dying on Belonging

Summary of the Text Songs of Ascent Psalm 133 is part of the Psalter’s collection of the Songs of Ascent, Psalms 120-134. The Songs of Ascent were sung by the throng of pilgrims making their way to ...

Preaching Commentary Summary of the Text Songs of Ascent Psalm 133 is part of the Psalter’s collection of the Songs of Ascent, Psalms 120-134. The Songs of Ascent were sung by the throng of pilgri...

The people who have been made larger by suffering are brave enough to let parts of their old self die. Down in the valley, their motivations changed. They’ve gone from self-centered to other-centered.

While lying in bed due to a serious illness, the poet and pastor John Donne heard over and over again the funeral bells at his church, which would ring to announce the death of someone in the parish. ...

The Christian life is a great paradox. Those who die to self, find self. Those who die to their cravings will receive many times as much in this age, and, in the age to come, eternal life (Luke 18:29)...

It makes little sense to attract people on the basis of their own self-interest and then expect them to embrace an invitation to self-denial.

He's what we really need. If your friend is sick and dying, the most important thing he wants is not an explanation but for you to sit with him. He's terrified of being alone more than anythin...

Gracious God, You have called us out of darkness and into the light of Your love. You have redeemed us and made us whole in order to set us free from bondage. The challenge You place before us is to d...

The entrance fee into the kingdom of heaven is nothing: the annual subscription is everything.

Give up yourself, and you will find your real self. Lose your life and you will save it. Submit to death, death of your ambitions and favourite wishes every day and death of your whole body in the end...

To novices it is a beginning; to those who are advancing, an increase; to those who are concluding, a confirmation.

Ancient Lens What can we learn from the historical context? Back to Bethany The trans-Jordan village of Bethany was the place in which Jesus’ ministry began. It is now the place in which our text...

At every point in the human journey we find that we have to let go in order to move forward; and letting go means dying a little. In the process we are being created anew, awakened afresh to the sourc...

In a time where leader after leader's calls end in disgrace, it is helpful to remember that finishing, not starting, is what is most important. The following story illustrates this well: Two ship...

God of the Ages, Every day we come face to face with our mortality and the pain of this broken world Every day the need is great in body, mind, and spirit Every day brings disappointment  Every day b...

The greatest burden we have to carry in life is self. The most difficult thing we have to manage is self. Our own daily living, our frames and feelings, our especial weaknesses and temptations, and ou...

We are settling for a Christianity that revolves around catering to ourselves when the central message of Christianity is actually about abandoning ourselves.

Dying is something we mostly shy away from in Western society. But as Christians, we are called to a different way of viewing the life to come. In his inspirational and insightful book, The End of ...

Holy God, we come to confession realizing that we are often aware of the big sins in our lives, but we ignore the sins we think are small. We ask Your forgiveness for times when we have been apathetic...

"No sense of the irony of human experience, that we are the highest form of life on earth, and yet ineffably sad because we know what no other animal knows, that we must die."

The waters are rising, but so am I. I am not going under, but over.

Pastor: We come before our heavenly Father in the name of the One who is King of kings, His Son, Jesus Christ. At His invitation we pray.  People: Your Kingdom come; Your will be done. P...

The moral project for a Christian is to die to the old self and rise to new life in Christ. This dying and rising is the rhythm of a life of discipleship, a life devoted to becoming more and more lik...

Every man must do two things alone; he must do his own believing and his own dying.

Hope is reliance upon grace in the face of death: the issue is that of receiving life as a gift, not as a reward and not as a punishment; hope is living constantly, patiently, expectantly, resiliently...

May those without hope take heart in you, O Christ. May those with no home find shade at your right hand. May those near the end see beginnings; may those at the last become first. At the foot of y...

No one here gets out alive.

Ancient Lens What can we learn from the historical context? A letter of friendship Paul’s letter to the Philippians is from Paul and his companions to the saints in Philippi. It is a letter fro...

Christian living means dying with Christ and rising again. That, as we saw, is part of the meaning of baptism, the starting point of the Christian pilgrimage.

Jesus, the hero of the world’s most well-known spiritual narrative, offers us a mysteriously clear path to the good life: “Anyone who doesn’t pick up their cross and follow after me doesn’t deserve me...