Psalm 34:17-18, 2 Corinthians 1:3-4, 2 Corinthians 12:9-10, Hebrews 4:15-16, Hebrews 2:18, Matthew 26:38, Matthew 11:28-30
When do we hear God’s voice most clearly? It is often in our deepest struggles that we hear God’s voice. In the 1640s, George Fox, who would later establish the Quaker or Friends movement, wandered th...
Psalm 23:1-3, Psalm 62:1, Matthew 11:28-30, Hebrews 4:9-10
In his highly insightful work, Inside Job , Stephen W. Smith shares the importance of finding ways to rest and relax as part of a healthy, balanced life: I once read a book in which the author sa...
Perhaps you have been ensnared by a sinful habit that you will not abandon, and your guilt is so overwhelming you are ashamed to approach Christ. Whatever the reason for your broken intimacy with God,...
Matthew 11:28-30, Psalm 62:1, Isaiah 30:15, Romans 12:2, Galatians 5:1, John 15:4, Hebrews 4:9-10
He invites us to leave our burdensome ways of heavy labor—especially the “religious” ones—and step into the yoke of training with him. This is a way of gentleness and lowliness, a way of soul rest. It...
2 Corinthians 12:9-10, Proverbs 24:16, James 1:12, Philippians 3:13-14, Psalm 103:13-14, Hebrews 4:15-16, Matthew 25:14-30, Luke 18:1-8, Exodus 16:, Mark 5:25-34, Romans 5:3-5
God knows our situation; He will not judge us as if we had no difficulties to overcome. What matters is the sincerity and perseverance of our will to overcome them.
Lord and God, Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, we have only begun to comprehend the wonder of the Incarnation, that you in Christ would become one of us, that you in Christ would live among us and be ...
2 Timothy 3:16-17, Romans 15:4, Isaiah 55:11, Hebrews 4:12-13, 2 Peter 1:19-21, Matthew 4:4, Matthew 24:35
In the book A Peculiar Glory , John Piper describes how he maintained a traditional view of scripture, even after he went on to advanced theological studies in California and Germany. He describes hi...
Matthew 13:18-23, Jeremiah 17:8, Colossians 3:16, Hebrews 4:12, Psalm 119:11
Pastor: “Hear then the parable of the sower: When anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what has been sown in his heart. This is what wa...
James 2:13, Titus 3:5, Hebrews 4:16, Ephesians 2:4-5, Lamentations 3:22-23, Matthew 5:7
When Johann Sebastian Bach sought to convey the heart of Christian truth through music, he chose the Mass as his foundation. His B Minor Mass begins with a heartfelt plea from the full chorus and orch...
Hebrews 4:15, Luke 2:52, Matthew 22:37, John 5:19, Philippians 2:5-8, John 17:4, Mark 12:30
Jesus was a whole human who had a head and a heart and a spirit. I forget that Jesus came to this earth, not as a brain in a Mason jar floating in formaldehyde, but as an embodied, incarnate, integral...
2 Timothy 3:16-17, Romans 15:4, Isaiah 55:11, Hebrews 4:12-13, 2 Peter 1:19-21, Matthew 4:4, Matthew 24:35, Isaiah 41:8-10, 2 Corinthians 1:3-4, Psalm 46:, Genesis 37:12-36, 1 Samuel 19:, 1 Samuel 20:, 2 Corinthians 11:23-30, 2 Corinthians 4:17, Acts 21:27-36
For seven years, Terry Anderson was held as a hostage of Shiite Muslim fundamentalists. The former reporter for the Associated Press had been taken captive and held as a political prisoner, and for se...
Galatians 4:4-5, Titus 3:4-7, Philippians 2:8, Hebrews 2:14-15, 17-18, Hebrews 4:15, 1 Peter 4:8, Matthew 5:9
[I] try to get into their world a little bit [by listening to hip-hop], because if they’re only adapting to you and you’re not adapting to them in some way, I don’t think you’ve developed a relationsh...
Hebrews 4:15-16, James 5:16, Matthew 11:28-30, Psalm 147:3, Romans 8:28, Psalm 34:18
What often continues to shape our stories (interpretations) are the implicit emotional responses to our wounds. We must be willing to attend to our wounds and address the emotions embedded in our woun...
Psalm 142:4-5, Isaiah 49:15-16, Psalm 34:18, Hebrews 4:15, Matthew 28:20, John 14:18, Romans 8:38-39, Lamentations 3:21-23, Psalm 40:1-12
This story is probably apocryphal, but conveys a truth nonetheless. During the early 19th century, following the Napoleonic Wars, a French soldier was captured and imprisoned. He was thrown into a...
1 Kings 18:41–45, Daniel 9:3–19 , Matthew 7:7–8 , Luke 18:1–8, Hebrews 4:16 , Psalm 145:18–19
“The Prince of Preachers”, Charles Haddon Spurgeon once shared a thoughtful analogy for the life of prayer in most people’s lives: Prayer pulls the rope down below and the great bell rings above i...
Psalm 34:14, Luke 15:20, Hebrews 4:14, Romans 6:4, Acts 1:8, 2 Corinthians 12:9, Psalm 25:4-5, Matthew 11:28-30, Isaiah 41:10, John 14:13, James 1:5, 2 Corinthians 9:8, Habakkuk 3:2, Isaiah 6:8, Matthew 28:19-20
Father: Thank You for always being ready to welcome us and listen to us. Thank You for sending Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Savior: born like us, experiencing all that we experience yet sinless, who d...
Psalm 46:1, Philippians 4:19, James 4:8, Hebrews 4:16, Matthew 11:28-30, Psalm 34:18, 1 John 1:9
Dear Christ, hasten to me. Release me from my sins. Free my arms from the chains of evil, that I may embrace you. Lift the scales of ignorance from my eyes, that I may see you. Why do you delay? What ...
Proverbs 3:5-6, Isaiah 55:8-9, James 4:6, Jeremiah 9:23-24, Romans 12:3, Matthew 23:1-12, Psalm 25:9, 1 Peter 5:5-6, Hebrews 4:16
All: Knowing God, we often believe our way is the best way. In our arrogance, we ignore your will and your ways. We confess our dependence on knowledge and our independence from you. Thank you that yo...
Matthew 6:9-11, Luke 11:2-3, Romans 8:15, Hebrews 4:16, Philippians 4:6-7
The Lord’s Prayer is designed to help us make this change: a change of priority, not a change of content. This prayer doesn’t pretend that pain and hunger aren’t real. Some religions say that; Jesus d...
The Lord’s Prayer, like all prayer, is part work and part rest, Perhaps the only work we do is getting ourselves there. Once we’ve gotten ourselves there—to prayer—whatever mains of productivity is Go...
2 Timothy 3:16-17, Romans 15:4, Isaiah 55:11, Hebrews 4:12-13, 2 Peter 1:19-21, Matthew 4:4, Matthew 24:35
Many people these days feel an absence in their lives, expressed as an acute desire for “something more,” a spiritual home, a community of faith. But when they try to read the Bible they end up throwi...
The heart is used in Scripture as the most comprehensive term for the authentic person. It is the part of our being where we desire, deliberate, and decide. It has been described as “the place of cons...
From the very beginning was Your Word, Which spoke this world into being, Your Word, Which thunders from the skies, Your Word, Which flows like mountain streams, Your Word, Which whispers in morning b...
Matthew 27:46, Hebrews 4:15, 1 Peter 3:18, John 19:30, 1 Peter 4:13
In Elie Wiesel’s Night , Eliezer is a Jewish teenager, a devoted student of the Talmud from Sighet, in Hungarian Transylvania. In the spring of 1944, the Nazis occupied Hungary. Increasingly repressi...
James 1:22-25, Isaiah 30:21, Proverbs 2:1, Hebrews 4:12, Matthew 7:24-25, Romans 10:17, 1 Samuel 3:, Isaiah 55:3, Matthew 11:15, Acts 16:14
Father God, you come to us in the everyday. You give us your Word and your Spirit that we might hear your voice, and follow your ways. We confess that we have neglected your words to us and pretended ...
John 5:39-40, Hebrews 4:12-13, Matthew 16:13-15, Mark 10:17-22, John 3:1-10, John 18:33-38, Matthew 12:30
We had thought intellectually to examine him; we find he is spiritually examining us. The roles are reversed between us...A person may study Jesus with intellectual impartiality, he cannot do it with ...
Exodus 20:3-7, 12-17, Deuteronomy 5:12-15, Mark 2:27-28, Matthew 12:8, Luke 6:5, Hebrews 4:9-10, Isaiah 58:13-14
Interpretation series editor Patrick Miller has shrewdly observed that the fourth commandment on Sabbath is the “crucial bridge” that connects the Ten Commandments together. The fourth commandment loo...
As we call ourselves to worship, let us remember that our God is an awesome God, who in Jesus Christ has lived in our flesh, faced our temptations, gone to cross for, and lives today in heaven. In thi...