relationships and community on Living Sacrifice

Therefore I urge you, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service. Don’t be conformed to this world, bu...

In The Hiding Place Corrie ten Boom tells of the time she and her father needed to find a safer place for a Jewish mother and child they had been concealing from the Nazis. A local clergyman cam...

In the early fifth century, even as Rome had officially embraced Christianity, the brutal spectacle of gladiatorial combat continued in the Colosseum, drawing massive crowds. One day, a Christian herm...

It was this…intention that made the primitive Christians such eminent instances of piety, that made the goodly fellowship of the Saints and all the glorious army of martyrs and confessors. And if you ...

In 2021, I heard a story on the radio about the “Kindest Family in America”. As far as I can see, this is the only year Parents magazine awarded such a prize. When I first heard this headline I rolled...

I personally get some inspiration for getting at the nature of this work from a story told by one of my favorite spiritual writers, Saint Thérèse of Lisieux. Thérèse was born in 1873, to a devout Cath...

This total self-giving, to which the Son and the Spirit respond by an equal self-giving, is a kind of “death,” a first, radical “kenosis,” as one might say. It is a kind of “super-death” that is a com...

This prayer, by Rev. Lisa Degrenia, is intended as a way to honor and support the veterans in your community and their families. It may be included anywhere in the service, but is especially well suit...

My wife, Lauretta, once remarked to me, “I know I’d die for Christ. If I were put in front of a firing squad and commanded to renounce Christ or die, I know I’d say ‘Shoot me!’ That would be easy. The...

Let us ask God to make us true in our love, to make us sacrificial beings, for it seems to me that sacrifice is only love put into action.

Picture this: you are just about a year into your first call as a minister. Everything seems to be going swimmingly. You caught up with a seminary friend over the weekend and you slightly brag about h...

Christ’s sacrifice is a miraculous reconciliation between God, who is the wellspring of all life, and his people, who are dead in sin. Sacrifice, in this sense, means a marvelous reparation of a shatt...

Holy God, you have shown us the ultimate example of sacrificial love in Jesus. For Jesus came not to be served, but to serve and give his life as a ransom for many. Yet we think of ourselves more high...

Leader: “With what shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before God on high?" People: "Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousands of rivers of oil?" Le...

Even as we eagerly await your return, Lord Jesus, we must confess that we have not loved you with our whole heart, with our entire mind, nor with all of our strength. We have loved our rituals and our...

When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.

At a funeral Mass for a friend of Archbishop Romero who was murdered by the government because of her faith in Christ, Romero invited those present to follow this Lord who died, this God who sacrifice...

On a beautiful April afternoon in 2008, two college softball teams faced off in a decisive playoff game beneath the Cascade Mountains. The Western Oregon Wolves battled Central Washington University, ...

Those who give much without sacrifice are reckoned as having given little.

Gaining spiritual life is conditional on suffering loss. We cannot measure our lives in terms of "gain"; they must be measured in terms of "loss." Our real capacity lies not in how...

The power of love is in the sacrifice and commitment it requires. Sacrifice and commitment always travel with love and action. Love looks like showing up with hands to help even when we don’t know wha...

Jesus said you are to love one another as I have loved you, a love that will possibly lead to the bloody, anguished gift of yourself, a love that forgives seven times seven, that keeps no score of wro...

An eight-year-old boy had a younger sister who was dying of leukemia, and he was told that without a blood transfusion she would die. His parents explained to him that his blood was probably compatibl...

John Wesley’s covenant prayer demonstrates a level of sacrifice and devotion to Jesus that has been rarely matched. How many of us have asked for suffering, in order to experience the humility and the...

Pastor: Eternal Father, it is amazing love, that you sent your Son to suffer in my place, that you have given me your Holy Spirit to teach, comfort, and guide me. Because of Jesus’ death in my place, ...

Gracious God, we fail to give to others, when you have so generously given to us. We look for our maximum benefit and minimum sacrifice. We have forgotten where every good gift comes from – you. Holy ...

If a commission by an earthly king is considered a honor, how can a commission by a Heavenly King be considered a sacrifice?

Father God, you have provided us with bread from heaven through your incarnate Son; He is all that we need for spiritual revival and restoration. We, though, have taken offense at his invitation to ab...

Beloved, Let us love one another; for love is of God And everyone who loves has been born of God, and knows God. The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love. By this God’s lov...

Pastor: Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions. All: Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin! ...