personal development on Covenant

Guidance, like all God's acts of blessing under the covenant of grace, is a sovereign act. Not merely does God will to guide us in the sense of showing us his way, that we may tread it; he wills a...

The mystery I wish to explore…is this: vulnerability as the condition, the enabling condition, for covenant relationship with God…Vulnerability, the capacity to be wounded—what does that mean for us w...

Leader: Praise the Lord! People: I will give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart, in the company of the upright, in the congregation. Leader: Great are the works of the Lord. People: They are st...

Hallelujah! I will give thanks to the LORD with my whole heart, in the assembly of the upright, in the congregation. Great are the deeds of the LORD! they are studied by all who delight in them. ...

O God, you make covenants with us and never break them. We find it much harder to keep our word. We offer promises we don’t intend to keep, and we make deals that we intend to break. All too often we ...

In Isaiah 43:25, God says, “I, even I, am he who blots out your transgressions, for my own sake, and remembers your sins no more.” Here God uses two absolute terms to assure us of the complete removal...

If I am not for myself who will be for me? If I am only for myself, who am I?

Given the Hebrew Bible’s merging of liturgical and social circles into a single infinite circle, it is not surprising that most of the instances of the language of gratitude in the Old Testament are i...

Gracious God–Giver of all good gifts: We praise You. You give us the wonder of creation and You give us life. We praise You, Father. You give us forgiveness of our sins with salvation and eternal life...

In her book The Broken Way, Ann Voskamp shares a beautiful exchange between her and her husband (The farmer). His encouragement is for all of us: that God uses the broken things in this world for good...

Children are God’s gifts to immature people to help them grow up. They are also God’s gifts to help parents go deep with God. . . . Parenting is not for anything. It is not a contract with God in whic...

Leader: Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name! Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits, People: As a father shows compassion to his children, s...

Pastor: See, I have set before you today life and good, death and evil. If you obey the commandments of the LORD your God that I command you today, by loving the LORD your God, by walking in his ways,...

It is a promise which eminently deserves our observation that all who are united to Christ and acknowledge Him to be Christ and Mediator will remain to the end safe from all danger, for what is said o...

Faith is a free surrender and a joyous wager on the unseen, unknown, untested goodness of God.

By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance. Obeyed and went, And he went out, not knowing where he was going. Loving God, give us...

Leader: Therefore, brothers and sisters, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, All: by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, t...

With my whole heart have I sought thee: O let me not wander from thy commandments. Your word I have hid in my heart, that I might not sin against you. Blessed are you, O Lord: teach me your laws. ...

First, God placed humans here on earth to work the land where we are standing. The Hebrew here literally means to “serve” the land, implying that we humans are designed to serve the place where we liv...

Leader: The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul; the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple; the precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart; People: The commandment...

It isn’t easy to wait. It demands persistence when common sense says “give up.” It says “believe” when there is no present evidence to back it up. Faith is forged in delay. Character is forged in dela...

Leader: "The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul;" People: "the precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart;" Leader: "the commandment of the Lord is pur...

All of God’s promises have been fulfilled in Christ. It is God who gives us the ability to stand firm. God has commissioned us. And God has identified us as his own By placing the Holy Spirit in o...

Gracious and loving God, you know the deep inner patterns of my life that keep me from being totally yours. You know the misformed structures of my being that hold me in bondage to something less than...

He drew a circle that shut me out— Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout. But love and I had the wit to win: We drew a circle that took him in!

Loving father, you promise the most amazing things. You give us an inheritance, you adopt us as your sons and daughters, you say you will never leave us nor forsake us, and you say that nothing can se...

Gracious God, thank you for telling us what to do and also what not to do. We need your invitation. And we also need your wise prohibition. Help us, we pray, to receive all that you have for us with w...

Merciful God, in baptism you promise forgiveness and new life, making us part of the body of Christ. We confess that we remain preoccupied with ourselves, separated from one another. We cling to destr...

God of calling, you called Abraham and Matthew and gave them the strength they needed to follow you. You also called a people and cared for and nurtured that people so that they could live life in you...

Duty is ours; results are God’s.