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  • liturgy

    We praise and thank you, O Lord, that

    Keywords
    Scripture
    Psalm 119:103, Luke 22:19, Psalm 34:18, 1 Timothy 2:1-2, Matthew 28:19-20, John 14:16-17, Matthew 6:9-13, Numbers 6:24-26, Matthew 25:36, Psalm 33:12, Romans 8:26, Acts 1:8, 2 Corinthians 5:18-20, Acts 2:42
    We praise and thank you, O Lord, that you have fed us with your Word [and at your table]. Grateful for your gifts and mindful of the communion of your saints, we offer to you our prayers for all pe...

  • illustration

    Two Wrong-Headed Views of the Body

    Author
    Tish Harrison Warren
    Keywords
    Scripture
    Genesis 1:31, 1 Timothy 4:4-5, Colossians 1:16, Romans 1:20, 1 Corinthians 15:42-44, 2 Corinthians 5:1
    Christians are often accused of two wrong-headed views of the body. One is that we ignore the body in favor of a disembodied, spirits-floating-on-clouds spirituality. The other is that we are obsessed...

  • illustration

    Grace and Karma and Bono

    Author
    Bono
    Keywords
    Scripture
    Luke 15:11-32, Ephesians 2:8-9, 2 Corinthians 5:21, 1 Corinthians 15:10, Psalm 103:10
    In the book Bono: In Conversation with Michka Assayas, U2’s Bono does a great job describing God’s grace. After describing how the concept of karma is central to many religions, Bono explains how karm...

  • Quote

    Author
    Frederick Buechner
    Keywords
    Scripture
    Luke 2:10-11, John 1:4-5, 2 Corinthians 5:17, Matthew 5:14-16, Acts 9:1-22, Hebrews 13:8, Revelation 7:9-10
    It is impossible to conceive how different things would have turned out if that birth had not happened whenever, wherever, however it did ... for millions of people who have lived since, the birth of ...

  • Quote

    Author
    N. T. Wright
    Keywords
    Scripture
    Romans 6:null, Acts 9:1-19, Ephesians 2:10, 2 Corinthians 5:17, John 8:1-11
    Romans 6 shines a bright spotlight on the dangerous half-truth, currently fashionable, that ‘God accepts us as we are.’ Will ‘God’s acceptance’ do as a complete grounding of Christian ethics? Emphatic...

  • Quote

    Author
    C. S. Lewis
    Keywords
    Scripture
    Philippians 4:13, 1 Peter 2:9, Colossians 3:10, Hebrews 11:1, 2 Corinthians 5:7, Galatians 2:20, Romans 10:9
    We are what we believe we are.

  • Quote

    Author
    D. Douglas Meeks
    Keywords
    Scripture
    Hebrews 6:19, John 17:21, Ephesians 1:10, 1 Peter 1:3-4, Colossians 1:20, 2 Corinthians 5:17
    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 ...

  • Quote

    Author
    Flannery O'Connor
    Keywords
    Scripture
    Psalm 46:10, John 20:29, Psalm 23:4, Proverbs 3:5-6, Isaiah 50:10, 2 Corinthians 5:7, Hebrews 11:1
    People...think faith is a big electric blanket, when of course it is the cross...You arrive at enough certainty to be able to make your way, but it is making it in darkness. Don’t expect faith to clea...

  • liturgy

    Leader: Jesus knows our every weakness,

    Keywords
    Scripture
    Luke 15:11-32, 1 John 1:9, Mark 2:1-12, 2 Corinthians 5:17, Luke 4:18, Ephesians 2:8, 2 Corinthians 12:9
    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...

  • Quote

    Author
    Curt Thompson
    Keywords
    Scripture
    2 Corinthians 5:7, Psalm 37:5, Romans 15:13, Jeremiah 17:7-8, Hebrews 11:1
    We are invariably made for faith, to operate out of a need to trust something we cannot control.

  • liturgy

    Gracious God, we ask for Your

    Author
    Memorial Drive Presbyterian Church
    Keywords
    Scripture
    Isaiah 43:18-19, Hebrews 10:22, Colossians 3:10, 2 Corinthians 5:17, Titus 3:5, Psalm 51:10
    Gracious God, we ask for Your forgiveness and receive it with joyful hearts. Renew our minds so that we may discern what is good. Fill us with Your Spirit so that we may be Your witnesses in the world...

  • illustration

    Defining Home

    Author
    Jen Pollock Michel
    Keywords
    Scripture
    Ephesians 2:19-22, John 14:2-3, Hebrews 11:13-16, 2 Corinthians 5:1, Psalm 23:6, Revelation 21:3
    In her book Keeping Place: Reflections on the Meaning of Home , Jen Pollock Michel reflects on the nature of home in a transient age. In this short excerpt, Michel focuses on etymology of home in v...

  • Quote

    Author
    William Booth
    Keywords
    Scripture
    Titus 3:5, Luke 19:1-10, Romans 12:2, Ezekiel 36:26, 2 Corinthians 5:17, John 3:3
    To get a man soundly saved it is not enough to put on him a pair of new breeches, to give him regular work, or even to give him a University education. These things are all outside a man, and if the i...

  • Quote

    Author
    Alicia Akins
    Keywords
    Scripture
    Psalm 139:7-10, Isaiah 41:10, John 3:8, Hebrews 11:1, 2 Corinthians 5:7, Psalm 66:10-12
    We can rest knowing the Lord’s presence transcends what we feel. Just like the flow of the air, he is moving even if his movements cannot be perceived. And where God is not just felt but known, faith ...

  • illustration

    Belief, Explained

    Author
    James I. Packer
    Keywords
    Scripture
    Mark 12:30-31, James 1:22, James 2:14-17, 1 John 3:18, Hebrews 11:1, 2 Corinthians 5:17, John 1:12
    When people are asked what they believe in, they give, not merely different answers, but different sorts of answers. Someone might say, “I believe in UFOs”—that means, I think UFOs are real. “I believ...

  • Quote

    Author
    Sam Allberry
    Keywords
    Scripture
    Genesis 3:, Philippians 2:6-8, Romans 5:8, Isaiah 53:5-6, 2 Corinthians 5:21
    The essence of sin is man substituting himself for God, while the essence of salvation is God substituting himself for man. Man asserts himself against God and puts himself where only God deserves to ...

  • Quote

    Author
    Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
    Keywords
    Scripture
    Matthew 21:21, Romans 10:17, 2 Corinthians 5:7, Proverbs 3:5-6, Mark 9:24
    The deepest, the only theme of human history, compared to which all others are to subordinate importance, is the conflict of skepticism with faith.

  • Quote

    Author
    Rowan Williams
    Keywords
    Scripture
    2 Corinthians 5:17
    Where his activity is recognized, there is ‘new creation’ (2 Cor. 5.17): his active presence is associated with an entirely new frame of reference for perceiving human agency and human hope.

  • illustration

    How Transformation Happens

    Author
    James Bryan Smith
    Keywords
    Scripture
    2 Corinthians 5:17, Romans 6:11-14, Galatians 2:20, Romans 8:1-2, Colossians 3:3-4, John 8:34-36, 1 Corinthians 6:19-20, Ephesians 4:22-24, Romans 8:15-16
    In The Good and Beautiful God , James Bryan Smith describes a new Christian he happened to know who came to him one day feeling dejected. He was so excited to be a follower of Jesus, but he just co...

  • Quote

    Author
    Harold Best
    Keywords
    Scripture
    Colossians 1:27, John 15:4-5, Galatians 2:20, Luke 24:13-35, Acts 2:1-4, Romans 12:1, 2 Corinthians 5:17-20
    Nonetheless, this singular fact, full to the bursting, remains. It is a fact grounded in infinite outpouring: Christ is in me; I am in Christ. . . . Christ in me is not some narrow, introspective, dis...

  • Quote

    Author
    Karl Barth
    Keywords
    Scripture
    John 15:5, Galatians 2:20, 2 Corinthians 5:17, Romans 6:4-5, Colossians 3:3-4, Acts 9:1-19
    Union with Christ is the starting-point for everything else to be thought and said concerning what makes the Christian a Christian.

  • illustration

    Follow the Bubbles

    Author
    Stuart R. Strachan, Jr.
    Keywords
    Scripture
    Romans 8:26, John 14:26, Psalm 139:9-10, 2 Corinthians 5:7, Isaiah 42:16, Psalm 119:105
    When I graduated from college I was given one of the greatest opportunities of my young life. A group of my friends were told that if we were able to purchase a flight to the Cayman Islands, we would ...

  • Quote

    Author
    C. S. Lewis
    Keywords
    Scripture
    Galatians 2:20, 1 Peter 1:8-9, James 1:6, 2 Corinthians 5:7, Romans 10:17, Mark 9:24, John 20:29
    Ramandu’s daughter: "You can't know, you can only believe - or not."

  • Quote

    Author
    A. W. Tozer
    Keywords
    Scripture
    1 Timothy 1:17, 1 Peter 1:8-9, 2 Corinthians 5:7, Colossians 1:16, Romans 8:24-25, John 20:29
    Faith is seeing the invisible, but not the nonexistent.

  • illustration

    Salvation From and For

    Author
    John Ortberg
    Keywords
    Scripture
    John 10:10, 2 Corinthians 5:17-18, Romans 5:9-10, Ephesians 2:8-10, Colossians 1:13-14
    Being saved always involves being both saved from something and saved for something. We are saved for shalom—a flourishing life with God. What are we saved from? Salvation as described in the Bible is...

  • Quote

    Author
    Austin Fischer
    Keywords
    Scripture
    2 Corinthians 5:7, 1 Timothy 6:20-21, Romans 12:2, Colossians 2:8, James 1:5-6, Hebrews 11:1
    By misinterpreting the Enlightenment and the corresponding rise of empiricism as an existential threat to Christian faith, many frightened Christians sequestered themselves into rooms of certitude.

  • illustration

    Strengthen Your Core

    Author
    Ken Costa
    Keywords
    Scripture
    Colossians 3:3, Philippians 1:6, John 15:5, Psalm 18:2, Isaiah 40:31, Ephesians 60:11, 2 Corinthians 5:17
    You can only build an effective Christian life when you have a “settled core”: an inner self “hidden with Christ” (Colossians 3:3). When you go to the gym or a Pilates class, your instructor might enc...

  • illustration

    Rewiring Our House is Painful

    Author
    Ken Costa
    Keywords
    Scripture
    Philippians 1:6, 2 Corinthians 5:17, Romans 12:2, Isaiah 40:31, 1 Peter 1:6-7, James 1:2-4
    God stretches our faith in order to prepare us to receive his promises. That often requires painful rewiring. We need updating, just as an old house may need rewiring. The old electrical wires might b...

  • illustration

    Let us Trust Our Own Moments of Vision

    Author
    Prince
    Keywords
    Scripture
    1 Peter 1:8-9, Romans 8:24-25, John 20:29, Proverbs 3:5-6, Isaiah 40:31, Hebrews 11:1, 2 Corinthians 5:7
    I remember once near Interlaken waiting for days to see the Jungfrau which was hidden in mists. People told me it was there, and I should have been a fool to doubt their word, for those who told me li...

  • illustration

    Justice as the Source of Conversion

    Author
    Stuart R. Strachan, Jr.
    Keywords
    Scripture
    Proverbs 21:2, Revelation 20:12, James 2:12-13, Matthew 12:36-37, 2 Corinthians 5:10, Romans 14:12, Hebrews 9:27
    W.H. Auden is one of the greatest poets of the 20th Century, who grew up in England but who spent some of his life in the United States. In November 1939 he found himself in a German-language movie th...
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