change on Guilt

Imagine you’ve just purchased a brand-new car—it’s no ordinary car, it’s a luxury vehicle, with the highest trim levels, equipped with all the latest technology. Among its many upgrades is a voice ale...

Preaching Commentary “Historical insecurity” and “cosmic instability” are the ingredients of existential fear that inspire this Psalm of Trust, according to James Mays in his Interpretation Comment...

During the time of Oliver Cromwel ascendancy in England, a young soldier faced execution as the curfew bell was set to toll. Desperate to save him, the soldier's beloved approached Cromwell, plead...

We readily confess our little faults in order to suggest that we have no big ones.

Hear the good news of God’s forgiveness of His grumbling and wayward people: He hides his face from our sins. He blots out all our iniquities. God creates in us a clean heart and a new spirit. He does...

Leader: Have mercy on me, O God, according to your loving-kindness; in your great compassion blot out my offenses. People: Wash me through and through from my wickedness and cleanse me from my sin. F...

Leader: Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy, blot out my transgressions. People: Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my si...

Behavior modification that’s not empowered by God’s heart-changing grace is self-righteousness, as repugnant to God as the worst sins people gossip about.

O Lord, We marvel that you would take on flesh and blood in order to be crucified, killed, and buried for us. You humbled yourself and submitted to the hatred of sinful men, accepting the thorns, the ...

Gracious Spirit, you are at work all around us. You prompt us to follow you, and you convict us when we have missed your leading. Please forgive us for the times that we miss your presence. Please hum...

Merciful God, you pardon all who truly repent and turn to you. We humbly confess our sins and ask your mercy. We have not loved you with a pure heart, nor have we loved our neighbor as ourselves. We h...

"I've been thinking with my guts since I was fourteen years old, and frankly speaking, between you and me, I have come to the conclusion that my guts have sh** for brains."

Resentment is like a poison we carry around inside us with the hope that when we get the chance we can deposit it where it will harm another who has injured us. The fact is that we carry this poison a...

Gracious God, we know that You have forgiven us in Jesus Christ, but we often remain slow to forgive one other. You have sent Your Spirit to reconcile us to each other, but we resist Your work to bind...

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...

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! ...

It is incredibly tempting to disparage people who didn’t “change” with us. I have criticized the words of others when the same words came out of my own mouth just two years earlier, which is incredibl...

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

Self-deception is a major part of what defeats spiritual formation in Christ. In self-deception the individual or group refuses to acknowledge factors in their life of which they are dimly conscious. ...

May God bless you with tears of lament that mourn over the injustice of our world.  May you be blessed with a holy discontent over the way the world is.  May the Spirit of Jesus shake you out of com...

Our sins had taken root deeply, down to the deepest soils of our hearts. Know that Christ has uprooted our sins to the last fiber, planting His Word of forgiveness that can never wither.

Change invariably leads to loss, loss to grief, grief to anxiety and, finally, anxiety to hostility. We need therefore, to acknowledge grief. We need to understand and choose to walk with the grieving...

Pastor: Let us confess our sin in the presence of God and of one another. People: Gracious God, have mercy on us. In Your compassion forgive us our sins, known and unknown, things done and...

The Lord has hidden his face from our sin. He has blotted out all of our iniquity. In Christ and his cross, he has created within us a clean heart and renewed a right spirit within us. So that, we are...

A heart renewed--a loving heart--a penitent and humble heart--a heart broken and contrite, purified by love--that and only that is the rest of men. Spotlessness may do for angels, repentance unto life...

People who blame things rarely change things. Blame is an unassailable change-avoidance strategy.

Trust no future, howe’er pleasant!  Let the dead Past bury its dead!  Act,—act in the living present!  Heart within, and God o’erhead!

For several years, Jason and I nurtured a friendship that led us to decide to work together because we knew each other so well. But things soon became complicated between us. I began to notice some tr...

As the people of Judah cried out to God in their time of catastrophe, we remember that we, too, can bring our burdens before God. Let us join together in confession, confident that God hears us. Lord...

O Giver of every good and perfect gift, we confess that we are poor stewards of your bounty. You give us time, but we waste it. You give us life, but we use it to glorify ourselves. You give us wealth...