Holy God, we come before You in humility, for we do not live as we ought. We do not love You with our whole heart and mind and strength. We do not love our neighbor as ourselves. We are sinners in nee...
A 2014 study by Wendy Wood found that approximately 40% of people’s daily activities are performed out of habit. According to Wood, “an important characteristic of a habit is that it’s automatic…We fi...
Romans 8:14, Galatians 5:25, Luke 24:13-32, Acts 8:26-40, Psalm 119:18, John 16:13, Colossians 2:3
How we praise and thank You for the holy Scriptures which You have caused to be written for our learning. Thank You for Your written Word, which reveals to us the living Word of God, in the Person of ...
Context of Galatians I still remember my intro to New Testament class in college and the professor discussing Paul’s letter to the Galatians. All of Paul’s other letters begin with words of adoration...
James 1:2-4, Galatians 5:22-23, 1 Peter 3:8, Proverbs 15:1, Romans 12:2, Ephesians 4:2-3, Colossians 3:12-13
While taking a flight in a small plane in Washington state, marriage counselors Les and Leslie Parrot were given some interesting information from their pilot: We crossed over the islands of Puget S...
Galatians 5:22-23, Ruth 1:16, Luke 10:38-42, Luke 10:25-37, Colossians 3:17, 1 John 3:18, Matthew 22:37-40
Identities—what makes us who we are, the kind of people we are—is what we love. More specifically, our identity is shaped by what we ultimately love or what we love as ultimate—what, at the end of the...
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...
2 Timothy 1:7, 1 John 4:18, Matthew 5:44, Ephesians 4:31-32, 1 Corinthians 16:14, Galatians 5:22-23, Colossians 3:12-14
Gracious God, we come before you with humility, recognizing that doubt has led our decisions. We have allowed fear to lead, rather than love. Because of this, we have been unkind to our families, our ...
Colossians 3:12, Matthew 23:27-28, Titus 1:16, 1 John 3:18, Romans 12:2, Galatians 5:22-23, Matthew 7:21
A man is being tailgated by a woman who is in a hurry. He comes to an intersection, and when the light turns yellow, he hits the brakes. The woman behind him goes ballistic. She honks her horn at him;...
In his excellent book, An Unhurried Life, Alan Fadling contrasts our overly busy lives with a vision of the kingdom from Isaiah chapter 61: Isaiah envisioned a kingdom in which those people in need ...
Preaching commentary Questions for Consideration What does a prayer reveal about a person? What do you most often pray for/about and what might that reveal about you? A Beautiful and Compel...
Proverbs 4:23, John 15:12, 1 Peter 4:8, Colossians 3:12-13, 2 Corinthians 4:7-9, Romans 12:21, Galatians 5:22-23
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, ...
Psalm 37:8, Colossians 3:8, Galatians 5:22-23, Romans 12:17-18, Matthew 7:1-2
The political cartoonist and Op-Ed writer Tim Kreider has provided us with some insight into the “world of outrage” we currently inhabit. A world that has been amplified by the dawn of the Internet an...
1 Peter 4:8, Genesis 29:, 1 Samuel 25:, Galatians 5:13-14, 1 Corinthians 13:4-7, Colossians 3:12-14
I heard about a woman who married a very demanding, hard, and unloving man. Her husband made her existence miserable by presenting her with a list of his demands and expectations… The woman’s husband ...
Galatians 5:1, 2 Corinthians 3:17, Colossians 2:20-23, Matthew 11:28-30, Luke 10:41-42
The purpose of the Disciplines is freedom. Our aim is the freedom, not the Discipline. The moment we make the Discipline our central focus, we will turn it into law and lose the corresponding freedom....
“It would be nice and fairly nearly true, to say that ‘from that time forth, Eustace was a different boy.’ To be strictly accurate, he began to be a different boy. He had relapses. There were still ma...
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...
Psalm 51:10-12, Colossians 3:12-13, Philippians 2:3-4, 1 Peter 3:8, Romans 12:2, Galatians 5:22-23, Matthew 22:37-39
Pastor: Heavenly Father, You have commanded us to love You above all things and our neighbors as ourselves. By Your Holy Spirit, mold and shape us into the image of Your Son, for we desire to look, ...
Ephesians 3:14-21, 2 Samuel 11:1-15, Psalm 14:, Ephesians 2:19-22, John 6:1-21, Colossians 1:16, Luke 11:2, Psalm 95:6, Galatians 5:
Questions for Consideration What does a prayer reveal about a person? What do you most often pray for/about and what might that reveal about you? A Beautiful and Compelling Gospel Prayer The...
Colossians 3:12-14, Luke 10:25-37, John 4:1-26, Galatians 5:13-14, Matthew 22:37-39, Philippians 2:3-4, 1 John 4:7-8
Let me tell you the story of a great missionary named Frank C. Laubach (1884–1970). He grew up in the farming community of Benton, PA, and served as a Congregationalist missionary in the Philippines. ...
We often speak of unexpressed anger with metaphors of explosive pressure. We are like “a ticking time bomb” or “a volcano.” We are “bottling it up.” And sometimes letting it out feels good—cathartic. ...
James 1:22-25, Philippians 2:3-4, Romans 12:2, Ephesians 4:22-24, Colossians 3:12-14, Galatians 5:22-23, Matthew 25:21
The kingdom of God manifests itself in the modest changes in our attitudes and in the little improvements in our behavior that no one may notice, including ourselves. These are the mighty works of God...
Philippians 2:3, Romans 12:10, Colossians 3:12, Galatians 5:13, 1 Peter 4:10, Matthew 23:11-12
What he [Jesus] was attempting to instill in his disciples was the attitude of a servant: humility and a willingness to put others ahead of oneself. In that culture, washing the feet of others would s...
A climber recently had to be airlifted off Japan’s Mount Fuji due to altitude sickness. That alone would have been a dramatic enough story. But four days later—still recovering—he climbed back up ...
John 1:1-5, John 14:16-17, Hebrews 1:8-12, John 11:25-26, Galatians 5:22-23, Colossians 1:27, Hebrews 9:15, John 4:13-14, Matthew 28:20
The spirit of Christmas needs to be superseded by the Spirit of Christ. The spirit of Christmas is annual; the Spirit of Christ is eternal. The spirit of Christmas is sentimental; the Spirit of Christ...
For some, faith begins with a hard shell, a rigid set of answers and platitudes that keep them safe but eventually prevent them from growing into who they could be. The system that was initially prote...
Colossians 3:5, 2 Corinthians 10:4-5, 1 John 2:16, James 1:14-15, Romans 8:1-2, Galatians 5:16-17
The early church fathers named the primary sin patterns “passions,” borrowing a Latin term that could also be translated “sufferings ” As we live out a unique pattern or “face” of sin, we begin to thi...