eternal on Beginnings

I love golf. If only it loved me in return. Alas, it is a one-sided romance. My golf swing is the stuff that keeps an instructor awake at night. One kindly compared it to an octopus falling from a tre...

This is the end - for me the beginning of life.

We all live between two worlds. We are planted here on earth while our hope is in heaven. We are given work to do in temporary soil that, we’re told, has the potential to spring up into unending fruit...

I preached my first sermon at National Community Church on January 14, 1996. The only thing I remember about that message is my opening illustration. I can’t remember the original source, but I think ...

Whisper to me again How you formed me in my mother’s womb, Fashioned me over generations, Over eons of unfolding of the earth Until it could bear life  On its flaky crust, the dust From which you f...

(Scripture quotations below are from ESV unless noted otherwise.) Liturgical Context On this Third Sunday of Easter, the Revised Common Lectionary texts harmonize with the epistle’s praise of Jesus...

(Scripture quotations below are from ESV unless noted otherwise.) Author and Audience Acknowledging the scholarly debate over whether the letter comes directly from the apostle or from the traditio...

Leader: Eternal God, Timeless One, come into this time. All: Loving Christ, you who are coming, enter in with your grace. Holy Spirit, Flame of Life, baptize us in your mystery. Burn in us ...

It ought to be placed in the forefront of all Christian teaching that Christ's mission on earth was to give men Life. "I am come," He said, "that ye might have Life, and that ye mig...

Jesus didn’t tell his friends, “Go into all the world and make Christians.” But he did tell them to go into the world and make disciples. In fact, the Bible uses the word disciple 269 times. As Dallas...

Friends, we have sinned. We have followed in the ways of Adam, with lives of disobedience and rejection. Yet as Adam’s sin brought death into this world, Christ has brought life. In Adam we were all d...

Leader: How good and pleasant it is when we live together in unity! People: It is like precious oil on the head, running down on the beard, Leader: Running down on Aaron’s beard, down on the colla...

You know, eternal life does not start when we go to heaven. It starts the moment you reach out to Jesus. He never turns His back on anyone. And He is waiting for you.

Preaching Commentary Lamenting a Living Son This is God’s own lament: a brokenhearted father mourning the loss of a still-living son.  Throughout the book, God has led Hosea to draw from moments of...

Bless Christ through whom all things are made. Join seen and unseen in their praise of One who both creates, sustains who goes before, in justice reigns. Who makes the lion and the lamb, the farthest...

Lamenting a Living Son This is God’s own lament: a brokenhearted father mourning the loss of a still-living son.  Throughout the book, God has led Hosea to draw from moments of Israel’s past.  Here, ...

All which happens through the whole world happens through hope. No husbandman would sow a grain of corn if he did not hope it would spring up and bring forth the ear; how much more we are helped on by...

Before you long for a life that is imperishable, you must accept that you are perishing along with everyone you care about. You must recognize that anything you might accomplish or acquire in this wor...

[Eternal life] it’s not something we simply receive through a transaction that arranges for our future destination. It’s something we experience now through becoming Jesus’ disciples, which death is t...

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” We believe and although we fall short, we must persevere to the end. Hold...

Pious souls can derive great confidence and delight from this sacrament, as being a testimony that they form one body with Christ, so that everything which is his they may call their own. Hence it fol...

In the New Testament, the terms salvation and eternal life and Kingdom of God all speak to this same life-altering reality that we grasp by becoming disciples of Jesus. Salvation isn’t about getting y...

As I repeat these words of your disciple Peter, let us believe them in our hearts: Lord, to whom can we go? You alone have the words of eternal life. Help us to hear your word and put them into prac...

When we enter into the “in Christ” existence we become one with those who are in Christ. Eternal life is received individually, but it is lived out in community. And the community battles sin in the b...

Father: You shape and form us so each is unique yet all are in Your image, when You breathe into us the breath of life. We praise You! Jesus, God the Son–Resurrection and Life: You chose to die and ri...

What you do in the present by painting, preaching, singing, sewing, praying, teaching, building hospitals, digging wells, campaigning for justice, writing poems, caring for the needy, loving your neig...

What is the abundant life Jesus has for you? It is a life rooted in eternity—one that looks beyond your troubles today to a tomorrow full of hope, where Christ is your Leader, strength, joy, and peace...

In this brief excerpt, the French Catholic Francis de Sales reflects on how his meditations on eternity consistently elevate his spirit: I never think upon eternity without receiving great comfort...

Pastor: Let us pray. Most merciful God, as the people of Jerusalem, with palms in their hands, gathered to greet Your dearly beloved Son when He came into His Holy City, grant that we may ever hail ...

O Lord, Show us your ways, Lord, Teach us your paths. Guide us in your truth and teach us, for you are God my Savior, and my hope is in you all day long. Blessed Lord, who caused all holy Scrip...