Relationships and Community on Received By God

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Adapted from Psalm 73

Author

Keywords

Scripture

Psalm 73:23-26

Pastor: Truly, O God, you have been good to me. My troubles have been few, my blessings have been many, and you have given me this day to worship you. All: But I have stumbled, and my foot has slipp...

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Loving Father, You receive all who come

Author

Memorial Drive Presbyterian Church

Keywords

Scripture

Matthew 23:11-13, Luke 14:7-11, Colossians 3:23-24, Ephesians 4:2, Proverbs 3:34, Philippians 2:13, Romans 12:1

Loving Father, You receive all who come humbly before You. Yet we approach You far too often with much satisfaction and inappropriate pride. We think more highly of ourselves than we ought to think. W...

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Lord–some of us are running or dancing

Lord–some of us are running or dancing into the celebration to come; others of us are tired, limping or stumbling into it. Either way–You are standing there in Your love, with arms open wide, to recei...

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Author

Glen Scrivener

Keywords

The Bible tells us that we’re not a mistake or even just a pleasant surprise. We are wanted. We are the planned offspring of the God of love and he longs to share his life with us.

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I tell you this: "To those who have

Author

Jacob Traeger

Keywords

Scripture

John 1:12, Romans 5:8-10

I tell you this: "To those who have received Christ and believed in his name, God has given the right to be called children of God." And "God shows his love for us in that while we were...

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Inspired by John 8 and Romans 5

Author

Jacob Traeger

Keywords

Scripture

John 8:12, Romans 5:null

Lord God, we know that you are life, the life which is the light of the world But sometimes we allow the darkness to close in We find ourselves driven apart from you We confess that we do not ...

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Author

John R. W. Stott

Keywords

Scripture

Matthew 5:null

Nevertheless, it is plain from the rest of Jesus’ teaching that the kingdom of God is a present reality which we can ‘receive’, ‘inherit’ or ‘enter’ now. Similarly, we can obtain mercy and comfort now...

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Adapted from Psalm 124:8

Keywords

Scripture

Psalm 124:8

“Our help is in the name of the Lord, who made heaven and earth.” What did God do to help us? God chose the people of Israel to make a new beginning. They received God’s covenant and prepared th...

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O Merciful God, who came in Jesus

Author

Ernest Fremont Tittle

Keywords

Scripture

Isaiah 9:2, John 1:4-5, Jeremiah 1:7-8, Micah 6:8, Psalm 27:1, Luke 2:25-32

O Merciful God, who came in Jesus Christ with saving power to a world that walked in darkness and in the shadow of death, we praise and bless you for all those your servants who helped prepare the way...

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You Know Most Everybody

Author

The Pastor's Workshop

Keywords

Scripture

Ecclesiastes 1:12-18 , 1 Samuel 8:4-22 , Jeremiah 9:23-24, Mark 8:36-37 , John 17:3, Psalm 73:25-26

Mark Twain’s travels through Europe became something of a triumphal tour, with the most distinguished figures on the continent eager to host him. He dined with royalty, intellectuals, and statesmen, h...

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This Child is a Gift

Author

Brennan Manning

Keywords

Scripture

Exodus 4:10-12 , Isaiah 49:15-16, 1 Samuel 16:7, Matthew 18:1-5, Psalm 139:13-16, 1 Corinthians 1:27-29

I will never forget the witness of an Episcopal priest named Tom Minifie several years ago in St. Luke’s Church in Seattle, Washington. He spotted a high-profile couple sitting in the last pew with th...

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The Village Atheist

Author

Dallas Willard

Keywords

You may remember the old “village atheist” trick of putting a watch on the podium and saying, “Now, if there is a God, in five minutes he must strike me dead.” Not a single person who has given that c...

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God—Father, Son and Spirit; You are a

Author

Richard Herman

Keywords

Scripture

Acts 4:32-35, Luke 10:25-37, Matthew 14:13-21, 1 Kings 17:8-16, Exodus 16:1-36, John 6:35, 2 Corinthians 1:3-5

God—Father, Son and Spirit; You are a God of compassion and love. Like the Israelites in the wilderness, we’ve known Your love, and experienced Your care and provision. Repeatedly You’ve answered our ...

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God of grace, wisdom and hope—Father,

Author

Richard Herman

Keywords

Scripture

1 Corinthians 4:14-17, Ruth 1:16-18, Mark 10:13-16, 1 Chronicles 29:19, Luke 15:11-32, Genesis 12:3, Joshua 24:15

God of grace, wisdom and hope—Father, Son and Holy Spirit—from whom every family in heaven and on earth gets its true name. You created us in Your image, making us for relationships, giving us meaning...

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Holy Spirit, you have come to reconcile

Author

Chip Hardwick

Keywords

Scripture

Matthew 6:14-15, Ephesians 4:31-32, Colossians 3:12-13, 2 Corinthians 5:18-19, Psalm 139:23-24, Matthew 18:21-35

Holy Spirit, you have come to reconcile us to each other, but we resist your work to bind us together. We hold onto grudges. Even though we know God has forgiven us in Jesus Christ, we are slow to for...

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O God, you judge your people with

Author

James G. Kirk

Keywords

O God, you judge your people with righteousness; we judge our neighbors either right or wrong. Your Servant defended the cause of the poor; it is because of our greed that many still want. You bring d...

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Good and Gracious God, Father, Son, and

Good and Gracious God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit: we come to You as an impatient people filled with a multitude of desires and needs. We yearn for simple things--the arrival of warm weather, enough...

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Considering His Wonderful Goodness Towards Us

Author

John Calvin

Keywords

Scripture

Matthew 6:26, Acts 17:24-25, Job 12:10, Matthew 10:29-31, James 1:17

We ought in the very order of things [in creation] diligently to contemplate God’s fatherly love . . . [for as] a foreseeing and diligent father of the family he shows his wonderful goodness toward us...

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C.S. Lewis & Joy Davidson: A Mystical Way of Revealing God

Author

Les and Leslie Parrott

Keywords

Marriage

One of the most compelling love stories in our time involves a couple who, in the beginning, lived an ocean apart. He was a scruffy old Oxford bachelor, a Christian apologist and an author of bestsell...

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What Hath God Wrought?

Author

Mark Batterson

Keywords

Scripture

Numbers 23:23, 1 Peter 4:10, Romans 1:20, Habakkuk 2:2, Proverbs 8:12, Genesis 1:1

In the crypt of the Capitol, there hangs a bronze plaque commemorating the inventor of telegraphy, Samuel Morse…In 1825, Morse returned to Washington to paint a portrait of the Marquis de Lafayette, t...

Quote

Author

Kevin J. Vanhoozer

Keywords

Scripture

Acts 2:13, Acts 2:8-11

It is well known that Pentecost reverses Babel. The people who built the tower of Babel sought to make a name, and a unity, for themselves. At Pentecost, God builds his temple, uniting people in Chris...

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Author

Timothy Keller

Keywords

Adoption

The image of “adoption” tells us that our relationship with God is based completely on a legal act by the Father. You don’t “win” a father, and you don’t “negotiate” for a parent. Adoption is a legal ...

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Christ’s Ministry of Reconciliation

Author

John Stott

Keywords

Scripture

2 Corinthians 5:17-19

Paul described his work as a ‘ministry of reconciliation’ and his gospel as a ‘message of reconciliation’. He also made it quite clear where this reconciliation comes from. God is its author, he says,...

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All His Ways are Beautifully Fatherly

Author

Michael Reeves

Keywords

Fathers

Since God is, before all things, a Father, and not primarily Creator or Ruler, all his ways are beautifully fatherly. It is not that this God “does” being Father as a day job, only to kick back in the...

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He Who Was All Stillness, All Peace, All Poise

Author

Richard J. Foster

Keywords

Anthony Bloom tells the story of an elderly woman who had been working at prayer with all her might but without ever sensing God’s presence. Wisely, the archbishop encouraged the old woman to go to he...

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Life Isn’t Fair

Author

Gillian Marchenko

Keywords

Marriage

Scripture

Matthew 20:13-16

In this excerpt from Gillian Marchenko’s memoir on her battle with depression, Still Life , her husband, a pastor named Sergei describes the reality that both life, and marriage, are often not as...

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Hospitality is Unnatural

Author

Stephen Rhodes

Keywords

Hospitality

Hospitality, when you get right down to it, is unnatural. It is difficult to place others first, because our inclination is to take care of ourselves first. Hospitality takes courage. It takes a willi...

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Romans 16:25-27

Keywords

Scripture

Romans 16:25-27

Now to him who is able to establish you according to my Good News and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery which has been kept secret through long ages, but now is...

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In His Will is our Peace

Author

The Pastor's Workshop

Keywords

Scripture

Ecclesiastes 16:2-4, 17-18, Ecclesiastes 4:4-6 , Numbers 12:1-9, Matthew 20:1-16 , John 21:20-22, Psalm 73:2-3, 16-17, 25-26

One of the greatest struggles we face in this life is the temptation to compare ourselves to others. As Teddy Roosevelt famously said, “Comparison is the thief of joy.” But in the final part of ...

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Behaving in God's Family

Author

M. Craig Barnes

Keywords

When I was a child, my father brought home a twelve-year-old boy named Roger, whose parents had died from a drug overdose. There was no one to care for Roger, so my folks decided they would raise him ...

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