church life and ministry from matthew 4

We ask you God, to help and defend us. Deliver the oppressed, comfort the poor, lift up the fallen, show yourself to the needy, heal the sick, bring back those of your people who have wandered, feed t...

I sometimes hear people talk about leaders as people who make things happen. But it takes followers to make Jesus' agenda happen. My friend Julie tells me that physicists define a leader as an ext...

All: Holy Father, You are gracious to call us to Yourself. You are the King of kings, the Lord of Lords, and the Treasure of treasures, worthy of our lives. And just like Jesus called out His disciple...

Gracious God, we desire to follow when you call. We long to live according to the ways of Jesus, yet we find ourselves stumbling. Forgive us for the times we have ignored your call to follow you in th...

As we call ourselves to worship, let us remember that our God is an awesome God, who in Jesus Christ has lived in our flesh, faced our temptations, gone to cross for, and lives today in heaven. In thi...

Jesus Christ is the light of the world. He will judge the people with righteousness and defend the cause of the poor. Jesus Christ is the light of the world. The mystery of the ages is revealed; th...

Eternal Light, who has folded back the curtain of darkness and caused the dawn of a new day to brighten the earth, we ask you to gladden our hearts with your light. Give us the light of faith, that do...

Let us receive the light and we will receive God. Let us receive the light and become disciples of the Lord. Sing. O Word; reveal the Creator to us. Your words will save us and your songs will teach u...

As you go into the world this week, be blessed with the knowledge of God’s word implanted in you. And be blessed with the presence of the Holy Spirit living in you and enabling you to put your faith i...

Gracious God, we do not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from your mouth. Make us hungry for this heavenly food, that it may nourish us today in the ways of eternal life; through Jesu...

The Catholic Christians (Early Church) will neither speak nor endure to hear anything in religion that is a stranger to Scripture; it being an evil heart of immodesty to speak those things which are n...

“You are so wise and powerful. Will you not take the Ring?” “No!” cried Gandalf, springing to his feet. “With that power I should have power too great and terrible. And over me the Ring would gain a p...

The phrase “kingdom of heaven,” which we find frequently in Matthew’s Gospel where the others have “kingdom of God,” does not refer to a place, called “heaven,” where God’s people will go after death....

In these two little Illustrations, C.S. Lewis demonstrates how a life of discipleship, of following Jesus, does not lead to uniformity and a drab existence, but rather the opposite. Jesus takes our li...

In her book, Invitations from God, Adele Ahlberg Calhoun shares a great analogy of the difficulty of faithful discipleship: it’s not always easy to follow: Recently I had to follow another car to a ...

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...

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.

Jesus’ message of the Kingdom of God is the announcement by word and deed that God is acting and manifesting dynamically his redemptive will in history. God is seeking out sinners; he is inviting them...