God calls people. Whether it is the calling of Abraham to leave the land of Ur and go he knew not where, or the calling of Moses, confronted with the burning bush, or the calling of Isaiah who encount...
Genesis 18:22-33, Exodus 3:1-12 , 1 Kings 19:9-13, John 5:19-30, John 16:12-15, Psalm 116:1-2
The God who shares power is a listener. Listening is not something that becomes necessary for God only after the world is created. Listening is who God is. In God’s very being, communication does not ...
Isaiah 65:17-25, Micah 4:1-4, Exodus 3:7-10 , Luke 4:18-19, Matthew 5:1-12, Psalm 146:7-9
Author and Episcopal priest Stephanie Spellers suggests that instead of imagining a kingdom, a better way for us to understand what Jesus had in mind when he spoke of this script, this new way of livi...
Gracious God, we desire to follow when your call. We long to live according to the ways of Jesus, yet we find ourselves stumbling. Forgive us for the times we have failed to follow your example of com...
Transcendent Lord, in the midst of ordinary days draw us to wonder to fall on our knees and cry, “Glory!” You are the Holy One, Above and Other. May we tremble, knowing how deeply you know us and lov...
Pastor: Almighty and eternal God, we adore You as the God and Father of our Lord and Savior Jesus, and with the whole Church on earth and all the hosts of heaven we ascribe to You honor and blessing...
A number of mature Christians have described the Christian journey as one in which the follower of Jesus experiences different levels of grace. Let us imagine . . . that there are many rooms in t...
Context Prophecy: Not Just Future-Telling When confronted with the question of the purpose of the prophetic books in the Old Testament, it is commonly supposed that their primary purpose is future t...
Context Prophecy: Not Just Future-Telling When confronted with the question of the purpose of the prophetic books in the Old Testament, it is commonly supposed that their primary purpose is future t...
Turn around and believe that the good news that we are loved is gooder than we ever dared hope, and that to believe in that good news, to live out of it and toward it, to be in love with that good new...
One of the great problems of history is that the concepts of love and power have usually been contrasted as opposites, polar opposites, so that love is identified with a resignation of power, and powe...
Genesis 12:1-4 , Exodus 3:1-12, Micah 6:8, Matthew 4:18-22 , Ephesians 2:10, Psalm 90:12 , Matthew 9:9
It is helpful to understand the call of God in three distinct ways. First, there is the call to be a Christian. The God of creation invites us to respond to his love. This call comes through Jesus, wh...
Exodus 3:10-12, Joshua 1:9, Matthew 6:33, Romans 8:28, Psalm 121:1-2
Pastor: Lord God, we thank You that You have taught us what You would have us believe and do. Help us by Your Holy Spirit, for the sake of Jesus Christ, to hold fast Your Word in our hearts. You ha...
God of mercy, deliver us from our fear in which we judge others. We pray for all who are oppressed, imprisoned, persecuted or rejected. To you who have delivered us from slavery we pray for the faith ...
Pastor: Peter calls on believers in exile to rid themselves of those things that would point themselves and others away from Christ. Like the early church, we too are to rid ourselves of all mali...
Josephine Bakhita’s life is a testament of God’s faithfulness in the darkest circumstances. She was born in Darfur, Sudan, among the Daju people. Her first years were happy, but at age eight she was k...
The temptation to sculpt God according to our expectations and presuppositions, to make this God much like another, is strong with us. You see it all down through history: in the Middle Ages it seemed...
Pastor: Be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might, with feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. Go out into the world with joy and hope, standing firm in...
Aseity refers to God’s self-existence (a—from, se—oneself). God exists ‘from himself.’ God owes his existence and completeness as God to nothing outside himself. . . . God’s act of creation was not c...
John 1:1-5, 14, Luke 4:16-21, Psalm 19:7-9 , Genesis 1:1-3, Exodus 3:4-10 , Isaiah 55:10-11
WORDS. We think words, hear words, speak words, sing words, write words, and read words—all the time. Every day. What do words have to do with Christianity? Almost everything. At every stage in redemp...
To enter into the realm of contemplation one must in a certain sense die: but this death is in fact the entrance into a higher life. It is a death for the sake of life, which leaves behind all that we...
We confess, “I believe in God.” That confession is not an expression of a creative imagination or an instance of projection, but a response to the One who manifests himself in creation, in history, in...
Genesis 27:18-29, Exodus 3:11-14, Ecclesiastes 2:10-11, Luke 15:11-32, Matthew 23:27-28 , Psalm 139:23-24
Thomas Merton once said, “Every one of us is shadowed by an illusory person: a false self, This is the man I want myself to be but who cannot exist, because God does not know anything about him. A...
Some time ago, I read about the work of a Wycliffe Bible translator in a remote village in Papua New Guinea. When the opening chapters of Genesis were first translated into the native language, the at...