psalms on Sinfulness

Holy Father, You are perfect and just, but we are sinful and unworthy. We intend the best in how we live our lives, Yet sin remains in us. Through Your Son, we are able to have redemption and a reconn...

The great danger is to always single out some aspect of God’s good creation and identify it, rather than the alien intrusion of sin, as the villain. Such an error conceives of the good-evil dichotomy ...

Out of the depths of darkness and despair we have cried out for your mercy, O God. Instead of marking our iniquities with the just weight of our condemnation, you have forgiven us, breathed new life i...

God of mercy, in your gracious presence we confess our sin and the sin of this world. Although Christ is among us as our peace, we are a people divided against ourselves as we cling to the values of a...

The Lord is gracious and righteous. Our God is merciful. He has delivered us out of the power of darkness, and translated us into the Kingdom of the Son of his love, in whom we have our redemption, th...

Leader: You who trust in Christ Jesus for the forgiveness of sins: hear now and rest in the assurance of your pardon: All: Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord: though your sins are lik...

Nature, the world, has no value, no interest for Christians. The Christian thinks only of himself and the salvation of his soul.

We have been created and redeemed for the eternal ecstasy of an interpersonal immersion in the triune God, seeing infinite Beauty face to face.

The Good News or the Bad News? Which do you want first: the good news or the bad news? Well, if you’re preaching Hosea these next two weeks, it doesn’t matter what you want.  You’re getting the bad ...

Transcendent God, you are the creator of time, You exist inside, outside, and around time and space. In your immeasurable power, you created and ordered the universe. Amazingly, you limited yourself b...

Pastor: O Lord, let Your ears be attentive to the voice of our cry, for there is forgiveness with You that You may be feared. By Your unfailing love deliver us from all our sin that our hope may be ...

Sometime in the last decade or so I started hearing the phrase “all that good stuff.” I think it happened first when I was ordering dinner at a restaurant. The waitress summarized the menu briefly, en...

Lord Jesus Christ, you are loving and merciful. Forgive us for being so captivated by Christmas that we forget that you, the little baby in the manger, grew up as the Lord over all creation. It is som...

The One who cast out demons, who made the deaf to hear and the mute to speak, has also the authority and power to forgive sins and to make us whole. I declare to you in the name of Jesus Christ that o...

Fruit is always the miraculous, the created; it is never the result of willing, but always a growth. The fruit of the Spirit is a gift of God, and only He can produce it. They who bear it know as litt...

Consider using the prayer of adoration by itself or as a prelude to the prayer of confession. Prayer of Adoration Lord of yesterday, today, and tomorrow: You alone rule the universe; setting time...

There is nothing so secular that it cannot be sacred, and that is one of the deepest messages of the Incarnation.

Jesus Christ is the light of the world. He will judge the people with righteousness and defend the cause of the poor. Jesus Christ is the light of the world. The mystery of the ages is revealed; th...

From the very first the Creator was both good and also just. And both His attributes advanced together. His goodness created; His justice arranged, the world; and in this process it even then decreed ...

A climber recently had to be airlifted off Japan’s Mount Fuji due to altitude sickness. That alone would have been a dramatic enough story. But four days later—still recovering—he climbed back up ...

"God's joy," said by the Persian mystic Rumi, "moves from unmarked box to unmarked box, from cell to cell. As rain water down into flower bed. As roses up from ground. Now it looks ...

Dear Lord and God, I thank and praise You for Your Word, the Holy Scriptures, and for the promise that Your Holy Spirit will guide me into all truth. Give me a teachable spirit so that I may learn all...

In Romans 8:18, Paul describes the future of those who persevere in the faith: “I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us....

The “grammar of the gospel” is the grammar of grace and response, the life-changing and life-giving intrusion of God into our midst, our lives, and our communities.

The aroma of the knowledge of God comes from Christ and through Christ. The reason why Paul said “aroma” was this: Some things are recognized by their smell, even though they are invisible. God, who i...

Preaching commentary Questions for Consideration What does a prayer reveal about a person? What do you most often pray for/about and what might that reveal about you? A Beautiful and Compel...

Thus says your Lord, the Lord, your God who pleads the cause of his people: “Behold, I have taken from your hand the cup of staggering; the bowl of my wrath you shall drink no more. Live in the freedo...

Let us pray to God the Father, God the Son, And to God the Holy Spirit, Whose infinite greatness Enfolds the whole world, In Persons three and one, In essence simple and triune, Suspending the earth a...

Why does a tree bear fruit? Not because there is some law of nature that says it must. But simply because of the life within it, rising up from the soil and water that feed its roots and flowing in th...

Heavenly Father, we stand in awe of Your creation. You are the master of design. You know the change of seasons, You know the orbit of planets, and You know exactly what human beings were made for: a ...