Almighty God, You are with us no matter what, through thick and thin, yet we don’t live any differently based upon that truth. We tend to ignore You, push You out of minds and hearts so that we can li...
Ignoring God's Stop Sign Have you ever been driving and inadvertently blown right through a stop sign? It happened to me recently. Anne and I were down in San Francisco meeting some friends, I w...
Matthew 23:1-12, Psalm 119:null, Matthew 11:28-30, Deuteronomy 6:8
Preaching Commentary If religion is to be true, its leadership must be true. —Frederick Dale Bruner [1] Humble Leadership Whenever Anthony Bloom, a former bishop and archbishop serving in Londo...
1 Kings 8:27, Isaiah 55:8-9, Matthew 6:33, Deuteronomy 6:5, Psalm 139:7-10, Jeremiah 23:24, Luke 9:23, Romans 11:33
God of all times and places, we confess that we try to limit our exposure to you. We try to limit your presence to a tidy little box, safely tucked away where we can pull you out as needed. We try to ...
Deuteronomy 6:16 , 1 Kings 18:20-40, Job 1:20-22, Matthew 4:5-7, John 20:24-29, Psalm 73:1-3, 16-17
Nine-year-old Leo Tolstoy , convinced God would help him fly, dove headfirst out a third-floor window and had his first major crisis of disappointment with God. Fortunately, Tolstoy survived the cr...
Put another way, what you think about God will shape your destiny in life. If you think of God as homophobic, racist, and mad at the world, this distorted vision of reality will shape you into a relig...
Matthew 22:34-40, Mark 12:28-34, Luke 10:25-28, Leviticus 19:18, Deuteronomy 6:4-5
Almighty God, we bow before You, humbly able to admit how small, fragile, and dependent we are. Unfortunately, for many of us, it takes a disaster to convince us that we are not in control. Over the p...
“Holy, holy, holy.” What are they saying? Have you ever wondered that? What does that mean? Many people have tried to understand what God’s holiness means. Some describe it as his perfect morality. Go...
Psalm 73:25-26, Romans 8:28-30, John 6:44, Psalm 16:11, Deuteronomy 6:5
While I was speaking to some college students recently, an interesting twist on the contrast between our unresponsiveness and God’s great desire for us came up. One student asked, “Why would a loving ...
Divine Creator, your ways are above our ways. No matter how hard we try, you will always confound us. Too often we try to reduce you into something we can fully comprehend, or something we can control...
Pastor: Oh Lord our God, we have forgotten who you are and what you have done for us. Your great and miraculous works for us are lost in the recesses of our minds, and we could not care less about you...
People: Oh Lord God, You have been gracious to us to give us Your holy Scripture which tells us of Your names, titles, qualities, regulations, word, and works. We should always treat these gifts with ...
Hosea 11:1-4, Deuteronomy 7:7-9, Romans 8:38-39, John 3:16, Psalm 51:10-13
Our God, you love us unconditionally and with great sacrifice, yet we reject your love in search of another love other desires. We have make harmful decisions while on this search rather than acceptin...
Context A Dire Warning All the way back in the Pentateuch God warned the people of Israel that their residency in the promised land was predicated upon their obedience to the Torah . This can be ...
1 Samuel 3:1-10, Psalm 119:105 , James 1:22-25 , John 10:27, 2 Timothy 3:16-17, Deuteronomy 30:19-20, Proverbs 4:20-22
Father God, you come to us in the everyday. You give us your Word and your Spirit that we might hear your voice, and follow your ways. We confess that we have neglected your words to us and pretended ...
The South African politician Nic Diederichs—a prominent leader during the apartheid era—once made a rather provocative observation: God, he said, dislikes deadly uniformity. I hate to admit that I lik...
I appeal to you, Lord, God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob and Israel, you the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Infinitely merciful as you are, it is your will that we should learn to know you....
Genesis 2:8-18, Genesis 3:1-24, John 6:35, Psalm 146:7, Deuteronomy 11:8-15
God wants to feed his people. In keeping the one tree from them, God protected Adam and Eve. When they broke table fellowship with God, they suspected that God was withholding something good, that thi...
Whether the Hebrew Genesis account was meant to be science or not, it was certainly meant to convey statements of faith. As will be shown it is part of the biblical polemic against paganism and an int...
Forgive us, O God, when we limit you – When we remake you in our image, When we claim our causes as your own, When we box you in, And explain you away, And in our attempts at understanding, whittle aw...
Matthew 6:1-6, Deuteronomy 6:4-9, Matthew 23:4, 5, 13-36, Mark 12:42, Luke 21:2, Isaiah 58:6, Joel 2:1-2, 12-17
Ancient Lens What can we learn from the historical context? "Hear O Israel..." The Shema (Deuteronomy 6:4-9) commands the Israelites to love the Lord their God with heart, soul, and m...
My argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of just and unjust? A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line....
John 4:1-42, 2 Corinthians 5:17, Acts 3:1-10, Romans 10:15, Luke 24:31, Deuteronomy 15:11, Psalm 51:10
O God who will not let us go, we confess that we have been so wrapped up in ourselves that have not loved You with our whole hearts, and we have not loved our neighbors as we love ourselves. By Your g...
Within thy circling power I stand; On every side I find thy hand; Awake, asleep, at home, abroad, I am surrounded still with God. …O may these thoughts possess my breast, Where'er I rove...
Pastor: See, I have set before you today life and good, death and evil. If you obey the commandments of the LORD your God that I command you today, by loving the LORD your God, by walking in his ways,...