Faith and Work on The Rich

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Getting Richer

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While we are comparing, consider this. What we call “poverty” today would have been considered middle class just a few generations ago. In 2000, the average “poor” family had goods and services rivali...

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The Difference Between You and Bill Gates

Author

Andy Stanley

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Financially speaking, the difference between you and Bill Gates is smaller than the difference between you and the average person living outside the U.S. To most people, your bank accounts look virtua...

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God of grace and God of glory on your

Author

Richard Herman

Scripture

Amos 5:24, Psalm 85:6, Psalm 46:1, Isaiah 40:29, Psalm 147:3, James 1:5

God of grace and God of glory on your people pour your power...Grant us wisdom, grant us courage for the facing of this hour. Lord—we need You...today, tomorrow and forever. We need you to heal those ...

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God of grace, love, and hope: Your

Author

Richard Herman

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Scripture

Ephesians 2:8-9, Romans 5:3-5, 2 Corinthians 1:3-4, Micah 6:8, Philippians 1:6, Luke 15:11-32

God of grace, love, and hope: Your grace comes when we least expect and don’t deserve it. Your love comes when we can’t comprehend why but we need it the most. Your hope comes at just the right time t...

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The Cost of Success

Author

Stephen W. Smith

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J.B. Phillips was a successful pastor and prolific author in the mid-twentieth century. He was a colleague and friend of C. S. Lewis’s, and it was Lewis who personally endorsed Phillips’s translation ...

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The Bruderhof: A Radical Christian Community

Author

Fleming Rutledge

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Scripture

Exodus 16:1-36 , Isaiah 58:6-12, Micah 4:1-4, Acts 4:32-37, Matthew 5:7, Psalm 72:

The Bruderhof is one such Christian community with many locations around the world. Unlike most such attempts to build radical communities, the Bruderhof has not only survived, it is thriving. In 2021...

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The One Ring and the Failure of Willpower

Author

Ryan Bundrick

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Scripture

John 8:34-36, Hebrews 12:1-2, 2 Corinthians 3:5, Romans 7:15-24, Proverbs 20:9, Numbers 21:

Nearly everybody knows of at least one sin habit in their life that they wish to leave behind them. Yet, no matter what they do, it seems impossible for them to be free of this habit, character flaw, ...

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Author

Nicola Slee

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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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The Perfect Soil for Winemaking

Author

Stuart R. Strachan, Jr.

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My first call to ministry was in Eastern Washington state. It turned out to be one of the most prolific winemaking regions in the country. One of the things I learned from a local winery was really qu...

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God of grace and glory, compassion and

God of grace and glory, compassion and power—Father, Son and Holy Spirit: You meet us right where we are at—not asking us to put on any masks, false fronts or airs. You love us just as we are while a...

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Hark! the voice of Jesus crying, “Who

Author

Daniel March

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Scripture

Luke 10:2, Isaiah 6:8

Hark! the voice of Jesus crying, “Who will go and work today? Fields are white and harvests waiting, Who will bear the sheaves away?” Loud and long the Master calls us, Rich reward he offers free; ...

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The Broad Reality of Vocation

Author

Steven Garber

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The word vocation is a rich one, having to address the wholeness of life, the range of relationships and responsibilities. Work, yes, but also families, and neighbors, and citizenship, locally and glo...

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Author

Colonel Sanders

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There's no need to be the richest man in the cemetery. You can't do any business from there.

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People are the Key to Organizational Change

Author

Rich Karlgaard and Michael S. Malone

Keywords

Scripture

Hebrews 12:1, James 1:5, Philippians 1:6, 2 Corinthians 4:16, Romans 12:2, Isaiah 55:8-9

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...

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Author

Mike Cosper

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To experience the richness of life in God's kingdom, we must reorder our lives. We need to see through the shallow promises of our culture, and we need rhythms, signposts, and practices that reori...

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Author

Leonardo da Vinci

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Even the richest soil, if left uncultivated will produce the rankest weeds.

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Famous Atheist Richard Dawkins Argues that You are an Accident

Author

James Bryan Smith

Keywords

Scripture

Genesis 2:7, Jeremiah 1:5 , Ecclesiastes 3:11, John 1:3-4, Colossians 1:16-17, Psalm 139:13-14

The atheist author Richard Dawkins, who wrote, “The universe, at the bottom, has no design, no purpose, no evil, and no other good. Nothing but blind, pitiless indifference. DNA neither knows nor care...

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Adapted from the Parable of the Sower

Author

Dustin Ray

Keywords

Scripture

Matthew 13:18-23, Jeremiah 17:8, Colossians 3:16, Hebrews 4:12, Psalm 119:11

Pastor: “Hear then the parable of the sower: When anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what has been sown in his heart. This is what wa...

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Is Christian Faith Antithetical to Reason?

Author

Richard Robinson

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In his book The Allure of Gentleness , Dallas Willard includes a thought-provoking excerpt from Richard Robinson, a prominent atheist thinker from the mid-20th century. In his work An Atheist’...

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Prayer for the Festival of Harvest

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Almighty and most merciful Father, giver of every good and perfect gift, we give you thanks for blessing us so richly with your good Word and the holy Sacraments, and supplying so abundantly all our d...

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Calling on God, not Bank of America

Author

The Pastor's Workshop

Keywords

Scripture

Isaiah 41:13, Proverbs 18:10, Philippians 4:6-7, Matthew 6:19-21 , Psalm 46:1

The comedian Richard Pryor, who was critically injured in a severe accident, once shared on Johnny Carson’s show that when faced with life-threatening situations, worldly concerns lose their significa...

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A Saxophonist's Spiritual Revelation

Author

Ryan Bundrick

Scripture

Luke 2:1-35, 2 Timothy 4:6-7, Colossians 3:23-24, 1 Corinthians 10:31, Ephesians 2:10

John Coltrane stands out as one of the giants of 20th-century jazz. His legacy is a generation of hearts touched and the light of God shining through his songs. Yet, for years, his work was haunted by...

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A Love that Will Not Let Me Go

Author

The Pastor's Workshop

Keywords

Scripture

Genesis 29:15–30, Job 1:2, 19:25, Isaiah 54:4–10 , John 21:15–19, Romans 8:35–39, Psalm 34:18

George Matheson was just entering the bewildering teenage years when doctors informed him he was going blind. Undeterred, he pressed on with his education and graduated from the University of Glasgow ...

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Let a Person Feed on the Promises of God

Author

Dwight L. Moody

Keywords

Scripture

Genesis 15:1-6, Isaiah 41:10, Joshua 1:8-9, 2 Corinthians 1:20, Matthew 6:31-33, Psalm 34:8-10

Is it possible that God’s promises are given less consideration and value today than in the time of evangelist Dwight Moody? Moody described the preciousness of God’s promises this way: Let a man ...

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What is Faith? Is it a Way of Knowing?

Author

Travis Dickinson

Keywords

Scripture

Genesis 15:1-6, Exodus 14:10-14, Joshua 1:9, Psalm 23:, James 2:14-26

There’s no shortage of the religiously faithless who seem eager to tell us what faith is. Many of these characterizations of faith are reminiscent of Mark Twain’s precocious schoolboy who quipped, “Fa...

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Prayers of the People, Form V

Scripture

Luke 15:11-32, Psalm 51:10, 1 John 1:9, Psalm 103:2, 1 Thessalonians 5:18, John 17:21, Ephesians 4:3-6

Deacon or other leader In peace, let us pray to the Lord, saying, "Lord, have mercy" ( or "Kyrie eleison"). For the holy Church of God, that it may be filled with truth and lov...

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Topsoil and Christ

Author

Wendell Berry

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The most exemplary nature is that of the topsoil. It is very Christ-like in its passivity and beneficence, and in the penetrating energy that issues out of its peaceableness. It increases by experienc...

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A King's Calling

Author

Steve Brown

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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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Gracious and Merciful God—Father, Son

Author

Richard Herman

Scripture

Romans 5:8-9, Romans 8:1-17, 2 Corinthians 1:3-4, John 14:27, James 5:14-15, Philippians 4:6-7

Gracious and Merciful God—Father, Son and Holy Spirit: When we wouldn’t love—You did. When we couldn’t do right—you could. When we wouldn’t give—You gave and gave all of yourself. So we come to You w...

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The Evangelist Wasting his Time

Author

Richard J. Mouw

Keywords

Scripture

Proverbs 25:11, Ecclesiastes 3:7, Isaiah 50:4, 1 Peter 3:15, Colossians 4:5–6, Psalm 19:14

As a college student, I was returning to school one year on a Greyhound bus. One of the other passengers was a middle-aged man who seemed to be making the rounds, engaging various people in quiet conv...

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