ephesians from isaiah 1

Updated for 2026. January 19, 2026 is Martin Luther King Jr. Day— the only U.S. national holiday commemorating a pastor. Under his leadership, non-violent civil rights advocacy achieved leaps f...

Pastor: May God the Father, who has created you for His Kingdom; may God the Son, who has forgiven you all your sins and invited you to “Come and see;” and may God the Holy Spirit, who has worked fa...

One of the great problems of history is that the concepts of love and power have usually been contrasted as opposites, polar opposites, so that love is identified with a resignation of power, and powe...

David Seamands (1922-2006) was an author, scholar, evangelical renewal leader and counselor. In an article for Christianity Today , he shares his earnest experience of many of his patients who we...

The first thing to notice is that violence is intentional. For example, one of the most brutal forms of violence affecting millions of poor women and girls in our world is sex trafficking. Lured a...

O Wisdom from the mouth of the Most High, encompassing everything, setting everything in order, come to teach us the way of understanding. O Adonai and Leader of Israel, who appeared to Moses in the ...

Pastor: Let us confess our sins to the Lord, who is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in love. Silence for reflection on God’s Word and for self-examination Pastor: ...

Pastor: Our help is in the name of the Lord, People: who made heaven and earth. Pastor: If You, O Lord, kept a record of sins, O Lord, who could stand? People: But with Yo...

Pastor: We come before our heavenly Father in the name of the One who is King of kings, His Son, Jesus Christ. At His invitation we pray.  People: Your Kingdom come; Your will be done. P...

Like Jonah, Jesus took our sins upon Him and cast them deep into the seas. They are as far off, forgotten, forgiven in Christ. Amen!

Eternal God, our judge and redeemer, we confess that we have tried to hide from You, for we have done wrong. We have lived for ourselves, and apart from You. We have turned from our neighbors and refu...

God of mercy, in your gracious presence we confess our sin and the sin of this world. Although Christ is among us as our peace, we are a people divided against ourselves as we cling to the values of a...

Holy and merciful God, we confess to you and to one another, and in the company of the communion of saints, that we have sinned by our own fault, in thought, word, and deed, by what we have done, and ...

Lord Jesus Christ, you are quicker to forgive us than we are to brings our sin before you. We worry that the sin we carry is too deep for you to pardon or too evil for you to bear. We forget that you ...

Leader: You who trust in Christ Jesus for the forgiveness of sins: hear now and rest in the assurance of your pardon: All: Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord: though your sins are lik...

Almighty and everlasting God, you hate nothing you have made and forgive the sins of all who are penitent: Create and make in us new and contrite hearts, that we, worthily lamenting our sins and ackno...

Almighty God, Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Maker of all things, Judge of all men: We acknowledge and bewail our manifold sins and wickedness, which we, from time to time, most grievously have comm...

What is needed is a realization that power without love is reckless and abusive, and love without power is sentimental and anaemic. Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice.

Perhaps you have been ensnared by a sinful habit that you will not abandon, and your guilt is so overwhelming you are ashamed to approach Christ. Whatever the reason for your broken intimacy with God,...

When something has gone wrong, justice needs to be done and seen to be done. Ian McEwan’s novel Atonement examines exactly this same dynamic. The central character, Bryony Tallis, makes a grave mista...

Moonless darkness stands between. Past, the Past, no more be seen! But the Bethlehem-star may lead me To the sight of Him Who freed me From the self that I have been. Make me pure, Lord: Thou art holy...

Editors Note: This is perhaps less a review as a jumping off part to articulate some thoughts I developed while reading The Minority Experience. For a full review of the title, a cursory google search...

The pastor R.C. Sproul was studying in the Netherlands in the last 1960s and randomly struck up a conversation with a Dutch woman. The conversation was a common, enjoyable interaction, but when it was...

Forgiveness is to man the plainest of duties; to God it is the profoundest of problems.

Forgiveness is God's greatest gift because it meets our greatest need.

God invented forgiveness as the only way to keep his romance with the fallen human family alive.

We don’t come to Him as bad people trying to become good people; we come as rebels to lay down our arms.

There is something profoundly hypocritical about praising God for God’s mighty deeds of salvation and cooperating at the same time with the demons of destruction, whether by neglecting to do good or b...