Guidelines For Living Devotional
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A 5-minute daily devotional to help you fully live the life God has designed for you.
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1 day ago
Take The First Step To Forgive
If ever there was a living saint, it was Corrie ten Boom. Should you ever have the opportunity of visiting Amsterdam, take the train from Central Station for a 20 minute ride to Haarlem, a delightful Dutch town. Walk past the city square and just off this, past the old church where Corrie's nephew was the organist, there you will find a watch shop made famous by the movie, "The Hiding Place."
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2 days ago
What Is The Difference Between Worry and Concern?
You wake up in the night thinking about a situation which really distresses you. You silently pray, "God, please do something about this," yet sleep doesn't come. You toss and turn, asking, "What should I do?" At the same time, you know that worrying doesn't change anything and that you shouldn't worry.
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3 days ago
Understanding the Misconceptions About Christ
When an actor or actress plays the part of another person, he or she tries to get inside the skin of the person, to so saturate himself or herself with the thought processes of that person that he or she begins to think as the other person as well as to act and look like the other person, and—to the extent possible—to be that person. Can that really be done? Yes, say those who earn their living acting professionally.
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4 days ago
What Does The Bible Say About Discipleship?
In both Marxist and revolutionary circles Jesus gained new prominence as one who had the courage to be different, as one who greatly changed the course of history. Jesus laid it on the line with His followers. He didn't sugarcoat the challenge. In fact, there were times when He actually made it difficult for men to follow. He believed that a nucleus of really dedicated men and women could accomplish far more than an army of Sunday warriors who tipped their hats to Him on Sunday morning and forgot Him for the rest of the week.
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5 days ago
Are You Struggling With Feeling Inferior?
Few ideas in the scientific realm have ever been introduced without ridicule and unbelief. When men first suggested that the world was not flat and man could not sail off the end of the world, they were laughed to scorn. When Nicolaus Copernicus first suggested his theory of a sun-centered universe, he was so persecuted that he was forced to withdraw his hypothesis. When Henry Ford put his first automobile on the road, he was thought of as a fool who wasted his time on foolish inventions.
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May 26, 2023
Here’s How To Start Your Day
Have you ever had the experience of having to drive a considerable distance to an appointment; but, the vehicle that you are driving shows that the gas gauge is closer to empty than you would like? You are in a hurry—late for your meeting—so you decide to see if you can make it. The red warning light comes on. Then the fuel gauge starts to rest solidly on the empty mark, and your stomach grows tighter mile by mile. Perhaps you make it—and perhaps you don't. And as the light stays on and the indicator sits on empty, you become more tense. When do you refuel?
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May 25, 2023
The Importance of a Savior
Karl Crowe tells the story: A missionary Bible translator was working on a language that had not been reduced to writing when she came across a portion of Scripture which had already been translated into the language she was working on. She noticed that the word idinide had been used for the English word Savior. The word literally means "picker upper" or "one who picks up something." She thought, "This is definitely not the right word!"
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May 24, 2023
Why Should I Value Life?
What is the value of a human life? There is enough phosphorous in the human body to tip twenty-two hundred matches, enough iron to make a small nail, enough fat to seven make bars of soap (in some cases a few more than that); enough calcium to whitewash a chicken coop; enough sulfur to delouse a dog and enough sugar to fill a small bowl. But, is not life worth a great deal more than a few elements from a periodic chart?
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May 23, 2023
How Much Should I Give to God?
Question: Is it true that the more you give to God, the more you get back personally? Which side of that question would you come down on? Yes or no? Has that been true in your personal life? Or, would you say, "Hey, churches and organizations use that line to get my money and build strong financial bases!" Question #2: Is there anything in the Bible—I mean in its context and rightly understood—that seems to convey that truth? Did not Jesus Himself say, "Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you" (Luke 6:37). Well, did He not mean what He said?
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May 22, 2023
Learn More About Jesus And God
Out of the mouth of babes come some of the toughest issues that ever confront theologians, to say nothing of Sunday school teachers or parents. For example, the question that my son, then five years of age, once put to me in rush-hour traffic: "Daddy, how did Jesus get to be God?" What struck me about the question was that we hadn't even been talking about the subject. Surprising as it may seem to you that very issue was one of the first controversies in the early church. Did Jesus become God when He was born? Or rather was He always God and only appeared to be a man?
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May 19, 2023
Find Peace When Life Unravels
When the sky turns dark, your health fails, your marriage partner walks out on you, or you are fired from the job you hoped you would keep until retirement, your world gradually unravels. Paul's words, "In everything give thanks for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus," seem to torment you. No matter how you try to put things together, it just doesn't make sense.
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May 18, 2023
5 Guidelines To Aging
Moses was a hundred and twenty years old when he died, yet his eyes were not weak nor his strength gone. Deuteronomy 34:7
"Dear Dr. Sala," wrote a friend, "Would you have any suggestions to help people who have reached their eighties and feel they have nothing to live for? I admit feeling very useless at times. I am 82, in a wheelchair, and have little energy."
In recent days, there has been a graying of society as more and more of us are living longer and longer; and with the years come new challenges. Frankly, every year I hear from more and more people who are struggling with the challenges of ageing. I've done two things, thinking about this issue. First, I've asked again, "What does God say in His Word about this?" Then, I've talked with a number of seniors who are there and asked them what they have found that is helpful, which I can share with you.
The fact is that the number of men and women in their eighties has increased dramatically in the last two decades. Better medicin…
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May 17, 2023
Choose How To Live Today
An eminent psychologist, Joseph Kreisler, recognized the importance of contentment from having observed problems of human nature from a professional viewpoint. Dr. Kreisler says, "If you wish to be miserable, think about yourself and what you want, what you like, what attention other people ought to pay you, and then you will find nothing will satisfy you. You will spoil everything you touch, and finally, you will make pain and misery out of everything God sent you."
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May 16, 2023
What Is True Faith?
"Faith," wrote the Quaker scholar Elton Trueblood, "is not belief without proof, but trust without reservation." Yet the fact is, faith seems to contradict the world of reality. It is no wonder that the writer of Hebrews described faith as the "conviction of things not seen" (Hebrews 11:1, NASB). It is the battle of the tangible versus the intangible, the seen versus the unseen, the material versus the spiritual.
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May 15, 2023
Trust In God In Times of Difficulty
When Dr. Stanley Collins, a renowned Bible teacher and conference speaker, was felled with a heart attack, he looked up towards heaven, and though he did not actually say these words, his heart cried out, "Why me, Lord?" Collins, like King Hezekiah who lay dying long ago, reminded the Lord of what he had been doing for Him. Then, without hearing any voices or seeing any visions in the sky, Collins says it was almost as if he heard a voice so clearly say, "Why not you?"
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May 12, 2023
Build A Strong Family
When Larry Alexander learned that he had eighteen months to live, his world came crashing down. The prospect of experimental surgery offered some hope, but the future was pretty bleak. His wife, Anne, then pregnant with their third child, faced the stress of having to raise their three children, provide for the family and nurse a man who faced the prospect of losing his life.
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May 11, 2023
How To View Greed
It's an old story retold many times. In the fourteenth century, there was a duke named Ranald who lived in the country we now know as Belgium. The duke was not only overweight; he was grossly indulgent. He craved food and his appetite for more was never fully satisfied, so much so that the peasants called him Crassis which in Latin means "the fat one."
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May 10, 2023
6 Guidelines to Rebuild Your Marriage After An Affair
Finding your way back after an adulterous relationship is difficult, but it can be done. There's a roadmap which guides you when you recognize what a dreadful thing has happened and you sincerely want forgiveness, healing, and--yes! --restoration with your husband or wife. The roadmap is found in Psalm 51, and David, the author, simply describes the components of restoration which he went through.
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May 9, 2023
Start Healing After Sexual Sin
Grace is getting what you don't deserve; justice is getting exactly what you deserve, and mercy is not getting what you really deserve. David knew that, and that's why, following his affair with Bathsheba, he pled for God's mercy. "Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love; according to your great compassion blot out my transgressions."
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May 8, 2023
The True Importance of Empathy
Along with many other dictionaries, The Oxford English Dictionary takes more space to define the word touch than any other word. Its vast gamut of meanings can hardly be compressed into a single dictionary definition. Without touch you lose one of the most important of all the five senses.
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May 5, 2023
3 Guidelines for Giving
"Dear God, I'm having a tough time financially, and I'd like a refund on some of the money I've given to you. Do you think you could arrange it for me?" In reality that's what a single mother of four children had in mind recently, but the church who had been the recipient of the money tends to feel that God doesn't make refunds.
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May 4, 2023
Find Hope When Money Is Tight
When times are tough and money is tight, disagreements often erupt. And when discussions take place, almost always we are quick to inform the other person that the mess belongs on the other side of the disagreement. A word that prominently figures is the personal pronoun you, as in "YOU are responsible for this mess," or "If YOU hadn't spent so much on that stupid car we wouldn't be in trouble." Another variation is "YOU charged too much on our credit cards."
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May 3, 2023
How To Always Have Enough
Probably no other generation in history has been more committed to living for the moment than is our present one, or put in somewhat less refined terms, no generation has been more committed to squeezing every ounce of pleasure and fulfillment out of living than the present one. Now all of this is not bad, but the constant emphasis on self produces a distorted picture of the individual's true worth. The end result is a selfishness that produces a marked disregard for others, and totally distorts a person's actual importance. Nothing is much smaller than an individual's world who shuts others from the heart as well as the hand and purse.
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May 2, 2023
4 Guidelines to Steward Your Money Well
There are only three things you can do with it: spend it, save it, or give it away. Only three choices. Yet when it comes to the bottom line of disagreements, you'll probably find it, almost every time. It's money! No matter how much they have, or how little they have, people don't agree on how it's spent. Playing a prominent part in at least 85% of all broken homes, the handling of money is one of the most explosive issues that confront people today, especially in times of recession and inflation.
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May 1, 2023
Find Healing For The Body, Emotions and Spirit
When the level begins to sink in the honeycomb of life, it does not merely affect one aspect of your life--say the physical or the emotional. It affects everything--your body, your emotions, and your spiritual nature all at once. There has been a blind spot in our thinking that compartmentalizes life. You have aches or pains. "That is physical!" you think. You are sure that aspirin or an antibiotic will be enough to cure it, but it does not work that way. The physical may merely be the cause of tension, and aspirin or antibiotics would merely be treating the symptom--not the cause.
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Apr 28, 2023
Are You Emotionally Empty?
Have you ever had the experience of having to drive a considerable distance with an empty gas tank? You knew that you were running low on fuel, but you were late for an appointment, in a hurry to get somewhere, and you kept thinking, "Yeah, I've got enough to get there," but you were unconvinced. You kept glancing at the fuel gauge, then your watch. The fuel gauge was slightly above empty, then the red warning light came on, then your fuel gauge rested solidly on the empty mark. Your stomach grew tighter and tighter.
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Apr 27, 2023
This Is Healthy Persuasion
A school teacher asked her students to do at least one good deed every day. She explained that the next day she would ask them what good deeds they had done. The next day the dialogue between the teacher and the students went like this: "Michael, what good deed did you do yesterday."
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Apr 26, 2023
What Do To When The Unexpected Happens
It happened so very quickly! My wife and I had spent 16 hours on the overnight train from Donetsk, Ukraine to Kiev. For days the temperatures had hovered about 10 to 25 below zero centigrade. Everything was covered with frost and ice. We disembarked from the train and began to follow a friend through the crowd when trouble came very unexpectedly.
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Apr 25, 2023
How Does God Answer
Is there anything too hard for the Lord?" Some three times, that question is asked in Scripture. But how would you answer it? Today we are faced with a quandary. Either we nod our heads and say, "Yes! God can do anything," unsure of whether we really believe this, or else we are confronted with empty hands and hearts, wondering why God didn't step in and reverse some troublesome situations confronting us.
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Apr 24, 2023
Why Has Hell Has Lost Its Dread
Has hell lost its sizzle? Or has it? It all depends on whom you listen to, and accordingly, fewer and fewer people believe it really exists. Years ago, the Puritan preacher by the name of Jonathan Edwards held a manuscript before his weakened eyes and preached his famous sermon known as "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God." Many of those who heard him fell to their knees and cried out in anguish and fear, asking God to save them from hell. But hell has lost its dread for many people. Frankly, hell has about entirely lost its sizzle.
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Apr 21, 2023
How Do I Surrender To God?
Walking away from your nets when Jesus calls you is never easy! Vast numbers of people hear his voice. They know the voice of the Shepherd and would like to be counted among the fortunate who sit at his feet, but their hands seem to be frozen to their nets. Yes, they will gladly follow provided they can bring their nets with them, but to turn loose is more than they can handle.
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Apr 20, 2023
6 Guidelines to Not Let Money Ruin Your Marriage
Jack and his wife Sue should have more than enough to be satisfied! He's an attorney with an income in six figures and a growing practice. She's an interior decorator. Ten years before, Jack had married his childhood sweetheart. In the early years of their marriage, they often talked hours at a time, and when words were exhausted, they held hands and their hearts communicated with each other.
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Apr 19, 2023
What Is God’s Will For You?
A certain woman wanting to join her church group going to Israel wondered if she should spend the money. "God," she prayed, "please give me a sign and show me what I should do." Placing the glossy brochure on her table beside the bed, she drifted off to sleep. Waking the next morning, she noticed the digital clock read 7:47 AM. "Didn't the brochure say we were traveling on a Boeing 747?" she asked herself as she picked up the brochure for another look.
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Apr 18, 2023
God Is Reaching Out For You
Once you have seen the hand of God that reaches out towards His created subjects, you will never forget it. I'm thinking of the tremendous work done by Michelangelo in the Sistine chapel. In that simple depiction is the story of the entire Bible--God reaching out to touch us at the point of our needs. All theology only puts meaning to that truth. All history only demonstrates it. Unlike angry deities who must be satisfied with blood sacrifice--sometimes even the life of your firstborn--the God of the Bible is a loving God who reaches out to touch you at the point of your need, where you hurt.
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Apr 17, 2023
Why Are You Afraid of Getting Close to God?
Surrounding almost every major city in the world is a circle or ring of highways that facilitate the flow of traffic. Some are called beltways, others traffic rings, or whatever. They are intersected by roads which go to the very heart of the city and, of course, lead away from it in the opposite direction. They serve a function and purpose, allowing people to move back and forth without having to go through the heart of the city or going very far away from it at the same time.
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Apr 14, 2023
Do You Pray For Your Enemies?
When Jesus confronted the crowds that came to hear him, they went away saying, "Never did anyone speak as does He!" In the message we call "The Sermon on the Mount," ten times Jesus said, "You have heard it said to the people long ago…" and then challenged that conventional wisdom saying, "But I say unto you!" Talk about someone specializing in unconventional wisdom!
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Apr 13, 2023
What Do You Believe?
As the pastor led his congregation in the recitation of the Apostles' Creed, that begins with the words, "I believe…" one man quietly said, "I used to believe…" and continued to mumble the words, recited by Christians for centuries.
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Apr 12, 2023
Finding Beauty In Your Pain
When fire swept through Laguna Canyon near our office one of the properties destroyed was a botanical garden containing more than two thousand varieties of plants and flowers. Known as the Hortense Miller Garden, the place was a veritable paradise of beautiful flowers and greenery. The fire, of course, blackened the hillside as it left its ugly scars. Disaster? Yes! That is what people called it, and that it was. Yet, just five months later, the hills were alive with the beauty of wild flowers, which had not been seen in the area for thirty to one hundred years.
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Apr 11, 2023
This Is How To Live A Healthy Life
"I believe in God…" begins the affirmation of the Apostles' Creed. But does what you believe make much difference in how long you live, or even more pointedly, in the quality of the life you live? It does, contends a growing body of scientific evidence. The relationship between your belief system and your health is better documented every year. Dr. Harold G. Koenig, director of Duke University's Center for the Study of Religion/Spirituality and Health says scientists and doctors "have to confront it. They can't just say religion is irrelevant to health. It is relevant."
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Apr 10, 2023
4 Guidelines to Solve Problems
You have a problem and it's got to be solved! So, problem-solvers that we are by nature, we go to work on a solution. Occasionally, all of us feel the need for reinforcement, and that's when we inform God in prayer as to how He should handle the situation. I've discovered through trial and error, and more error than I would like to admit, that quite often my solution is at cross-purposes with God's solution.
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Apr 7, 2023
5 Guidelines To Parenting Your Adult Children
How does a parent help an adult child? When your little boy or girl was small and fell down and hurt himself, you as the parent picked up your child and fussed over him smothering the scratched knee with kisses and love. Your loving care climaxed with the application of a Band-Aid put on with all the tenderness of a mother's love. But, what do you do when you have an adult son or daughter whose heart is breaking, and you desperately wish you could give him or her the same comfort you did when your child was four years old?
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Apr 6, 2023
God Rewards Your Faithful Service
Some called it "the Protestant work ethic!" But it isn't, really. It is simply the application of several phrases found in Scripture which can be paraphrased, "If it's worth doing, it's worth doing right; so give it your best effort!" Four times in the Bible you find a phrase that says, "whatever you do" and emphasizes a relationship between you and God. The first is found in the Old Testament wisdom literature, specifically the book of Proverbs, mostly written by Solomon. "Commit to the LORD whatever you do," says Proverbs 16:3, "and your plans will succeed." In this same context, the writer says that we as mortals make our plans, but the Almighty, not simply our scheming, determines their outcome. That first "whatever you do" forges a link between your efforts, God, and success. Application: When you really take Him as your partner in life--whether it is business or a marriage--what some think of as luck, the Bible says is really the blessing of God.
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Apr 5, 2023
How To Embrace Christ As Your Savior
Is it possible for you to embrace Jesus Christ as your Savior, but not really as your Lord? Put it another way: Can you take this whole business in stages, believing some things but not really becoming a radical? "After all," you may reason, "I want to go to heaven but I don't want to get fanatical about this whole business."
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Apr 4, 2023
Do we really have the right to question the Almighty?
He is loved and venerated by Jews, Muslims, and by Christians. Though he lived over 4,000 years ago, his life is a refreshing study of what it means to live and walk by faith. Here was a man at the season of life when people are thinking of retirement, but God called him and said, "Abraham, I want you to follow me into a strange land which I will eventually give to you as an inheritance.
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Apr 3, 2023
How To Find Refuge In The Lord
The ominous clouds of war were hanging over Europe in 1937. Claiming that he could turn the economy around and put people to work, Adolf Hitler began to strengthen his grip on Germany. Those who dared to oppose him were silenced as the detention camps were opened, eventually to be known as concentration camps.
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Mar 31, 2023
God Is Bigger Thank Your Worries
Is it really wrong to worry? Who would deny that there is plenty to worry about--the state of the economy, our health, the Middle East, the domestic problems including feeding the hungry (which few of us really worry about unless we are on the hungry end of the issue), and a lot of other things? But can we help worrying any more than we can help our hair thinning out or what happens to our good looks after age 50?
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Mar 30, 2023
Find Strength When You Are In Trouble
"If I can just get through this problem, I'm sure that everything will be okay." Ever think that? So you grit your teeth and, sure enough, you get through that problem, only to find that several more have cropped up on the horizon. It's something like pedaling a bicycle. Going uphill is so slow and takes so much energy, while the downhill run so quickly turns into another uphill climb.
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Mar 29, 2023
Do You Feel Like God Has Failed You?
"Due to the current financial constraints, the light at the end of the tunnel will be turned off until further notice!" so reads a notice on a local notice board. How's that for contending for a gold medal in pessimism? Nobody can take away the power of hope unless you let him. Hope is as essential to life as oxygen is to your human body.
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Mar 28, 2023
Find Faith In The Midst Of Crisis
William Carey was one of the pioneers of the modern missionary movement as he left his native England and went to India. In the process Carey established himself and began to translate the Bible into the language of the people he worked with. Before the days of linguists and computers, it was a long slow process. Eventually a printer joined him, and, after years of effort, Bibles were printed and the process of distribution was begun. One day, however, Carey returned from a time of ministry elsewhere to find that a disastrous fire had broken out and had completely destroyed the building housing his offices and press, but far more damaging, his manuscripts, grammars and dictionaries had all gone up in flames as well. Nothing short of death could have struck such a blow.
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Mar 27, 2023
Is God At The Center Of Your Marriage?
One of the most beautiful structures in the world, the Notre Dame Cathedral, stands on the banks of the Seine River in the heart of modern Paris. This beautiful building dating from the Middle Ages gains elegance and uniqueness partially from the lovely flying buttresses or arches which gracefully support the walls.
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