example on Past

The late comedian Sam Levenson enjoyed sharing funny anecdotes about his childhood, especially his early school days. One of his favorite stories was about his first day of school, when his overly pro...

Pastor: O wise and wonderful God, in our quick temper and selfish pride, we have not followed your example—you are slow to anger, abounding in love, and show steadfast faithfulness to your children. ...

I wouldn’t be surprised if, as a Protestant pastor, you approach All Saints’ Day with a little unease. After all, because Protestant churches tend not to have a special class of canonized exemplars ...

Jesus, the Promised Shepherd,  you who are always making a way  for your people to rest  when other shepherds demand  performance and success:  reveal the green pastures  where we can heal...

Pastor: The blessing of Almighty God – Father, Son and Holy Spirit, be with you as you follow Him and grow to look, live and love more like Jesus every day.    People: He is the way, the tr...

Pastor: O come, let us fix our eyes on Jesus,  People: the founder and perfecter of our faith, Pastor: who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, ...

Pastor: Let us pray for the whole Church of God in Christ Jesus and for all people according to their needs.   Almighty God, You have enriched Your Church with the proclamation of the Gospel [...

In 1878, when William Booth’s Salvation Army was beginning to make its mark, men and women from all over the world began to enlist. One man, who had once dreamed of becoming a bishop, crossed the Atla...

Heavenly Father, you are faithful, even when we are not. We look to the examples of our parents, and they often fall short. We, too, fall short when we consider the legacy we pass on to our children, ...

Many of us may have wondered what types of prayers Jesus would have prayed during his time on planet earth. In his book Praying with the Church , Scot McKnight notes that Jesus and his disciples,...

In C. S. Lewis’ classic work Mere Christianity , the English apologist compares God’s use of adversity to walking a dog on a leash. When the dog wraps its leash around a pole and tries to move fo...

Dag Hammarskjöld, a Swedish economist and diplomat deeply committed to his Christian faith, served as the Secretary-General of the United Nations during some of the most turbulent times of the Cold Wa...

A student who had recently lost his sight was sent to the Seeing Eye Institute for the Blind in Morristown, New Jersey, for specialized training. Upon arrival, he was greeted by another young ma...

A table is set before us. A feast is prepared for us. A meal of bread and wine, of meat and bitter herbs. The Lord calls us to this supper of remembrance. The Lord calls us to serve and to be serve...

I was invited to visit a friend who was very sick. He was a man about fifty-three years old who had lived a very active, useful, faithful, creative life. Actually, he was a social activist who had car...

Context— Looking Ahead The next 2 weeks (Week 5 – 4:17-5:2; and Week 6 – 5:3-21) move into more of the practical application of what we’ve seen thus far in Ephesians. The week after that (Week 7 – ...

Context— Looking Ahead The next 2 weeks (Week 5 – 4:17-5:2; and Week 6 – 5:3-21) move into more of the practical application of what we’ve seen thus far in Ephesians. The week after that (Week 7 – ...

Sociologist Erving Goffman wrote in his classic study Stigma: Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity that the term stigma originated with the ancient Greeks, roughly during Jesus’ tim...

Gracious God, forgive us for the opportunities we’ve wasted. You’ve placed us in the perfect situation to help raise other people up, so they would be equipped to follow you. But we squander those opp...

Eternal God, we praise You for stepping out of eternity to enter this world through Your Son, Jesus. In so doing, You gave us the perfect example for Christian life. You gave of Yourself so that other...

Transcendent God, you are the creator of time, You exist inside, outside, and around time and space. In your immeasurable power, you created and ordered the universe. Amazingly, you limited yourself b...

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set b...

Lord God, you have claimed us. You have given us the perfect example of faithfulness in the face of temptation, but we fall so short of the example you have given us in Jesus. We continually try to gr...

In these acts of love Jesus created a scandal for devout, religious Palestinian Jews. The absolutely unpardonable thing was not his concern for the sick, the cripples, the lepers, the possessed . . . ...

Merciful and mighty God, you plant your seed in all kinds of soil. You speak, hoping that the whole world will listen and heed what you say. We struggle to follow your word. We fail to live up to your...

Lord Jesus Christ, who when you were about to institute your holy Sacrament at the Last Supper washed the feet of the apostles, teach us by your example the grace of humility: Cleanse us, we beseech y...

Sabbath honors the necessary wisdom of dormancy. If certain plant species, for example, do not lie dormant for winter, they will not bear fruit in the spring. If this continues for more than a season,...

Gracious God, for many of us, the notion of Sabbath-keeping is foreign. It suggests old-fashioned traditionalism or constrictive legalism. Yet, your example in Genesis 2, not to mention other portions...

There once was a popular shaman in India whom people would seek out for advice. People would stand in line for hours, waiting to hear the choices they should make in their lives or the changes that wo...

Jesus, though you were in very nature God, you did not consider equality with God as something to be used to your own advantage. Rather, you humbled yourself, you made yourself nothing. Lord, you are ...