colossians on Empowerment

Gracious God, You have called us out of darkness and into the light of Your love. You have redeemed us and made us whole in order to set us free from bondage. The challenge You place before us is to d...

Loving Father, You receive all who come humbly before You. Yet we approach You far too often with much satisfaction and inappropriate pride. We think more highly of ourselves than we ought to think. W...

You can heal, Christ has touched you. You can love, Christ has sought you. You can give yourself away. Christ has come walking and called you. You can break the barriers from which others suffer. Chri...

Loving and forgiving God, we want to answer your invitation to experience a Christ-centered life. Yet all too often, our lives are much more centered around our ourselves than around Jesus. Jesus send...

A group of researchers sought to study the nuances of self-control. They conducted a study with a few dozen kindergarten students and gave them a painfully boring, repetitive task designed to test how...

These periods of struggling to overcome challenges are what people find to be the most enjoyable times of their lives. A person who has achieved control over psychic energy and has invested it in cons...

Beautiful and Blessed Creator,  Maker of Heaven and Earth,  You work for reconciliation and grace,  wholeness and hope.   Empower us to share abundantly in your good work  through creativity and co...

What Paul does is transform the master-slave relationship by insisting that both masters and slaves have the same heavenly Lord and are accountable to him. The emphasis is on mutual responsibility und...

The wonderful word master used to describe the person who is at the top of his or her craft, whatever the profession. It was a title that one could work toward and with some degree of confidence ascri...

May you be made strong with all the strength that comes from his glorious power, so that you may have all endurance and patience, joyfully giving thanks to the Father, who has enabled you to share in ...

Pastor: Take up the full armor of God, so that standing firm in your faith, you may go out into the world with joy and hope to make known the mystery of the Gospel, through the power of Almighty God...

Note from TPW: Kara Martin addresses life in the secular workplace, sharing insights to help you lead your congregations to understand their faith and work and also to bring the Kingdom into your o...

[A] rock-star preaches capitalism. Wow. Sometimes I hear myself and I just can’t believe it. But commerce is real. . . . Aid is just a stopgap. Commerce—entrepreneurial capitalism—takes more people ou...

People don’t rise from nothing. We do owe something to parentage and patronage. The people who stand before kings may look like they did it all themselves. But in fact they are invariably the benefici...

Faith makes all things possible. Love makes all things easy.

O God, who gives to every man and woman their work, and through their labors does accomplish your purposes upon earth: Grant your blessing, we beg you, to those who are engaged in the work and busines...

Leader: This week may you remember that it is by grace that you’re saved, through faith. It’s not of your own doing—it’s a gift of God through the work of the Holy Spirit. May the same power that rais...

Vision is the ability to see God’s presence, to perceive God’s power, to focus on God’s plan In spite of the obstacles….Vision is the ability to see above and beyond the majority. Vision is perception...

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....

We must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love.

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 ...

The way you think determines the way you feel, and the way you feel determines the way you act.

We are what we believe we are.

When the Church tries to embody the rule of God in the forms of earthly power it may achieve that power, but it is no longer a sign of the kingdom.

Contemporary society assumes that we make a choice: one member of a household will be the “homemaker” and the other the “breadwinner” (i.e., in the marketplace generating income to sustain the home). ...

If you’ve ever watched a war movie, or a film that takes place in the military, you’re likely to have encountered a specific scene, in which a subordinate will have something to tell a senior officer ...

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

Hope orients all thought, action, and relationships to God’s ultimate redemption of the creation and to the ultimate communion with the triune God...hope is the steady orientation to God’s making all ...

O King of all people, Master of our lives, entering into your glory by your cross, to whom all authority is given, both in heaven and on earth: We acknowledge your sovereignty over every realm of life...

May you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, that you may walk worthily of the Lord, to please him in all respects, bearing fruit in every good work ...