church life and ministry from isaiah 55

Two men were marooned on a deserted island. One man was pacing back and forth, terrified that no one would ever rescue them. The other man was sitting against a tree, shading himself comfortably and r...

God of healing, we look for you in all the wrong places. We assume we have figured out how you are at work. Because of this, we miss out on seeing your glory, and we fail to join with you as partners ...

Gracious Father, too often we base our worth on our performance. We believe if we do well, your love grows, and if we falter, your love lessens. Our God, how far this is from the truth. We confess our...

Creator of heaven and earth, you have studded the sky with stars and made it bright with lights, enriched the earth with fruits to satisfy our needs, given to humankind the clear light and the shining...

Like the crowds who followed Jesus, we come today from different places. We’ve had different weeks, different challenges, and different joys. And yet we come united by the risen Lord Jesus, who meets ...

LORD, too often we live for ourselves instead of how You have called us. Please forgive us for the times when we don’t strive to bring about Your kingdom here and now. Forgive us for the lack of imagi...

Sisters and brothers, our plans are always limited. But God’s plans never are. So go out into the world with the assurance of Jesus’ presence, the vision of God’s eternity, and the compassion of the H...

God welcomes all who come to him. In weakness or strength. With much, or with little. Seek the Lord, while he can be found Call on him while he is near And be confident that Jesus will look upon you w...

The Word of the LORD is true and righteous altogether. More to be desired are they than gold, more than much fine gold, sweeter far than honey, than honey in the comb. As we turn to your Scripture, s...

When we allow darkness to overcome the light, forgive us, Lord. When we reduce Christmas to plastic and tinsel, have mercy on us, Father. When hardness of heart keeps us from seeing and hearing an...

These are fountains of salvation that they who thirst may be satisfied with the living words they contain. In these alone is proclaimed the doctrine of godliness. Let no man add to these, neither let ...

I’ve served on staff at a few different churches throughout Silicon Valley for the last decade and a half, including a medium-sized church, a young church plant, and a multisite megachurch. At each, w...

Mahatma Gandhi speaking to Christians, “You Christians have in your keeping a document with enough dynamite in it to blow the whole of civilization to bits; to turn society upside down; to bring peace...

Famed pastor and educator A. T. Pierson (1837–1911) lamented his own human inadequacies in communicating to his congregation the depth and levels of the “unsearchable riches of Christ:” “Unsearchabl...

Charles Templeton was a close friend and preaching associate of Billy Graham in the 1940s. He effectively preached the gospel to large crowds in major arenas. However, intellectual doubts began to nag...

It is a Masai elder who tells the story. It comes from the book, Christianity Rediscovered, in which the Roman Catholic missionary, Vincent Donovan, shares his discoveries as he worked among Masai peo...

We all desire to learn from our role models, but some take this ambition to the next level. The writer Hunter S. Thompson was so obsessed with the writings of F. Scott Fitzgerald, and specifically his...

Rembrandt painted the picture of the prodigal son between 1665 and 1667, at the end of his life. As a young painter, he was popular in Amsterdam and successful with commissions to do portraits of all ...

Here is the uncomfortable truth: Humans run to a much slower evolutionary clock than our inventions. To use an engineering term, we are the “gating factor” that keeps a process from running faster. It...

In this short excerpt, professor and pastor Tod Bolsinger describes how the changing world of ministry (in the West) has led some pastors to simply give up trying: About twelve years ago, I heard a ...

Faith is not the clinging to a shrine but an endless pilgrimage of the heart. Audacious longing, burning songs, daring thoughts, an impulse overwhelming the heart, usurping the mind—these are all a dr...

I am ignorant of His designs, but I will not cease to believe in them because I cannot penetrate them. And I will prefer to doubt my own lights rather than His justice.

Faith is the gift of God. So is the air, but you have to breathe it; so is bread, but you have to eat it; so is water, but you have to drink it.

It helps, now and then, to step back and take the long view. The kingdom is not only beyond our efforts, it is even beyond our vision. . . . We are workers, not master builders; ministers, not messiah...

The kingdom of God is like a mustard seed. It happens quietly. It happens inevitably. Don’t underestimate God’s power.

They are prepared for a God who strikes hard bargains but not for a God who gives as much for an hour's work as for a day's. They are prepared for a mustard-seed kingdom of God no bigger than ...

Belief doesn’t create truth. Unbelief doesn’t destroy truth. Christian faith goes beyond reason but not against reason.

Those who can’t change their minds can’t change anything.