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God Sends Us Past Our Boundaries
“Hey man, can I get a cigarette?” a drunk man sitting against the side of a building on the outskirts of downtown Jackson asked me. “Sorry man. I don’t have any of those to give,” I replied. “But I can pray for you if you want. I’m a pastor.” “A pastor? I’m so messed up…
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You Can’t Buy the Holy Spirit
“You just agree with them because of their money!” a congregant once lashed out at me. What nonsense, I thought to myself. I’m the son of a pastor—I knew there was never any money ahead of me way before I got into ministry. On top of that, I willingly and intentionally work in urban ministry…
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A Biblical Heel Realization
“Heel realization” is a classic storytelling trope, but it also happens in real life. This is the moment that a character realizes they’re a villain and exclaims something like, “What have I done?” The Bible has such characters in its own text. While we often think of Jewish and Christian religion as two different things,…
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The Angelic Intermediary of Mount Sinai
You may not remember angels being present at Mount Sinai when Moses was given the law, but the rest of the Bible does. David, Stephen, Paul, and the author of Hebrews make mention of this theme. This is because Moses mentioned that God met him on Mount Sinai with thousands of his “holy ones.” The…
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Pivotal Spiritual Events
One day a lawyer named Charles Finney took a walk in a forest, set on giving himself over to God. It was there that he was suddenly overcome with conviction for his sin and repented. After what he thought had been a short time, he headed to his office, but found that it was already…
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Life on the Potter’s Wheel
At one point in history, a Hebrew named Joseph was magnified within the Egyptian culture, creating the space for the Hebrews to move into Egypt and alliances to be made. But in due time, a new Pharaoh rose to power who had no idea who Joseph was. He saw the large number of Hebrews in…
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A Caleb-Like Faith
In 2017 I stood in line for an hour and a half, waiting for a willing camp speaker to give me a word from the Holy Spirit. It’s always interesting to see what happens when a perfect stranger prophesies over you because they have nothing to work with ahead of time. Sometimes you get something…
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Incense Prayers and Angel Priests
Right after a half hour of silence and Heaven and right before we kick off the seven trumpets of Revelation, we come a cross a short narrative where an angel does the job of a priest and offers incense in Heaven as the prayers of the saints. How does this quick intermission bridge the gap…
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Beams of Light
As we wrapped up a rather disheartening deliverance session and walked out to our cars, my friend reported something strange. They were having an open vision of sorts where they could see a beam of light coming off the top of my head and extending into the night sky. I couldn’t see it, but I…
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The Blood of the Martyrs is the Seed of the Church
“Plures efficimur, quotiens metimur a vobis: semen est sanguis Christianorum.” While there arę more literał ways of translating Tertullian’s phrase here, the most famous expression of it is, “The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church.” This statement has reigned true throughout the centuries. While martyrdom is not much of an issue in…
Jamin Bradley 