mark on Lovable

There is the great lesson of “Beauty and the Beast”; that a thing must be loved before it is loveable.

"When someone loves you, the way they talk about you is different. You feel safe and comfortable."

Maurice Sendak, author and illustrator of and other children’s books, gets many letters from his young fans. A favorite was a “charming” drawing sent on by a little boy’s mother. “I loved it,” Sendak ...

But it wasn’t just his new message that made Jesus irresistible. It was Jesus himself. People who were nothing like him liked him. And Jesus liked people who were nothing like him. Jesus invited unbel...

A possession ought to belong to the possessor, not the possessor to the possession.

A world of nice people, content in their own niceness, looking no further, turned away from God, would be just as desperately in need of salvation as a miserable world-and might be even more difficult...

“Would I rather be feared or loved? That’s easy. Both. I want people to be afraid of how much they love me.”

We can do no great things-only small things with great love.

God loves you just as you are but too much to leave you that way.

Faith makes all things possible. Love makes all things easy.

Beloved of God, go now in peace to love and to serve, with the blessing of Almighty God, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

After C. S. Lewis lost his wife Joy to cancer, he wrote these words about the inextricable link between love, suffering, and vulnerability: To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your...

Beloved of God, go now in peace. Go to love. Go to serve. Go with the unending blessing of the One, True, Living God Father – Son – Spirit. Amen.

Have you ever played in a swimming pool and tried to hold a beach ball under the surface? Its tendency-you might even say its penchant and desire-is to rise to the surface. It is “restless” when it is...

Mark Rutland humorously recalls a survey asking Americans which words they most long to hear. As expected, the top response was, “ I love you. ” The second was, “ I forgive you .” ...

Everyone says forgiveness is a lovely idea, until they have something to forgive.

Gracious God, you are the author of life and giver of all good things. Yet we have worked against your goodness, passing people by, and ignoring their needs. Father, forgive us for walking away from p...

Here’s a testimony from Lisa Sharon Harper, author of The Very Good Gospel: Harper grew up as a child of a single mother. After her parents divorced, she and her mother moved from Philadelphia where ...

We are what we love. If we love God, in whose image we were created, we discover ourselves in him and we cannot help being happy: we have already achieved something of the fullness of being for which ...

Just this morning, my family attended church with our son who has autism. He was particularly enthused by the music today, and he was moving around quite a bit. A man in the choir noticed our son, and...

Mike Mason recounts how his friend Daniel Adair once said: Whenever I meet someone new, I take that person and fix him or her in my heart. To do this, I literally see that person as a star, and I ...

Gracious God, you love us deeply yet we take your love for granted. Rather than trusting you, we trust the gifts you have given us. We confess that our misplaced hope and reliance is on money, intelli...

Most merciful God, we confess that we have sinned against you in thought, word, and deed, by what we have done, and by what we have left undone. We have not loved you with our whole heart; we have n...

Love is at the root of everything—all learning, all parenting, all relationships—love or the lack of it. And what we hear or see on the screen is part of who we become.

Christmas, my child, is love in action. Every time we love, every time we give, it’s Christmas.

‘Gentle Jesus, meek and mild’, Such a dainty, fragile child, But the one we know is bold and strong We can hear that in your dying song, Little boy, little boy. ‘Just a boy of flesh and b...

God–Creator of the universe, Redeemer of humanity, Sustainer of your people, and our Creator, Redeemer and Sustainer. You hold the galaxies in the palm of your hand–and yet You know each of us by nam...

Leader: Jesus knows our every weakness, and loves us still. Awaken to the promise of Christ's amazing grace. Leader: Friends, believe the good news of the gospel. People: In Jesus Christ we are f...

The ultimate reason for our misery, however, is that we do not love God supremely. As Augustine so famously put it in prayer, “You have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless until they fin...

When a visitor left a quarter for eight-year-old Liam, the family began discussing what he might do with it. His older sister suggested, “Why not give it to St.  Jude’s hospital?” Liam pondered for a ...