Faith and Work on Kings

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A King's Calling

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Scripture

Isaiah 6:8, Matthew 25:21, 1 Samuel 15:22, Philippians 2:14-15, Romans 12:1

In the eleventh century, King Henry III of Bavaria grew tired of court life and the pressures of being a monarch. He made application to Prior Richard at a local monastery, asking to be accepted as a ...

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Why a Colt and Not a War Horse?

Author

Mia Levetan

Keywords

Scripture

Zechariah 9:9, Isaiah 53:3–5, Exodus 12:1–28, Matthew 21:1–11 , Luke 22:24–27, Psalm 118:25–26

I heard a woman named Veda Gill who is the Executive Director, Presbyterian Education Board in Pakistan preach on a Palm Sunday. Perhaps you’ve heard this story before, but it is so powerful that I th...

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King Jesus, We confess that we are

Author

Memorial Drive Presbyterian Church

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Scripture

Colossians 1:13-14, 1 Peter 5:6-7, James 4:10, Isaiah 26:3-4, Philippians 4:6-7, Matthew 6:33, Proverbs 3:5-6

King Jesus, We confess that we are quick to put our hope in places other than You. We are often more driven by our fears than by our faith in You and Your Kingdom. We place our trust in health, jobs, ...

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The Roots of the English Word “Worship”

Author

Fleming Rutledge

Keywords

Scripture

Isaiah 9:6-7, Micah 5:2, 1 Kings 8:10-11, Matthew 2:1-12, Philippians 2:6-11 , Psalm 95:6-7

In the English language, worship is an important word. It comes from ancient Anglo-Saxon and means “worth-ship”—to ascribe ultimate worth to something or someone. Matthew is portraying the nature of t...

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Defining Epiphany: A Manifestation

Author

Fleming Rutledge

Keywords

Scripture

Isaiah 42:1-9 , Exodus 4:1-17, 1 Kings 18:20-39 , Matthew 3:13-17, John 2:1-11, Psalm 72:18-19

Epiphaneia in New Testament Greek means manifestation. An effective method of teaching the content of the faith, not often enough used, is to instruct congregations in the texts of the seasonal hym...

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Author

Rainer Maria Rilke

Keywords

Scripture

Isaiah 55:1-3, 1 Kings 19:11-13, Exodus 3:1-6, John 7:37-38, Luke 24:13-32, Psalm 63:1-3

But you take pleasure in the faces Of those who know they thirst.

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An Unlikely Story of Redemption

Author

The Pastor's Workshop

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Scripture

2 Kings 5:1–14, Isaiah 53:4–5, Exodus 15:26, Mark 2:1–12, John 11:25–26, Psalm 103:2–3

David (Yonggi) Cho would go on to lead what is recognized as the largest church in the world (the Yoido Full Gospel Church), but his spiritual journey began far from Christianity. Raised as a Buddhist...

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An Uncle Tries to Buy Salvation

Author

David Peterson

Keywords

Scripture

2 Kings 5:1-14, Proverbs 11:4, Zephaniah 1:18, Acts 8:9-24, Isaiah 64:6

A little girl once wrote a letter to an advice column in the Newspaper. In it, she tells a story about her uncle and aunt. “My uncle was the tightest man I ever met.” She said. “All his life, every ti...

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Author

Isaac Watts

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Scripture

Genesis 28:10-17, Deuteronomy 31:6-8, 2 Kings 6:15-17, Matthew 28:20, Acts 17:24-28, Psalm 139:

Within thy circling power I stand; On every side I find thy hand; Awake, asleep, at home, abroad, I am surrounded still with God. …O may these thoughts possess my breast, Where'er I rove...

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The Tragedy of the Digital World

Author

Ruth Haley Barton

Keywords

Scripture

Exodus 24:15–18, 1 Kings 19:9–12, Isaiah 30:15, Mark 1:35, Luke 5:15–16, Psalm 2:1–2

Recently a professor shared with me a college student’s reflections in response to my earlier writings on solitude and silence: I was not born into a world relatively unaffected by technology lik...

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Spiritual Battles on the Journey of Faith

Author

Ruth Haley Barton

Keywords

Scripture

Genesis 3:1–7, 1 Kings 3:5–12, Daniel 1:8–17, Matthew 4:1–11, 2 Corinthians 1:13–15, Psalm 119:105

While I am not one to see a demon behind every bush or spiritual warfare in every difficulty, the fact is that we are regularly engaged in the struggle against good and evil—whether we know it or not....

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Author

Nicola Slee

Keywords

Scripture

Exodus 3:1-14 , 1 Kings 19:9-13 , Isaiah 6:1-8, John 1:1-14 , Colossians 1:15-20, Psalm 145:3

No one image or model, however elusive or rich, can do more than offer glimpses and hints toward the divine.

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“Respecting” Religion by Making it Private

Author

Nancy Pearcey

Keywords

Scripture

Exodus 5:1–2, 1 Kings 18:21–39, Daniel 3:16–18, Matthew 5:14–16, Acts 4:19–20, Psalm 2:1–2, 10–12

Most secularists are too politically savvy to attack religion directly or to debunk it as false. So what do they do? They consign religion to the value sphere—which takes it out of the realm of true a...

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Praying the Phrases of Past Generations of Christians

Author

Phyllis Tickle

Keywords

Scripture

1 Kings 8:28–30, Daniel 6:10 , Nehemiah 1:4–6, Luke 18:1–8 , Acts 16:25–26 , 1 Thessalonians 5:16–18

When one prays the hours, one is using the exact words, phrases, and petitions that informed our faith for centuries. . . . We are using the exact words, phrases, and petitions that were offered just ...

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Author

Oscar Wilde

Keywords

Scripture

Ecclesiastes 5:10-12 , 2 Kings 5:15-27, Isaiah 55:1-2, Matthew 16:26, Luke 12:16-21 , Psalm 49:6-8

A cynic is a man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.

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Author

Thomas Merton

Keywords

Scripture

1 Kings 19:11-13 , Exodus 33:12-23, Jeremiah 1:4-10 , Luke 10:38-42, John 1:1-14 , Psalm 139:1-18

Contemplation is also the response to a call: a call from Him Who has no voice, and yet Who speaks in everything that is, and Who, most of all, speaks in the depths of our own being: for we ourselves ...

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A Living Martyrdom: To be True at All Costs

Author

F. W. Faber

Keywords

Scripture

Daniel 6:10–23, 1 Kings 18:17–39, Esther 4:12–16, Matthew 10:28–33, Acts 6:8–7:60 , Psalm 15:1–2

The hymnwriter and theologian F. W. Faber writes with beautiful prose the challenges that each one of us faces when it comes to living a life faithfully according to the truth that is within us: M...

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Can we Accept Ourselves?

Author

C. G. Jung

Keywords

Scripture

Genesis 32:22–31, Leviticus 19:18, 1 Kings 19:1–13, Romans 7:14–25, Psalm 139:23–24, Luke 15:11–32

Carl Jung, one of the early pioneers of modern psychology, wrote this from his years of experience as a therapist: The acceptance of oneself is the essence of the moral problem and the epitome of ...

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What Angels Sound Like

Author

Halford E. Lucock

Keywords

Scripture

Judges 6:12-14, 1 Kings 19:5-7, Genesis 19:15, Matthew 28:5-7, Acts 12:7-8 , Psalm 91:11-12

We so often hear the expression “the voice of an angel” that I got to wondering what an angel would sound like. So I did some research, and discovered that an angel’s voice sounds remarkably like a pe...

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We are Fed as we Feed

Author

Leonard Sweet & Frank Viola

Keywords

Scripture

Exodus 16:4-18, 1 Kings 17:8-16, Isaiah 55:1-2 , John 6:32-35, Matthew 14:13-21, Psalm 37:25-26

Celebrated as one of the greatest writers of all time, French writer Marcel Proust (1871–1922) filled out a personal questionnaire at the start of his career for a magazine like the one we know today ...

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When our Prayers Crash into the Ground

Author

Phillip Yancey

Keywords

Scripture

Deuteronomy 6:16 , 1 Kings 18:20-40, Job 1:20-22, Matthew 4:5-7, John 20:24-29, Psalm 73:1-3, 16-17

Nine-year-old Leo Tolstoy , convinced God would help him fly, dove headfirst out a third-floor window and had his first major crisis of disappointment with God. Fortunately, Tolstoy survived the cr...

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When Ideas have Consequences

Author

The Pastor's Workshop

Keywords

Scripture

Genesis 4:1-16 , Exodus 32:1-35 , 1 Kings 12:1-20 , Matthew 7:24-27, Psalm 1:1-6, Romans 1:18-32

In 1889, the French novelist Paul Bourget penned The Disciple , where he depicted the life of a renowned philosopher and psychologist, whose existence was marked by a seemingly monotonous routine...

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Are People in the West Abandoning Faith or Just the Church?

Author

David Zahl

Keywords

Scripture

Exodus 32:1-4 , 1 Kings 18:21, Jeremiah 2:13, Romans 1:25, Psalm 115:4-8, Acts 17:22-23

In this excerpt, author David Zahl challenges the common belief that religion is “in decline.” He argues that while Westerners, particularly younger generations, may be distancing themselves from the ...

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Author

Rebekah Lyons

Keywords

Scripture

Exodus 3:1-12 , 1 Kings 19:1-18 , Isaiah 6:1-8, Luke 10:38-42, John 15:4-5 , Psalm 46:10

We cannot prioritize our doing before being, our assignment before healing, our service before freedom.

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Gratitude: It Makes Everything Taste Better

Author

The Pastor's Workshop

Keywords

Scripture

Proverbs 22:7-11, 1 Samuel 8:10 , Mark 16:9-20, Psalm 60:, 1 Kings 17:8-16, Daniel 6:10, 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18, Luke 17:11-19, Luke 17:11-19, Psalm 136:1

Charles Fulton Oursler Sr. (1893–1952) was an American journalist, playwright, editor, and writer. Like many Southerners of means, he was cared for as a boy by a nurse who had been born into slavery. ...

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Author

Cormac McCarthy

Keywords

Scripture

Lamentations 3:22-23 , 1 Kings 19:4-8, Ruth 2:11-12 , Psalm 30:5 , 2 Corinthians 4:8-9, Mark 5:25-34

What’s the bravest thing you ever did? . . . Getting up this morning.

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Finding Grace after Contracting Leprosy

Author

The Pastor's Workshop

Keywords

Scripture

Micah 6:8, 1 Kings 19:11-13 , Genesis 16:13, Luke 14:11, 2 Corinthians 12:9, Psalm 34:18

Peter Greave (1910-1977) was a British national who endured a challenging and tumultuous life, which took a severe turn in 1939 when he contracted leprosy while stationed in India, also his birthplace...

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Author

Stephen Covey

Keywords

Scripture

1 Kings 3:5-14 , Joshua 24:14-15 , Nehemiah 6:1-4, Matthew 6:33 , Luke 10:42, Psalm 27:4

You have to decide what your highest priorities are and have the courage—pleasantly, smilingly, nonapologetically, to say “no” to other things. And the way you do that is by having a bigger “yes” burn...

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Why It can be So Hard to Express Christian Convictions Civilly

Author

Tim Muehlhoff & Richard Langer

Keywords

Scripture

Daniel 3:16-18, 1 Kings 18:21, Isaiah 55:8-9 , Romans 14:5-8, Psalm 119:105, Matthew 7:15-16

First, most Christians attach their convictions to Christ personally. In other words, we form our convictions in order to please Jesus, not ourselves. Convictions do not express what we think or feel ...

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Author

Tim Muehlhoff & Richard Langer

Keywords

Scripture

Numbers 12:1-2, 1 Kings 12:16-20, Matthew 18:15-17, 1 Corinthians 1:10-13 , James 4:1-3, Psalm 133:1

We may have more disagreements with nonbelievers, but our disagreements with fellow believers are more problematic and more emotionally charged.

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