2 corinthians on Receiving Love

Jesus – Savior: Praise You. Thank You. We’d never have done what You did We’d never give up so much for someone else who cared so little about us. … and we can’t imagine anyone doing it for us. But Yo...

We bring before God those times when God’s Kingdom and love have not shaped our lives, asking to be forgiven and made new. Lord Jesus, too often this week you have only been a small part of our live...

Almighty God, we trust in our own strength, abilities, and resources. We think too highly of what we have to offer this world. The truth is we cannot do anything without your strength and all we have ...

To love means to open ourselves to suffering. Shall we shut our doors to love, then, and be “safe”?

Heavenly Father, we confess that we are not always able, willing, and ready to be vessels of your work. Thank you for the times that you cultivate our receptive hearts and fruitful hands. In your abun...

Heavenly Father, forgive us when we neglect our reliance on you. We take for granted many gifts you give, but we also forget your desire to provide. Help us to receive those gifts, whether they are ph...

Ideally, when a baby is born into a healthy family, she is received with gladness. Her parents look on her with delight and the baby responds with joy. The baby is wanted—is loved. Her parents will ma...

This total self-giving, to which the Son and the Spirit respond by an equal self-giving, is a kind of “death,” a first, radical “kenosis,” as one might say. It is a kind of “super-death” that is a com...

When my kids were little, I used to hang piñatas from our favorite tree in the backyard as often as possible. Sometimes we did it for their birthdays, but sometimes we did it because it was Saturday, ...

The man who is wise, therefore, will see his life as more like a reservoir than a canal. The canal simultaneously pours out what it receives; the reservoir retains the water till it is filled, then di...

Trusting in God’s tender mercy, let us confess our sin to God with one another. Gracious God, We confess the the dead and fruitless branches in our lives, shriveled by the wintery storms of...

When we listen to and follow Jesus, who lived in continual dependence on his Father, we become convinced of our poverty as men and women. We realize our absolute neediness. We are all beggars. Father ...

Our sins had taken root deeply, down to the deepest soils of our hearts. Know that Christ has uprooted our sins to the last fiber, planting His Word of forgiveness that can never wither.

Grace is not only needed for the occasion of conversion, the moment we suddenly (or slowly) come to our senses and realize that we are spiritually bankrupt, having nothing to bring to God and everythi...

If we give God service it must be because He gives us grace. We work for Him because He works in us.

Should anyone knock at my heart and say, “Who Lives here? I should reply, “Not Martin Luther, but the Lord Jesus Christ.”

In George Bernard Shaw’s play about Joan of Arc , as Joan faces her execution by burning, she addresses those in power who have condemned her: “I will now go to the common people and find comfort in ...

If we do anything to further the kingdom of God, we may expect to find what Christ found on that road - abuse, indifference, injustice, misunderstanding, trouble of some kind. Take it. Why not? To tha...

Jesus has many who love the kingdom of God, but few who bear a cross. He has many who desire His comfort, but few who desire His suffering. All want to rejoice with him, but few are willing to suffer ...

When he said, “I am the bread of life,” he must have meant he was scattering bits of himself like a trail of crumbs leading us to speak and act and scatter forgiveness in his name to the ends of the e...

There is a great difference between successfulness and fruitfulness. Success comes from strength, control, and respectability. A successful person has the energy to create something, to keep control o...

Let this be thy whole Endeavour, this thy prayer, this thy desire, that thou mayest be stripped of all selfishness, and with entire simplicity follow Jesus only.

Nonetheless, this singular fact, full to the bursting, remains. It is a fact grounded in infinite outpouring: Christ is in me; I am in Christ. . . . Christ in me is not some narrow, introspective, dis...

Heavenly Father, forgive us when we try to go our own way and end up running from you. Forgive us when we shy away from the work that you want to do in our lives. Help us to be willing to go through y...

The needed change within us is God's work, not ours. The demand is for an inside job, and only God can work from the inside. We cannot attain or earn this righteousness of the kingdom of God: it i...

When you turn to Christ, you don't have a repentance apart from Christ, you just have Christ. Therefore, don't seek repentance or faith as such but seek Christ. When you have Christ you have r...

During the time of Oliver Cromwel ascendancy in England, a young soldier faced execution as the curfew bell was set to toll. Desperate to save him, the soldier's beloved approached Cromwell, plead...

Leader: In Jesus Christ God has removed our sins from us and given us a new name. People: Now we are called Forgiven. Leader: In Jesus Christ God has assured us that he could never forget us. Peopl...

An American pastor once asked an Indonesian missionary who works among Indonesians but with a different people group from his own, “Are you afraid you’ll get caught?” Christian mission work in Indones...

Any experienced gardener has heard of a botanical term called Apical (ah-pick-ul) dominance. In most plants that grow from a central stem, from maple trees to bush peas, whatever branch is at the top ...