It literally means remaining under the Divine Presence while being tested. I was sitting in the church my dad was pastoring at the time, a rural church in North Carolina. It's been well over 10 years ago. I was sitting on a pew with my friend Sarah, kinda toward the front. I don't remember anything about the sermon that day, just the word Hupomone. Sarah and I looked at each other and giggled like girls do, and Sarah blurted out, "What's humopone?!" My dad, the gracious man he is, answered her interruption. For the next few months Sarah and I would run around randomly saying, "Hupomone!" several times in a row. It really is a fun word to say. Looking back on it, what a great thing to do. What if there were people running around yelling Greek words at you to remind you, Endure! Endure! Endure! Endure! Endure! People probably thought we ...
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Spiritual Disciplines: The Way of Blessing

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"Listen, dear friends, to God’s truth, bend your ears to what I tell you. I’m chewing on the morsel of a proverb; I’ll let you in on the sweet old truths, Stories we heard from our fathers, counsel we learned at our mother’s knee. We’re not keeping this to ourselves, we’re passing it along to the next generation—God’s fame and fortune, the marvelous things he has done." -Psalm 78:1-4, The Message Some of Jesus' most remembered words is a sermon known as, The Beatitudes. In it Jesus echos many Psalms, and Hebrew text. We know that to understand scripture it usually is tied and referenced with another scripture. This is a rule of hermeneutics, letting the scripture interpret the scripture. John revealed to us in his gospel that Jesus is the Word, and the Word quoted Himself. Jesus used the word, "blessed" in this Sermon on the Mount. We like the idea of being and receiving blessing from God. A blessing in the Greek seems to communicate a receiving of G...
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The Daily Surrender

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Psalm 143:6 (New American Standard Bible) "I stretch out my hands to You; My soul longs for You, as a parched land. Selah." Before I start with my thought process in this entry, I want to make sure that we are on the same page about "Selah" which was mentioned in the verse above. Selah, is a Hebrew word used mostly in the Psalms. It is an instruction to the reader or singer, (Psalms are songs) to stop and listen, it notes a break in the song like maybe to say "Amen" in stressing the importance of the preceding passage. Selah is also rendered as "Interlude" in some translations. Surrender, is a verb (it's what you do), it means to yield to the power, control, or possession of another upon compulsion or demand. I've been thinking lately about the daily surrender in life to Jesus. Sometimes we forget to surrender all to Jesus. He has a strong and perfect plan, He just waits for us to surrender to it...DAILY! Surrender can also be defi...
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