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The Undriven Life—The Christian Difference, Part 5 by Carolyn Cote
After my first son was born, I felt adrift. Choosing to stay home to care for him during the early 80’s when working moms were much more the norm, left me dealing with a chronic sense of unimportance. I longed to do something noteworthy and I set my sights on figuring that out. The day came when I knew that I had found my cause, my importance. Matthew 7:13-14, describes three characteristics of the driven-life. “For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a…
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The Undriven Life—The Christian Difference, Part 4 by Carolyn Cote
In a nutshell, this is the driven-life: “That’s what Christians do.” No sane person would question the relationship between doing good and Christianity. The two are inseparable; one cannot exist without the other, right? A more important question is, “Can I do good without Christ?” The driven-life sources its power to “do” from your personal resources. You see, you think, you decide, you do. You drive it all, from conception to birth. The following-life sources its power to “do” from Christ. You see, you pray, you obey. You humbly accept that you don’t know what is good or nice; only Christ knows and you must follow Him. “Remain in me,…
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The Undriven Life—The Christian Difference, Part 3 by Carolyn Cote
The impromptu speech I gave that day was thought-provoking but not genius. Abortion became legal by a Supreme Court ruling on January 22, 1973. Average Americans were stunned and Catholics led the protests. They helped expose the truth of what abortion truly meant: innocent babies being killed with saline or dismembered in their mother’s wombs. Making abortion illegal again appeared straightforward—show America what abortion really was and they would never support it. In some cases, this informative approach worked but before long, clinics opened nation-wide and were performing an average of 4000 abortions a day. Still, the information campaign continued. The pro-abortion folks rebuffed every exposing truth: it’s not…
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The Undriven Life—The Christian Difference, Part 2 by Carolyn Cote
If “awesome” has a perfect opposite it would be something pretty close to “awful.” Becoming undriven is a process and that process is necessarily an awful one. If you’re in the midst of awesome’s antonym, this teaching will make your heart soar with hope. If you’re not, well, awful will come because the Lord disciplines those He loves. Seasons of awful are seasons of an autumn-like dropping of those dead things no longer needed to sustain the tree’s life. The winter which follows is a renewing stillness where Truth Himself fills you with what you will need for the seasons of fruitfulness to follow. This fruitfulness is the Lord’s holy…
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The Undriven Life—The Christian Difference, Part 1, by Carolyn Cote
Your undriven life is a “following” life. Can you picture the difference? Your driven-life is a pushed life. Someone or something pushes and you react by moving and doing. Distinctly different is the following-life. Following comes from ahead and you choose to move and follow. Another difference is that your driven-life depends on outside stimuli. A book, a sermon, a parent, a spouse, or, the subtler stimuli of depression, anger, fear or self-loathing. Very different is the following-life. It listens, hears, chooses to obey and then it is empowered to do. This kind of doing is a rest-filled, graced kind of doing because you have a yoke-mate, Christ. “Come to…
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The Undriven Life—The Christian Difference, Part 7 by Carolyn Cote
