colossians on Ignoring God

Pastor: “Hear then the parable of the sower: When anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what has been sown in his heart. This is what wa...

Almighty God, harsh words and personal attacks can bring out the worst in us. We find ourselves spending energy on thoughts of retaliation and plans to protect ourselves. Father forgive us. We long to...

Superficial views of God and His holiness will produce superficial views of sin and atonement. God hates sin. It is His uncompromising foe. Sin is vile and detestable in the sight of God.... The sinne...

Gracious God, we are sorry for withholding good things. We have offered judgment and held back mercy. We have kept comfortable and withheld justice. We have ignored cries for help. God we cannot love ...

Does God take our work seriously? Consider these words from Arthur F. Miller: It is wrong, it is sin, to accept or remain in a position that you know is a mismatch for you. Perhaps that’s a form of ...

Eternal and Glorious God, Your grace calls us toward growth and service in You. Yet today we acknowledge the many times we have forgotten Your mercy and rejected Your love. Forgive us when we sin agai...

God of the common and of the uncommon. You meet us in the ordinary routines of life–when we play and when we rest, while we work and while we worship. And You reveal yourself in the extraordinary, too...

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 ...

O God, we thank you that you have not treated us as we deserve. We thank you that, though you are Creator, Judge and King, you are also Father, so that, though we are wandering children, there is alw...

God is looking for people through whom He can do the impossible. What a pity that we plan only the things we can do by ourselves.

Living God, help us so to hear your holy Word that we may truly understand; that, understanding, we may believe and believing, we may follow in all faithfulness and obedience, seeking your honor and g...

The holiness of God teaches us that there is only one way to deal with sin- radically, seriously, painfully, constantly. If you do not so live, you do not live in the presence of the Holy One of Israe...

To love God intellectually is to become a student of God—a student who really takes an interest in God. Have you ever noticed that a fair number of Christians are not particularly interested in God? S...

Myths about Faith and Work Faith is to be lived out 24-7-52. For many Christians this involves living out our faith at work. But several myths about faith and work can prevent us from being effecti...

Holy God, we forget you are near. We forget that you are everywhere.  We are so wrapped up in our own worlds that we cannot see beyond ourselves. God, you are so much greater! Lift up our head...

Every day God patiently bears with us, and every day we are tempted to become impatient with our friends, neighbors, and loved ones. And our faults and failures before God are so much more serious tha...

The Lord our God is rich in mercy, slow to anger, and abounds in steadfast love. He does not pay us back what we deserve, but even while we were his enemies he sent his son to die for us. Christ died ...

Gracious God, sometimes I am so caught up in my failures, in all the ways I am not like you, that I neglect the deeper truth, the earlier truth of Genesis 1. You have made me, as a human being, in you...

Pastor: Lord, we confess that too often we don’t live as people filled with the light of eternity. People: We complain. We focus on the problems we face and not the blessings you give. Pastor: W...

Just before Christmas, my whole family piled into our kid-moving vehicle and rushed to the nearest mall to grab some last minute Christmas presents before dashing to a holiday party. As usual, we were...

Pastor: In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. People: Amen. Pastor: The very stone that the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone. Come now ...

Loving God, you show us grace and mercy, again and again and again. You shower gifts on us that we could never earn, and you are slow to punish us when we most deserve it. All too often, we forget to ...

preaching commentary The Transitive Property of Welcoming In elementary school math you learn various basic principles of working with numbers…the commutative property, the associative property, th...

Take anger, for example. Think of how little of your anger in the last couple months had anything at all to do with the kingdom of God. You’re not generally angry because things are in the way of God ...

If you have not chosen the Kingdom of God first, it will in the end make no difference what you have chosen instead.

Next time you’re tempted to complain about your work, praise God for it instead. Next time you open your mouth to gossip about people you work with or smear those you work for, stop yourself and turn ...

I heard a story about a little boy who wanted to give God an offering but had nothing to give. He sat on the floor, watching people pass by and place their offerings in large wicker baskets. How he lo...

If your salvation does not include living with God in beauty, truth, and goodness, it’s going to be a very dry haul. And so much of our difficulty today for Christians in this world, and for the world...

The victory of God in our time over this deathly idolatry is hidden from us, as God’s decisive victory is always hidden from us. We do not know exactly when and where the victory has been wrought. It ...

Holy God, we confess that we have been lukewarm about living our faith in Jesus each day. We put off to tomorrow what we know in our hearts you want to happen today. We go through the motions of relig...