christian living on Easter

Loving God, you are the author of all life. You created the heavens through the words of your mouth. You also are constantly creating new life. However, we don’t accept the new life you give us. We ch...

They took the body down from the cross and one of the few rich men among the first Christians obtained permission to bury it in a rock tomb in his garden the Romans setting a military guard lest there...

Written almost a hundred years ago, this excerpt from the Reverend John W. Rilling points out one of the main reasons we continue to observe Lent, a period of repentance and discipline for many who ca...

You can cut all the flowers but you cannot keep spring from coming.

The Christian's new life is a life of love, forgiveness, and kindness, modeled after the example of Christ.

In the sixteenth century, Jesuit missionary Matteo Ricci journeyed to China, bringing religious art to share the Christian story with those unfamiliar with it. The Chinese readily embraced images of t...

Leader: We are people of the resurrection. Witnesses to God’s glorious victory in Jesus Christ, which brings peace and transforms the power structures of this world. But we also know that we live in ...

Leader: For him who knew no sin God made to be sin on our behalf; so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. People: For while we were yet weak, at the right time Christ died for the u...

When he said, “I am the bread of life,” he must have meant he was scattering bits of himself like a trail of crumbs leading us to speak and act and scatter forgiveness in his name to the ends of the e...

​O my all-merciful God and Lord, Jesus Christ, full of pity: Through Your great love You came down and became incarnate in order to save everyone. O Savior, I ask You to save me by Your grace! If You ...

The word eccentric comes from a combination of the Greek terms ex (out of) and kentron (center). When combined, ekkentros means “out of center.” The term gained currency in the late Middle Ages, when ...

Hope orients all thought, action, and relationships to God’s ultimate redemption of the creation and to the ultimate communion with the triune God...hope is the steady orientation to God’s making all ...

Let us remember that Christ forgives our sins because he bore them at Calvary, not because we deserve Christ’s pardon; and though our sins stubbornly cling to us, our Savior’s love releases us from th...

Hear the Good News. God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem us, free us, and make us children of God. In the Name of Jesus Christ, you are forgiven. Glory to God! Amen.

In a series of sermons for the Lenten season, pastor and author John H. Baumgaertner shares one of the greatest moments that can ever happen to a pastor, though, in truth it is available to all who ha...

In Christ as sacrifice, God our judge is judged in our place, reveals our perpetration of and collaboration with sin, ends our rebellion, forgives our guilt, cleanses us, makes us righteous, and estab...

Faith is a free surrender and a joyous wager on the unseen, unknown, untested goodness of God.

Leader: Jesus knows our every weakness, and loves us still. Awaken to the promise of Christ's amazing grace. Leader: Friends, believe the good news of the gospel. People: In Jesus Christ we are f...

Gracious God, we are called to be a joyful people, giving thanks for You and Your good gifts. There are times, however, when sin and sorrow grow, pushing joy to the side. We lose sight of Your grace, ...

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...

‘Salvation’ is a wonderfully wide-ranging word and it would be a great mistake to think that it refers only to the forgiveness of our sins. God is as much concerned with our present and future as with...

Go now, as people who bear witness to the power of God in the world. Go, bearing God’s peace to the places and people who you will encounter. Go, as representatives of Christ’s salvation, in the power...

In another day and age, God, religion and church enjoyed the general respect of the culture. Not today. Religion is suspect, church is weird, and Christians are hypocrites. Distrust has become the nor...

Leader: As Jesus healed the afflicted and restored those who have died, he also forgives our sins and gives us new life. Friends, believe the good news of the gospel. People: In Jesus Christ we are f...

Dear Lord Jesus, we feel our sins. They bite and gnaw and terrify us. Where shall we go? We will look to You, Lord Jesus, and believe in You. Although our faith is often weak, we look to You and find ...

Evangelicals believe they are saved by grace through faith but then add a man-made waiver that you have to work as hard as you can meet middle-class behavioral patterns to hang onto it.

Faith is not something that goes against the evidence, it goes beyond it. The evidence is saying to us, 'There is another country. There is something beyond mere reason'.

I love that part in The Silver Chair when old age simply vanishes from frail King Caspian, because age is the unavoidable meltdown, stripping even the bravest and most beautiful of their former glor...

I believe in the sun though it is late in rising. I believe in love though it is absent. I believe in God though He is silent.

In the old American South (and in many places in the American North) a European American who invited an African American as a guest to an expensive restaurant in a white section of town would subject ...