colossians on Ingratitude

Thankfulness seems to be a lost art today. Warren Wiersby illustrated this problem in his commentary on Colossians. He told about a ministerial student in Evanston, Illinois, who was part of a life-sa...

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 ...

It is the essence of God to give, the essence of humanity is thankfulness.

When my niece bore her first child, she invited her brother and mother to stand in the delivery room. After witnessing three hours of pushing, when the baby finally crowned, my nephew turned to his mo...

Lord Jesus, I have sinned times without number, and been guilty of pride and unbelief, and of neglect to seek you in my daily life. My sins and shortcomings present me with a list of accusations, but ...

Contempt is so painful To be dismissed, disregarded Questioning instead of dignity Accusation instead of personhood I have felt its sting and hollowness As have you, my Jesus Help me hear the needed ...

Gracious God, through the forgiveness of Christ you hold nothing against us. In our pride, we have withheld forgiveness from others. In fear, we have chosen distance rather than relationship. Yet you ...

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...

Contempt is so painful To be dismissed, disregarded Questioning instead of dignity Accusation instead of personhood I have felt its sting and hollowness As have you, my Jesus Help me hear the needed m...

Lord of Hosts, We come before you today in a tone of solemnity. We recognize that while it was Judas who betrayed you for 30 pieces of silver, that we often betray you as well. We know what is right,...

Melville Weston Fuller (1833–1910), a prominent U.S. lawyer and Chief Justice of the Supreme Court (1888–1910), once presided over a church conference where a speaker passionately denounced higher edu...

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...

Leader and people: Almighty God, Father of all mercies, we your unworthy servants, give you humble thanks for all your goodness and loving-kindness to us and to all whom you have made. We bless you ...

Forgiveness is not an occasional act, it is a constant attitude.

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...

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 ...

Gracious God, you have given us great mercy through Jesus, yet we have withheld mercy from others. Our hearts have been hardened by the world and our sin. Would you soften our hearts? And give us a de...

You, O Lord are holy and worthy of worship and praise. But we your people are sinful and unworthy. You have called us to be a holy nation of your own people but we mostly think only of ourselves and...

Holy Spirit, you have come to reconcile us to each other, but we resist your work to bind us together. We hold onto grudges. Even though we know God has forgiven us in Jesus Christ, we are slow to for...

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 ...

All: Gracious God, we have become callous to those in need, holding back compassion yet unsparing with judgment. We defend our motivations, rather than using all you have given us to love and care for...

Forgiveness is the very opposite of anything which can be taken for granted. Nothing is less obvious than forgiveness.

Dieu pardonerra; c’est son métier; God forgives you — it’s his thing. *for contrast

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;...

If I withhold mercy, I have lost touch with the gospel. I have lost touch with God’s undeserved kindness and pardon.

God has given us all a message of reconciliation-that God, in Christ, has reconciled the world to himself (2 Corinthians 5:18-19). The first place we are invited to practice this reconciliation is wit...

Perhaps the greatest irony in the life of continual comparison is that while it involves so much attention to the attributes and gifts of other people, it’s actually quite self-focused. From that hype...

Forgiveness flounders because I exclude the enemy from the community of humans and myself from the community of sinners.

Watching television news is often painful… So much conflict, so many harsh words, so many accusations and insults in the headlines. Too many people speak to others with disrespect and contempt. A grac...

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 ...