psalms on Christmas

It’s easy to label what we consider “good things” in our lives as gifts from God and to welcome them with gratitude. But when difficult things happen, we don’t look at them as part of God’s good plan ...

The mind in all its intricate beauty can be a place of great anguish. Thoughts can both grip us for the good and plague us for that which is not. In Dickens’ Christmas novella, The Chimes, he describe...

Almighty God, Creator: The morning is Yours, rising into fullness.  The summer is Yours, dipping into autumn.  Eternity is Yours, dipping into time.  The vibrant grasses, the scent of flowers,  the li...

Pastor: Go now as Easter people, ambassadors of Christ’s kingdom of forgiveness, healing and hope, and witnesses of what we know to be true.  May the almighty and merciful Lord, the Father, the Son,...

When God Talks Back, psychological anthropologist T. M. Luhrmann sets out to explain how sensible people believe in an immaterial God. One aspect of evangelical Christianity that she finds particularl...

Cantor: Hear our prayer, O Lord; hear our prayer, O Lord. Incline Your ear to us, and grant us Your peace. People: Response   (Sung response to each petition) Pastor: ...

We thank You, God our Father, for Your grace, mercy and love, expressed today through Your Word and Sacrament; and we ask You to help us to pray and to know what to pray. You give us all good gifts: Y...

Pastor: Heavenly Father, as we draw ever closer to the end of this Lenten season of repentance and renewed devotion, we pray that You would remember us according to Your steadfast love and goodness ...

PRAYER OF CONFESSION Pastor: We join with all of creation to shout the praise of Almighty God, and to sing for joy at His loving faithfulness. Yet we must confess to God and one another that we have...

See the leaves around us falling, Dry and withered to the ground; Thus to thoughtless mortals calling, In a sad and solemn sound "Youth on length of days presuming, Who the paths of pleasure tre...

When I was considering the possibility of embracing Christian faith as a young college student, what I feared most was that it would make my life smaller rather than larger—less love, less joy, less c...

Pastor: With the Psalmist we pray: Hear my cry, O God, listen to my prayer; from the end of the earth I call to You when my heart is faint. Lead me to the rock that is higher than I, for You have be...

Suppose I sell you a piece of commercial property on which I am already behind in my mortgage payments. You not only pay me a fair price for the property but also pay my overdue payments. Now the prop...

Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul.

Pastor: If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. People: But if we confess our sins, God, who is faithful and just, will forgive our sins and cleanse us ...

Hope is the only bee that makes honey without flowers.

Al Capone, the most notorious gangster in American History, had these three words etched on his tombstone: “My Jesus Mercy”

There is one spectacle grander than the sea, that is the sky; there is one spectacle grander than the sky, that is the interior of the soul.

Pastor: We worship today in the name of God the Father,  People: Praise to our creating God! Pastor: In the name of His Son, Jesus Christ: People: Praise to our redeeming God! Pastor: In the name...

The very least you can do in your life is figure out what you hope for. And the most you can do is live inside that hope. Not admire it from a distance but live right in it, under its roof.

Leader: Our help is in the name of the Lord, People: who made heaven and earth.  Leader: If You, O Lord, kept a record of sins, O Lord, who could stand? People: But wit...

Someone once said that faith is not a personal possession until you have suffered. That person understood that the very nature of faith requires the grit and courage to be in the dark so you can event...

Angels can fly because they take themselves lightly.

Poetry too is a little incarnation, giving body to what had been before invisible and inaudible.

My tradition teaches that no heart is as whole as a broken heart, and I would say that no faith is as solid as a wounded faith.

In this short excerpt, pastor and author Austin Fischer describes a surprising dynamic that sometimes occurs in the life of a Christian: believing so strongly in a loving God that one cannot fathom th...

Faith makes all evil good to us, and all good better; unbelief makes all good evil, and all evil worse. Faith laughs at the shaking of the spear; unbelief trembles at the shaking of a leaf, unbelief s...

It is not despair, for despair is only for those who see the end beyond all doubt. We do not. (Spoken by Galadriel)

Almost as important as oxygen for human survival is hope. According to Dr. Arnold Hutschnecker, “Since my early years as a physician, I learned that taking away hope is, to most people, like pronounci...

A while ago, I encountered such a finding when I read a study that gave volunteers an energy drink designed to increase mental abilities. Some volunteers were charged the retail price of the drink ($1...