matthew on Obedience

Heavenly Father, forgive us when we become so consumed with the details of life that we do not see the opportunities that you have placed before us. Open our eyes to your call to extend love, by commu...

Preaching Angle: John Arrested, Jesus Preaches the Kingdom The major event in redemptive history which immediately precedes this passage is Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness. I can’t imagine a 40 d...

Preaching Commentary Preaching Angle: John Arrested, Jesus Preaches the Kingdom The major event in redemptive history which immediately precedes this passage is Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness....

Lord Jesus—the same yesterday, today and tomorrow, and the author of change, who’s constantly doing “a new thing,” which makes us sit up and take notice. We admit, we’d be more comfortable with a pred...

I am persuaded that love and humility are the highest attainments in the school of Christ and the brightest evidences that He is indeed our Master.

Gracious God, your Son Jesus came not be served, but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many. He is our Good Shepherd, whose leadership is less about the love of power, and more about the ...

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...

Heavenly Father, you have called us to step outside the church and into your world to carry out your kingdom work. We are to love our neighbors, serve those who may call us enemies, and pray for those...

Loving Father, You receive all who come humbly before You. Yet we approach You far too often with much satisfaction and inappropriate pride. We think more highly of ourselves than we ought to think. W...

Do unto those downstream as you would have those upstream do unto you.

The Missing “Advent” Text A lectionary preacher moving from the fifth to the sixth Sunday after Pentecost in Year A will notice that a familiar chunk is missing, sent back in time to the third Sunday...

All who are called to salvation are called to discipleship, no exceptions, no excuses!

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...

Preaching Commentary The Missing “Advent” Text A lectionary preacher moving from the fifth to the sixth Sunday after Pentecost in Year A will notice that a familiar chunk is missing, sent back in t...

Gracious God, we are sorry for withholding good things. We have offered judgment and held back mercy. We have kept comfortable and withheld justice. We have ignored cries for help. God we cannot love ...

Lord Jesus Christ, you call us to high standards, and we continuously fall short. You tell us to turn the other cheek and go the extra mile; to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us. No...

Leader: Lord God, you call us but we do not always hear. Sometimes your word comes to us in unexpected ways. Sometimes we mistake your voice for something else. Sometimes we just don’t want to listen....

O God, who through your Son has taught us that a house divided against itself must fall: Save us, we beg you, from the danger of a divided allegiance; unite our hearts to fear your name; and grant tha...

Forgiveness is to man the plainest of duties; to God it is the profoundest of problems.

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, our ...

If I withhold mercy, I have lost touch with the gospel. I have lost touch with God’s undeserved kindness and pardon.

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...

Merciful God, we humble ourselves in your presence, confessing our unworthiness and our sinfulness in your sight. We have broken your holy law. We have not sought first your kingdom and righteousness....

Forgiveness is the name of love practiced among people who love poorly. The hard truth is that all people love poorly. We need to forgive and be forgiven every day, every hour increasingly. That is th...

Each of us, Lord, has failed to fully observe your beauty. We fall in love with our own image and are left disappointed and alone. Please be faithful to us, Jesus, even when we turn from You. We...

The mission of Christian humility in social life is not merely to edify, but to keep minds open to many alternatives. The rigidity of a certain type of Christian thought has seriously impaired this ca...

Faithful God, our Father, Lord and Counselor: By your grace you know our names before we are even born. By your grace you call us your own sons and daughters. By your grace you give us an eternal purp...

There is a story—likely apocryphal—of Alexander the Great discovering a soldier asleep at his post, a grave offense. When the guard was brought before him, the king asked his name. “Alexander,” the yo...

O my Lord, I discern in my anger a sense of self-righteousness, which is much too close to pleasure. And I think of you, Lord. You were never angry in your own defense, and you took no pleasure in ang...

In the Greco-Roman world of Paul’s day, humility was a despised trait. They viewed it as a sign of weakness. And our culture today is no different from that world of two thousand years ago. Maybe it’s...