christian living on Release

Traditional Eastern Orthodox theology asserts that tears cleanse, renew and make way for the kingdom. When sin and the brokenness of the world give rise to godly sorrow, our hearts soften toward God a...

Generous Lord Jesus We confess that we do not receive others with compassion. We object to being interrupted And respond with anger or frustration. We confess that we do not share generously Not trus...

In his book, Blue Like Jazz , Don Miller tells the story of his time as an evangelical Christian at the extremely liberal Reed College in Portland, Oregon. A part of the underlying theme of the boo...

My friend James Crocker, a successful entrepreneur, recently shared a story with me…James and a few of his friends went out on a boat trip to fish for lobsters and had succeeded in gathering a massive...

My favorite scene in the 1987 movie Broadcast News is the moment when young Aaron, who has just graduated as valedictorian of his high school class, is attacked in the schoolyard after the ceremonies ...

Eternal and Generous God, Every good gift comes from You. Your generosity is expressed best Through Jesus, the Crucified and Risen One, Who gave Himself for us. We acknowledge we often doubt Your will...

On a Saturday afternoon in May, 13-year-old Michael Hirschbeck quickly donned his Cleveland batboy uniform and then went looking for his friend. That friend was Roberto Alomar, second baseman for the ...

All: Gracious God, we have become callous to those in need, holding back compassion yet unsparing with judgment. We defend our motivations, rather than using all you have given us to love and care for...

God our Father We confess to you and to one another That we have been quick to anger And slow to mercy We have paid back abuse with abuse Hatred with hatred And violence with violence The world does n...

Heavenly Father, We praise you for mankind- born to give, and born to receive; born to help, and born to be helped; born to lead, and born to be led; born to forgive, and born to confess; born to love...

If I withhold mercy, I have lost touch with the gospel. I have lost touch with God’s undeserved kindness and pardon.

Love may forgive all infirmities and love still in spite of them: but Love cannot cease to will their removal.

Forgiveness is not an occasional act, it is a constant attitude.

We must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love.

At the beginning to the musical Les Misérables , the lead character Jean Valjean is arrested by the police, with silver he has stolen from a kindly bishop who had given him shelter. Valjean is plainl...

Jesus is a reconciler of people, not a divider. He wants to bring people together, not finalize separations.

Interpretation series editor Patrick Miller has shrewdly observed that the fourth commandment on Sabbath is the “crucial bridge” that connects the Ten Commandments together. The fourth commandment loo...

Mercy, detached from Justice, grows unmerciful.

Yes, we mark our heads with ashes—public shows of piety are not in themselves evil. But we must guard our motivations and do most of our spiritual work in private, because the privacy of those acts re...

He that cannot forgive others, breaks the bridge over which he himself must pass if he would ever reach heaven; for everyone has need to be forgiven.

If you want to impact someone’s life, love them when they least expect it and least deserve it.

Even for those of us who follow Jesus on a daily basis, the reality is, our sinful nature has infiltrated our minds, and we often find ourselves, either consciously or unconsciously, judging those aro...

For the most part, contemporary Christians pay little attention to the Sabbath. We more or less know that the day came to reflect, in U.S. culture, the most stringent disciplinary faith of the Puritan...

Judgment and joy don’t go well together – no, judgment leads to grumbling. I’m sure you’ve met people in your life who are hard to please – maybe even your parents, or your boss. People for whom n...

The Lord our God is rich in mercy, slow to anger, and abounds in steadfast love. He does not pay us back what we deserve, but even while we were his enemies he sent his son to die for us. Christ died ...

The man who refuses to forgive destroys the bridge over which he himself must cross.

Elizabeth Elliot's story of forgiveness started in 1956 on the banks of the Curaray River in Ecuador when her husband and four other young missionaries were attacked and killed by members of the H...

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.

In their book Passing the Plate (Oxford, 2008), Christian Smith and Michael Emerson introduce the phrase “discretionary obligation” as a way to understand the typical American Christian’s approach to ...

Forgiveness vacillates like this. It has fits and starts, good days and bad. Anger intermingled with love. Irregular mercy. We make progress only to make a wrong turn. Step forward and fall back. But ...