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Debbie Amble
Debbie Amble has been teaching God’s Word for twenty-seven years. For the past twenty-four years she has been a teacher at King’s High School in Shoreline where she has taught Old and New Testament Survey, the Life of Christ, Keys to Christian Growth, and Revelation as well as being the Bible Department Chair for both the Junior and Senior High. Over the past few years God has opened doors for her to minister to adults as well and she currently teaches a weekly women’s Bible study group. Her greatest passion in life is for God to use her to make a positive difference in people’s lives through the teaching and application of His Word. Debbie is a 1979 graduate from the University of Washington with a B.A. in History and Education. She is single and her favorite activities are enjoying the company of her friends, being Auntie Deb to her nephews and nieces, and being awed by God’s creation through gardening. |
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ARTICLES
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A DEADLY PARALYSIS
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A DEADLY PARALYSIS
Paralysis is defined as a loss of the power of movement or a sensation which results in a loss of use of the affected area. As unfortunate and difficult as any physical paralysis is for those afflicted, based on my experience, I believe that it is much sadder and far more debilitating to suffer from a different kind of paralysis: the emotional paralysis that occurs when a heart becomes so numb it can no longer feel truly loved or be moved to respond to another with true love. Perhaps you know someone suffering from this very real disability; maybe it’s even you. Of all the suffering I’ve encountered in my five-plus decades, this is one of the most grievous afflictions I have ever seen.
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SATISFACTION GUARANTEED
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The fourth Beatitude Jesus lists in His famous Sermon on the Mount is, "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied." We all understand what it means to hunger and thirst as each day we regularly experience these signals from our bodies demanding to be filled with their necessary fuel of food and drink, but what does Jesus mean in saying we are to experience this for righteousness as well? In using the very natural, thus common human experience of hungering and thirsting, Jesus is giving us a tangible picture of not only what the depth of our desire for righteousness should be, but also its consistency.
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GOOD GRIEF?
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The second Beatitude Jesus lists in the opening of the Sermon on the Mount is mourn. “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.” (Mt.5:4). We all understand what it means to mourn as we have all experienced a loss of some kind in our lives that caused us to grieve. So what does Jesus mean by saying blessed are those who mourn? It seems somewhat contradictory as we don’t usually consider being in a state of mourning a blessing. What are we to mourn about? To what degree are we to mourn? Again we have to go to the original Greek language to find clues to help us discover what Jesus means.
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MEEKNESS NOT WEAKNESS
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The third Beatitude that Jesus mentions in the opening to the Sermon on the Mount is meekness, as He said, “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth” (Mt.5:5). In teaching my students, when I come to this Beatitude, I tell them that they are not going to like it as it cuts across our grain more so than any of the others. Even the word itself reeks of negative connotations. For the most part we consider meekness synonymous with weakness. It conjures up images of those who are like door mats in that they are too timid to confront anyone or stand up for themselves in any way, so everyone just walks all over them. Unfortunately the Greek word used here does not translate well into English.
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BLESSED POVERY
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The Sermon on the Mount is not only one of Jesus’ most famous teachings, but also His most definitive and authoritative teaching on what it means to be a citizen of the kingdom of heaven, or in other words a Christian. All believers in Christ are not only citizens of their country of origin, but also the kingdom of heaven. As believers our first and foremost citizenship is to God’s kingdom, therefore our highest loyalty and calling, as we will belong to it for eternity.
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FREE INDEED
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In John 8:36 Jesus promises that if He makes you free, “you shall be free indeed” (emphasis added). Now who doesn’t want, even long to be free?! Who would ever refuse such an amazing promise? Sadly, however, if the truth be told far too many of those who go by the name of Christ have yet to experience the freedom Jesus promises to His followers. Their lives do not reflect the freedom Christ secured for them through His death and resurrection. Rather, their lives reveal that their hearts and minds are still held in bondage, still shackled to sin and its consequent suffering, dysfunction, and destructive patterns of thinking and habits of behavior.
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THE ONLY TWO CONSTANTS
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In life there are some unexpected, unfortunate, and unwanted events that can drastically change your life forever. We see it daily in the news; it is the substance of the proverbial grapevine; it is the stuff from which drama is born, and each time we dodge it we breathe a sigh of relief and give thanks that it didn’t happen to us. Is it any wonder, then, that so many of us fear change that we oftentimes not only pray fervently against it, but when it does come we face it with fear and trepidation?
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ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE?
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Perhaps if you’re a child of the 60’s like me, the title of this devotional has your mind singing this old Beatles tune. Perhaps you were even as convinced as I was back then of the life-fulfilling, soul-satisfying truth of these words. All I had to do was to find love! Oh, the profound simplicity of what I’m sure you have now come to realize is a complex and all too elusive reality. Perhaps in your search for this love that would meet all your needs you fell into the trap of these lyrics from another song…”Looking for love in all the wrong places, looking for love in too many faces…”, a search that more often than not found more heartache and heartbreak than fulfillment.
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