Marja Bergen

author, mental health advocate, follower of Christ

Category: Mental Health and Faith (page 23 of 41)

Your light will rise

…if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, then your light will rise in the darkness, and your night will become like the noonday. Isaiah 58:10 In the early days of Living Room* I spoke much about what I called other-centeredness – the opposite of self-centeredness. This […]

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What would you tell him?

  Then Levi held a great banquet for Jesus at his house, and a large crowd of tax collectors and others were eating with them. But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law who belonged to their sect complained to his disciples, “Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?” Jesus answered […]

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Only God is perfect

   “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven….Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” Matthew 5:43-45, 48   Controlled by an inner […]

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Brothers and sisters all

    Those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters.  Romans 8:29   Just before he passed away, Narayan Vaman Tilak (1861-1919), a famous convert to Christianity in India,  wrote the following to a missionary friend: “Cease […]

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God doesn’t make junk

   He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end. Ecclesiastes 3:11   I like photographing flowers when they’re past their prime. To me they’re every bit as important as fresh flowers. If we […]

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Sharing in his spirit

  Think of yourselves the way Christ Jesus thought of himself. He had equal status with God but didn’t think so much of himself that he had to cling to the advantages of that status no matter what. Not at all. When the time came, he set aside the privileges of deity and took on […]

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Fifty years later

Essondale Let love and faithfulness never leave you; bind them around your neck, write them on the tablet of your heart. Proverbs 3:3   My husband and I recently celebrated our fiftieth wedding anniversary, something many who know our story marvel at. I’m amazed when I look back and remember our many struggles – especially […]

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Something new

“Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.” Isaiah 43:18-19   When we feel at our worst, when we remember the bad stuff in […]

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Life in abundance

  “I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.” John 10:10   This picture came to mind as I was waking up from a nap a while ago. I took it in 2013 on a trip to the Greek islands. Strange how thoughts and memories will appear out of the blue – […]

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Good came from bad

  Moreover we know that to those who love God, who are called according to his plan, everything that happens fits into a pattern for good. God, in his foreknowledge, chose them to bear the family likeness of his Son, that he might be the eldest of a family of many brothers. Romans 8:28-29 (PHILLIPS) […]

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