luke on Gifts

The words “gratitude” and “grace” come from the same root word, gratia in Latin and kharis in Greek, as mentioned earlier. In addition to being the name of a goddess, “grace” is a theological word, on...

We know in­stinctively that Christmas is more than shopping mall Santas, silver bells, and snow-flocked trees, but such things are so entangled with our impressions of Christmas that it’s hard to kn...

I want to suggest a pretty radical idea about what family is for. Family is about the forming of persons. Being a person is a gift, like life itself—we are born as human beings made in the image of Go...

One day, the famous surrealist painter Salvador Dalí walked into a New York bookstore and asked for a copy of his own autobiography, The Secret Life of Salvador Dalí . The young clerk immediately...

If you ever find yourself sympathizing with Charles Dickens’ character Ebenezer Scrooge regarding the commercialization of Christmas, you’re not alone—this has been a common complaint for quite some t...

Pastor: Lord Jesus Christ, in this world of unrest and strife You founded Your holy Christian Church through faith as a kingdom of peace and joy. You have established this worldwide communion of sai...

In his book of sermons titled The Magnificent Defeat, Frederick Buechner mentions two qualities of childlikeness. First, children have no fixed preconceptions of reality. If someone tells them that ...

Eternal and Generous God, Every good gift comes from You. Your generosity is expressed best Through Jesus, the Crucified and Risen One, Who gave Himself for us. We acknowledge we often doubt Your will...

Father—you know us like no-one else; and ...You love us like no-one else. Thank You for your manifold gifts. For the gift of life—we thank You. For the gift of each new day—we thank You. For the gift ...

As we gather on your good earth, before the bounty of your Word and Table, and the majesty of your holy presence, We remember and repent Forgive us, Abiding One, We keep you at a distance We defy you...

Lord – You are good …and Your goodness knows no bounds. When we were lost, You sought us out, found us and brought us home. When we were alone, You came near to us, and You gave us a new circle of fri...

The Lord our God is rich in mercy, slow to anger, and abounds in steadfast love. He does not pay us back what we deserve, but even while we were his enemies he sent his son to die for us. Christ died ...

The biblical theology of creation is a negation of theories of private” property and “public” property, our theories of individual ownership and collective or governmental ownership. The biblical view...

The other way to destroy the relational bonds of gift giving is to turn a gift into a commodity. Let’s say it’s my birthday. Ten friends come over to my house, and we eat a good meal, and they all bri...

The story is well known in the family: my grandparents had driven up from California the evening before. Stopping at a gas station along the Oregon border, they purchased some snacks, gas, and, as the...

Grace is a gift that costs everything for the giver and nothing for the recipient.