luke on Faith and Prayer

Gracious God, we come before you with humility, recognizing that doubt has led our decisions. We have allowed fear to lead, rather than love. Because of this, we have been unkind to our families, ou...

Gracious Father, too often we base our worth on our performance. We believe if we do well, your love grows, and if we falter, your love lessens. Our God, how far this is from the truth. We confess our...

All-loving God, we confess our motivations are often not influenced by your love. We act according to what will bring us the best outcome. We love ourselves before we love you. Help us to grow deeper ...

Leader: By grace, through Jesus, God calls us His children so that we might become more like Him, living as holy people who fear the Lord and serve one another in humility and love. When we honestly...

Prayer of Confession Leader: To prepare our hearts and minds for worship today, we begin by confessing our sins. People: Today, we recognize our need for our Savior. We confess that too often w...

The fact that our works are done in the service of God is not enough, by itself, to prevent us from losing our interior life if we let them devour all our time and all our strength. Work is good and n...

Father God, you see us; you have compassion; and you care for your greatest creation – people. You have also called us to notice, to listen, and to love others. Yet in our selfishness, we have ignored...

Gracious God, we desire to follow when you call. We long to live according to the ways of Jesus, yet we find ourselves stumbling. Forgive us for the times we have ignored your call to follow you in th...

We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to makes us love one another.

Fear Not! In the first Advent God keeps saying, “Fear not!” It’s a word we need to hear today too. Zechariah and Elizabeth were told that after decades of waiting they’d finally have a child in thei...

The indwelling Spirit shall teach him what is of God and what is not. This is why sometimes we can conjure up no logical reason for opposing a certain teaching, yet in the very depth of our being aris...

You can heal, Christ has touched you. You can love, Christ has sought you. You can give yourself away. Christ has come walking and called you. You can break the barriers from which others suffer. Chri...

Christianity is a rescue religion. It declares that God has taken the initiative in Jesus Christ to rescue us from our sins. This is the main theme of the Bible. You are to give him the name Jesus, be...

In George Bernard Shaw’s play about Joan of Arc , as Joan faces her execution by burning, she addresses those in power who have condemned her: “I will now go to the common people and find comfort in ...

Heavenly Father, we have forgotten your generosity and kindness. Believing you hold back from us, we have held back from others and from you. Gracious God, hear our confessions, and make us mindful of...

Gracious God, your love is greater than anything we can imagine. Yet, we are quick to run to other loves and forget about you. Forgive us for turning away from you. Help us to remember your relentless...

A friend sat down in a small London restaurant and picked up a menu. “What will it be?” the waiter asked. Studying the puzzling selections, my friend said, “Uhh …” The waiter smiled. “Oh, a Yank. What...

It is Christmas every time you let God love others through you.

Love ever gives, Forgives, outlives, And ever stands with open hands, And while it lives it gives. For this is love’s prerogative, To give – and give – and give.

We know but little now about the conditions of the life that is to come. But what is certain is that Love must last. God, the Eternal God, is Love. Covet, therefore, that everlasting gift.

It takes no grace to relate to someone who looks, thinks, and acts just like me . . . The more we love, and the more unlikely people we love, the more we resemble God — who, after all, loves ornery cr...

As Europe plunged ever deeper into a second world war, the British poet W.H. Auden composed a poem (“September 1, 1939”) that peels back our human tendency to cover up all fear and uncertainty with se...

Love may forgive all infirmities and love still in spite of them: but Love cannot cease to will their removal.

One who has been touched by grace will no longer look on those who stray as "those evil people" or "those poor people who need our help." Nor must we search for signs of "love...

Let me tell you the story of a great missionary named Frank C. Laubach (1884–1970). He grew up in the farming community of Benton, PA, and served as a Congregationalist missionary in the Philippines. ...

The final word is love.

Is life not full of opportunities for learning love? Every man and woman every day has a thousand of them. The world is not a playground; it is a schoolroom. Life is not a holiday, but an education. A...

To love is to will the good of another. .

The ways Jesus goes about loving and saving the world are personal: nothing disembodied, nothing abstract, nothing impersonal. Incarnate, flesh and blood, relational, particular and local. The ways em...

...There is no junior Holy Spirit. We have the very same Holy Spirit that Christ received for ministry and empowerment. We have a great empowerment at our disposal through the Holy Spirit, and Jesus p...