anxiety on Contempt

Leader: Today, we celebrate that Jesus has come, and that He promises to come again! We know He came to bring light and hope, People: but our hearts are often shrouded by darkness and despair. ...

The church, in general, has done a horrible job with mental illness. We have ignored it, pretended it doesn’t exist, or worse, acted as though all mental illness was a result of sin. Our obsession wit...

Pastor: Oh God, we have not listened to you, and we have not walked in all of your commandments. We have spurned your statutes, and our souls have abhorred your laws. All: I have not followed you in...

Between the Sending and Return of the Twelve The fate of John the Baptist appears in a Markan ‘sandwich,’ where the story is told almost as a detour between the sending (ἀποστέλλω) of the Twelve (6...

Lord God, you are gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and quick to show mercy and faithful love. Your compassion is for all you have made. We admit that this compassion is slow to come to life ...

We pause this morning to confess our sin to You. We enter into confession with both gratitude and reluctance. We’re grateful we have a gracious God to whom we can confess, but we’re reluctant that a d...

In his devotional guide on preparing for the rite of confession in the Evangelical Lutheran Church, the nineteenth-century Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard says that true repentance from the persp...

Anxiety sparks when a perspective we value bumps into another perspective that challenges it in some way. If we find this new perspective to be unacceptable, that’s when our “Someone is wrong on the i...

We are too anxious to be able to wait for fruit and time to ripen, so we take the shortcuts of robbery and violence, even the torture of little children; sin leads to crimes against both nature and ou...

All: Remember your mercy, O LORD, and your steadfast love, for they have been from of old. Remember not the sins of my youth or my transgressions; according to your steadfast love remember me, for the...

Go now, trusting your way to the Lord Refrain from anger and forsake wrath Do not fret because of wickedness and evil But delight in the Lord Carrying Christ’s love to all who you meet Friends and ene...

Do not scrutinize so closely whether you are doing much or little, ill or well, so long as what you do is not sinful and that you are heartily seeking to do everything for God. Try as far as you can t...

Anxiety is the interest paid on trouble before it is due.

Context Between the Sending and Return of the Twelve The fate of John the Baptist appears in a Markan ‘sandwich,’ where the story is told almost as a detour between the sending (ἀποστέλλω) of the ...

Holy God, we are inspired by the boldness of people in the Bible, but we confess that we are often too afraid to be so bold. Our hearts are moved by the love and grace Jesus shared while he walked thi...

Don’t sweat the petty things and don’t pet the sweaty things.

If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment.

Call to Confession In Philippians four, we are called to take everything to God in prayer. This includes our inadequacies, our fears, our anxieties, our shortcomings, and our sins. Let us take our b...

Eternal God, we recognize that Your ways are mysterious. Teach us to be still and to wait for You. We confess our sinfulness, our need for control, and our discomfort with the unknown. Instead of turn...

Pastor: “O LORD, rebuke me not in your anger, nor discipline me in your wrath. Be gracious to me, O LORD, for I am languishing; heal me, O LORD, for my bones are troubled. All: “My soul also is grea...

Almighty God, we confess our need of Your presence and Your guidance. We each have our hopes and expectations for what lies ahead, but only You can give us the strength and the wisdom we need. In life...

Heavenly Father, we confess that we come to this day of resurrection as imperfect people. Although we may have faith, we also carry doubts and apprehensions. Just as Jesus’s disciples were unsure of h...

Holy God, You call us to a passionate, all-consuming faith. Yet, so frequently, we give You half-hearted obedience or distracted, leftover moments of our time. You tell us that we are the salt of the ...

The strong hands of God twisted the crown of thorns into a crown of glory; and in such hands we are safe.

Context This passage takes a number of turns that may, at first, seem disconnected from one another. Our text is part of a larger teaching discourse of Jesus in Luke’s gospel that has been causing te...

The objects of the present life fill the human eye with a false magnification because of their immediacy.

The Land of What-Ifs is a tempting place to dwell. It is also a dangerous place to be. And chances are, if you flipped to this page, you’re stepping foot into its territory. Before you even pull the c...

Anxiety and fear are cousins but not twins. Fear sees a threat. Anxiety imagines one. Fear screams, Get out! Anxiety ponders, What if? Fear results in fight or flight. Anxiety creates doom and gloo...

Materialism is the mother of anxiety.

Holy God, we can be so full of fear at times – afraid of the unknown; afraid of what is beyond our control; afraid of what is strange to us. And we know that fear stops us in our tracks, hinders our a...