dependence on god on Surrender

Gracious God, We build walls to protect ourselves, but it leads to isolation. We make independence the highest value, instead of complete dependence on You. Forgive us for our inability to surrender e...

It is only when you reach the very bottom, when everything falls apart, when all your schemes and resources are broken and exhausted, that you are finally open to learning how to completely depend on ...

We gather today and recognize our need for You. We admit that it is easy to lose sight of Your goodness and purpose when faced with emotional, physical, and spiritual storms. Forgive us for the times ...

God of our hearts, we come to You admitting that we are lost. In our lives of chaos, we have lost our peace. In our selfishness, we have lost our ability to care for others. In our self-reliance, we h...

He told us to beg God not to put us to a test, presumably because we would fail it.

Grace substitutes a full, childlike and delighted acceptance of our need, a joy in total dependence. The good man is sorry for the sins which have increased his need. He is not entirely sorry for the ...

Father, as adults, we can fool ourselves into being quite self-sufficient. Yet, You have called us to be precariously dependent upon You. When we see how Jesus welcomes the little children, we can als...

True humility means total dependence on God for everything.

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...

No soul can be really at rest until it has given up all dependence on everything else and has been forced to depend on the Lord alone. As long as our expectation is from other things, nothing but disa...

Prayer of Confession Leader: To prepare our hearts and minds for worship today, we begin by confessing our sins. People: Today, we recognize our need for our Savior. We confess that too often w...

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

At the last Judgment Christ will say to us, "Come, you also! Come, drunkards! Come, weaklings! Come, children of shame!" And He will say to us: "Vile beings, you who are in the image of...

Alexander Maclaren writes about the importance of recognizing our dependence on God for all we have: Up to the very edge we are driven before He puts out His hand to help us. It is best for us that w...

preaching commentary Psalm 17 is a prayer, pleading for God to grant vindication to the psalmist (17:1-5), to intervene in the psalmist’s life that is beset with opposition (17:6-9), and specificall...

Brother Lawrence, a 16th-century Carmelite monk, spent his days scrubbing pots and mending shoes. Largely uneducated, he filled his free time writing letters and notes that, after his death, friends g...

We are a long time in learning that all our strength and salvation is in God.

Fasting confirms our utter dependence upon God by finding in Him a source of sustenance beyond food.

Cosmic ingratitude is living in the illusion that you are spiritually self-sufficient. It is taking credit for something that was a gift. It is the belief that you know best how to live, that you have...

Almighty God, we take pride in our self-sufficiency while we look down on the weak who cannot provide for themselves. We praise others for their efforts, yet we demand perfection from our own families...

When human reason has exhausted every possibility, the children can go to their Father and receive all they need. ... For only when you have become utterly dependent upon prayer and faith, only when a...

It [salvation] is all of God; nothing is, in the ultimate analysis, of man. Man provides only the sinner to be saved: God provides the entire salvation.

Your steadfast love, O Lord, Extends to the heavens, Your faithfulness to the clouds. Your righteousness is like the mountains of God, Your judgments are like the great deep; You save all of...

Accept, O Lord, our thanks and praise for all that you have done for us. We thank you for the splendor of the whole creation, for the beauty of this world, for the wonder of life, and for the mystery ...

In his important book, The Crucifixion of Ministry, seminary professor Andrew Purves sees a paradigm in Elijah’s ministry: For many years I have taken Elijah’s story in 1 Kings 19 as a paradigm. Eli...

Preaching Commentary Plenipotentiary Anyone know what a “plenipotentiary” is? Try that compound Latin word on for size! It is derived from the Latin words plenus “full” and potens “power.” It r...

By describing his disciples as poor in spirit, Jesus points to their relationship with God. Their poverty has touched their inmost being so that they now depend entirely upon God.

All is of God; the only thing of my very own which I can contribute to my own redemption is the sin from which I need to be redeemed.

Writer Thomas Wolfe (1900–1938), after years of seeking happiness, articulated his gloomy assessment of life: The whole conviction of my life now rests upon the belief that loneliness, far from being ...

When do we hear God’s voice most clearly? It is often in our deepest struggles that we hear God’s voice. In the 1640s, George Fox, who would later establish the Quaker or Friends movement, wandered th...