There is no better exercise for strengthening the heart than reaching down and lifting people up. Think about it; most of your best friends are those who encourage you. You don’t have many strong rela...
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...
Looking through the lens of Holy Scripture, human work must be seen first and foremost as value contribution, not economic compensation. We can have a flourishing, fruitful life even if we don’t get a...
The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man. –George Bernard Shaw Problems w...
Relational congruence is the ability to be fundamentally the same person with the same values in every relationship, in every circumstance and especially amidst crisis. It is the internal capacity to ...
Matthew 6:24-26, Ephesians 4:1-3, Philippians 2:3-8, James 4:6, Psalm 82:3-4
Almighty God, we take pride in our self-sufficiency while we look down on the weak who cannot provide for themselves. We praise others for their efforts, yet we demand perfection from our own families...
A pastor friend of mine once brought about ten people onto the stage at his church and assigned them roles to play on an imaginary fire truck. One person was assigned to drive; another controlled the ...
Father–Thank You for the opportunities You put before us every day to make a difference; and for special friends who serve You in all they do. Thank You for those faithful in their callings: whether ...
Philippians 4:8, Romans 12:17-18, Ephesians 4:2, Matthew 7:3-4, James 1:19
Many years ago a senior executive of the then Standard Oil Company made a wrong decision that cost the company more than $2 million. John D. Rockefeller was then running the firm. On the day the news ...
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 ...
Context We continue through the body of the letter as we move into a different image for practical, Christian living. Next week will become much more specific in Paul’s exhortations for living in re...
Philippians 2:4-11, Matthew 25:31-46, Mark 9:35, Mark 10:42-45, Ephesians 2:10, John 13:12-17
Our mission is the mission of Jesus Christ. He lived as an ordinary human being. We will care for the common life of humanity. He served men and women. We are committed to working for human wel...
Genesis 4:6-7 , 2 Samuel 17:23 , Jonah 4:1-3 , Matthew 18:21-22, 32-35, Ephesians 4:31-32 , Psalm 37:8
Resentment is like a poison we carry around inside us with the hope that when we get the chance we can deposit it where it will harm another who has injured us. The fact is that we carry this poison a...
1 Peter 2:9, Colossians 1:13-14, Galatians 2:20, Ephesians 4:22-24, Matthew 16:24, Philippians 3:20-21, John 8:36
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...
This blessing includes prayers for the initiative/event itself, the volunteers for the event, the leaders organizing the event, the resources to be distributed at the event, and any community partners...
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...
Ancient lens What's the historical context? Ancient Boundaries The world of Jesus and of the early church saw a Jewish people that had well-established boundary practices. These were behavior...
Matthew 20:1-16, Matthew 19:13, Jonah 3:10, Psalm 145:1-8, John 15:1-11, Romans 8:34, Ephesians 3:20-21, Jonah 4:1-11
Preaching Commentary An Unfair Deal Despite our vast differences, there seems to exist an innate sense of “fairness” in all humans when it comes to things such as “waiting your turn” or “cutting in...
Matthew 6:12, Psalm 34:18, Isaiah 61:1, Genesis 45:1-15, Ephesians 4:32
What can we say, O Lord, to justify ourselves? You shower us with grace upon grace. Your mercies are new every morning. And we find it hard to forgive others. Sometimes we are petty and hold grudges f...
LORD, too often we live for ourselves instead of how You have called us. Please forgive us for the times when we don’t strive to bring about Your kingdom here and now. Forgive us for the lack of imagi...
Since our savior is also our Lord, we are called to follow his ways. And whenever discussions arise about what those ways look like in a church, confusion is bound to follow regarding grace and works....
Context We continue through the body of the letter as we move into a different image for practical, Christian living. Next week will become much more specific in Paul’s exhortations for living in re...
1 John 1:9, Luke 6:37, Romans 12:10, Proverbs 15:1, Colossians 3:13, Ephesians 4:32, James 5:16
The Golden Result is a corollary to the Golden Rule, which calls us to do to others as we would have them do to us. The Golden Result says that people will usually treat us as we treat them. If we bla...
Genesis 3:8-13, Matthew 7:3-5, Romans 14:10-13, Luke 6:41-42, James 6:41-42, James 4:11-12, Ephesians 4:31-32
In the mid-1980s, I helped facilitate a series of conferences between top Soviet and American policy advisers on the question of how to prevent a nuclear war. The times were tense and the accusations ...
Proverbs 22:6, Hosea 1:1-4, Matthew 18:1-5, Ephesians 6:4, Psalm 127:3
There’s a story about philosopher John Dewey walking with his young son on a cold, wet, and windy day. The boy, barefoot, was gleefully splashing in a puddle despite the weather. A concerned friend pa...
Matthew 10:40-42, John 20:21, Acts 1:18, 2 Peter 2:13, Luke 17:10, John 3:18, Matthew 28:19, Ephesians 5:20, James 5:14, Colossians 3:17, Acts 3:6, 1 Corinthians 6:11, Acts 20:35
The Transitive Property of Welcoming In elementary school math you learn various basic principles of working with numbers…the commutative property, the associative property, the distributive property...