christian living on Laws

After the fall of our first parents, boundaries were something to push past, to transgress. It’s worth pausing to note how we use the word transgression for “sin.”  With its Latin roots, “across” and ...

God of Grace and Power—our Friend, who sticks closer than a brother: You know when we screw up ...and You know when we manage to get it right. You know when we forget you ... but You never forget us. ...

God bless us with discomfort at easy answers, half-truths and superficial relationships, so that we may live deep within our hearts. God bless us with righteous anger at injustice, oppression, and exp...

Modern Language Version Almighty God, who has given us this good land for our heritage: We humbly ask that we may always prove ourselves a people mindful of your favor and glad to do your will. Bles...

This is salvation in the deeper and more spiritual sense of the Old Testament. . . . But even in the religion of the Law, . . . obedience to the revealed will of Yahweh is recognized as the supreme en...

While formally or structurally speaking, there are mechanisms of discipline operative in both the convent and the prison, in both the factory and the monastery, more specifically, these disciplines an...

To hold to a doctrine or an opinion with the intellect alone is not to believe it. A man’s real belief is that which he lives by.

Practice is to Judaism what belief is to Christianity. That is not to say that Judaism doesn’t have dogma or doctrine. It is rather to say that for Jews, the essence of the thing is a doing, an action...

Almighty Father, giver of every good and perfect gift, who has made the light of your truth shine in our hearts: Make us to walk as children of light in all goodness and righteousness, that we may hav...

Lord God, let us keep your Scriptures in mind and meditate on them day and night, persevering in prayer, always on the watch. We beg you, Lord, to give us real knowledge of what we read and to show us...

Therefore let us repent and pass from ignorance to knowledge, from foolishness to wisdom, from licentiousness to self-control, from injustice to righteousness, from godlessness to God.

The only clear line I draw these days is this: when my religion tries to come between me and my neighbor, I will choose my neighbor…Jesus never commanded me to love my religion.

God, the fact that we feel uncomfortable is evidence that we perceive the injustices in our world. We don’t ask you to help us hear the cries of injustice, but rather to give us courage to act against...

We live a long time in order to become lovers. God is like a good parent, refusing to do our homework for us. We must learn through trial and error. We have to do our homework ourselves, the homework ...

When God wants to sort out the world, as the Beatitudes in the Sermon on the Mount make clear, he doesn’t send in the tanks. He sends in the meek, the broken, the justice hungry, the peacemakers, the ...

Lord Jesus: knowing that you are good and strong, loving, wise, holy and faithful, we come to you today in prayer for all the needs and concerns in our minds and hearts. Lord, we pray for Your whole c...

Our God is a righteous Judge who presides over all the earth. He defends the weak and the fatherless. He upholds the cause of the poor and the oppressed. He rescues the weak and the needy and delivers...

The kingdom of God manifests itself in the modest changes in our attitudes and in the little improvements in our behavior that no one may notice, including ourselves. These are the mighty works of God...

In her engaging treatment, Teach us to Want , Jen Pollock Michel describes both the beauty and pain of seeing our own sinful nature: It is often true that once we are made to see, we don’t like w...

The Leader and People pray responsively Father, we pray for your holy Catholic Church; That we all may be one. Grant that every member of the Church may truly and humbly serve you; That your Nam...

Traditional (Anglican) Our Father, who art in heaven,     hallowed be thy Name,     thy kingdom come,     thy will be done,         on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily ...

My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only wha...

There is a time to go and do; there is a time to listen and reflect. Knowing which is a matter of spiritual discernment. If we were to ask Jesus which example applies to us, the Samaritan or Mary, his...

In his classic fictional work on spiritual warfare, The Screwtape Letters , C. S. Lewis imagined a senior demon (Screwtape) corresponding with one of his protégés (his nephew Wormwood) as the latte...

We need silence in our lives. We even desire it. But when we enter into silence we encounter a lot of inner noises, often so disturbing that a busy and distracting life seems preferable to a time of s...

Your Lord is a God of mercy and bountifulness: be a source of mercy and bountifulness to your neighbors. If you will be such, you will find salvation yourself with everlasting glory.

Some years ago, the syndicated newspaper columnist Sidney J. Harris shared an interesting anecdote from one of his friends. Each evening, this friend would stop at the same newsstand to buy a newspape...

The kingdom of God does not consist in talk, but in power, that is, in works and practice. God loves the 'doers of the word' in faith and love, and not the 'mere hearers,' who, like pa...

Gracious God, give us humble, teachable, and obedient hearts, that we may receive what you have revealed, and do what you have commanded. Amen.

There is a tendency among readers and scholars of Genesis 2:16-17 to focus on the prohibition of verse 17: “but the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat.” …I want to pause to cons...