Matthew 5:4, Psalm 147:null, Psalm 34:18, Revelation 21:1-8, 2 Corinthians 1:3-12, Romans 8:18-28, John 11:null, 2 Thessalonians 3:16, John 14:27, 1 Peter 5:7, Daniel 6:, Psalm 46:, Psalm 23:, Job 1:, Job 2:, 2 Samuel 11:, 2 Samuel 12:
If you ever travel to Jerusalem and are looking for sites to see, beyond all the ‘must-see’ sites related to Ancient Israel, the Temple Mount, and the sites associated with Jesus, you might venture to...
When John Stuart Mill—the influential philosopher and political economist—arrived at Thomas Carlyle's door that evening, his face drained of color, bearing the devastating news that the manuscript...
George Matheson was just entering the bewildering teenage years when doctors informed him he was going blind. Undeterred, he pressed on with his education and graduated from the University of Glasgow ...
I was listening to a lecture on friendship to prepare this sermon and the speaker used the movie The Bride of Frankenstein as an illustration. Now, for this to work, you have to put the movie Young...
Eyes of Faith Verse 17 summarizes the Apostle Paul’s argument in this passage: “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.” Throughou...
Preaching Commentary a brief introduction I would like to start with a rather big question. How do we know that we are, in fact, Christians? We find some direction from Jesus on this subject in Mat...
In 1918, a chemical-fueled fire destroyed the inventor Thomas Edison’s factory in West Orange, New Jersey.. The flames consumed much of his life’s work, causing over two million dollars in damage. Yet...
Mark 4:35-41, Job 38:1-11, Psalm 107:, Jonah 1:, Genesis 1:, Matthew 8:23-27, Luke 8:22-25, Psalm 74:14, Psalm 104:26, Genesis 1:21
A Sopping Wet Week in the Lectionary Today’s readings are thoroughly wet. In Job, God is master of the sea, Psalm 107 concerns mariners in the storm, Paul is a little drier, but still gets shipwrecke...
To lick your wounds, to smack your lips over grievances long past, to roll over your tongue the prospect of bitter confrontations still to come, to savor to the last toothsome morsel both the pain you...
See the leaves around us falling, Dry and withered to the ground; Thus to thoughtless mortals calling, In a sad and solemn sound "Youth on length of days presuming, Who the paths of pleasure tre...
The Russian writer Leo Tolstoy describes a view (not his own view, because Tolstoy was a Christian) of the human person, based on a theory of reality he saw emerging in his day. It is a narrative that...
Lord, Holy One, have mercy on us. We confess our sins to you. We have fallen short of your glory and without your mercy and grace, we would be dust. We repent now. Lord, as we enter into this Lenten s...
God of life, all that defeats life you have vanquished. All that opposes love you have overcome. We are in awe of your glory. We are in debt to your grace. We are in love with your Christ. Raise us up...
Death is not an eventuality that with luck, waits for another day. It is today’s cup from which God now insists you drink. If you think that somehow you can choose today not to carry the deaths of you...
We will have to start over, with a different and much older premise: the naturalness and, for creatures of limited intelligence, the necessity of limits.
God uses our identity crises to reveal who we are and who he is. Sometimes these crises come out of nowhere. Something devastating happens. Someone close to us dies. We are diagnosed, or someone we kn...
In her memoir, Confessions of a Good Christian Girl, Tammy describes the internal turmoil she experienced trying to be a good, rule-following Christian who had unexpectedly built an entire life arou...
Uncontrolled temper is soon dissipated on others. Resentment, bitterness, and self-pity build up inside our hearts and eat away at our spiritual lives like a slowly spreading cancer.
God, we come with hesitant steps and uncertain motives to sweep out the corners where sin has accumulated, and uncover the ways we have strayed from Your truth. Expose the empty and barren places wher...
We probably got a bit too cocky about how well our lives were going. But after disability showed up in our family, we learned that life is not tame. It’s not here to align with our desires and plans. ...