faithfulness on Identity

Leader: Hear the good news: Paul writes that Jesus Christ "will sustain us to the end, guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ." Our identity is not based on our best days or our wors...

The challenge each of these faced in their deconstruction—and what we may face—is walking the tightrope between becoming our own person and honoring our past. In The Homeless Mind , sociologist P...

One of the great leaders of the first generation after the apostles was a man named Polycarp. Polycarp, it is believed, was discipled by the apostle John and carried out a long and fruitful ministry i...

Preaching Commentary Introduction Our Gospel reading for today, the well-known “Parable of the Talents,” is one of a series of Jesus’ teachings in the Gospel of Matthew that focuses on what Davies ...

Introduction Our Gospel reading for today, the well-known “Parable of the Talents,” is one of a series of Jesus’ teachings in the Gospel of Matthew that focuses on what Davies and Allison rightly lab...

Lent 2021: A 40-day Heart Restoration A Promise to Bless AIM Commentary Ancient Lens What can we learn from the historical context? From Noah to Abraham Last week, we looked at the story ...

Introduction to Revelation 21-22 The Revelation of Jesus Christ is a “pulling back of the curtain” to reveal both the unseen realities of the present (what is really going on in the world from God’s ...

Preaching Commentary Introduction to Revelation 21-22 The Revelation of Jesus Christ is a “pulling back of the curtain” to reveal both the unseen realities of the present (what is really going on i...

The defining ingredient of real human life is fidelity. It’s not wealth, power, control, or knowledge. It’s fidelity, the question of practice—how do we maintain fidelity [with God]?

Gracious God, again we thank you for creating us in your image. Today, we are reminded that your image is not captured fully in the solitary individual but also and necessarily in human community. In ...

Almost all heroic individuals face grave crises while they are still on the road to reaching the ultimate decision that they will remain faithful to their selves, whatever the cost.

Merciful God, if we are honest, we recognize that every fiber of our being is impacted by our imperfections and sins. Even our acts of obedience and faithfulness are overshadowed by our tendencies tow...

The presence of two anonymous disciples in the list in v. 2 [of John 21] (“…Simon Peter, Thomas called the Twin, Nathanael of Cana in Galilee, the sons of Zebedee, and two others of his disciples ...

Lord of glory and honor – You are worthy of our worship and allegiance. You are Faithful and True. With authentic justice You judge the world, and each of us in it. You’re the Word of God – made fles...

Faithfulness in small things is a big thing to God.

Faith is a redirecting of our sight, a getting out of the focus of our own vision and getting God into focus.

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...

Being a blessing as a stranger and practicing hospitality to the stranger are rooted in an overarching narrative central to the biblical message and the Christian life.

Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams observes that the biblical ideal is not so much that we need to deny the self as to decenter the self: To see the self in truth, as an integral member of a comm...

Faithful God, we confess that we try to carry more than you ask and work hard to have our way. Help us to see and believe your goodness. Help us to lean into you and to trust that your strength will h...

Steadfast, ever faithful God, you are always with us. Day in and day out, you provide for us, you show us your grace, you inspire awe within us as we experience your goodness. But almighty God, our me...

Grace to You and peace from him who is and who was and who is to come, and from Jesus Christ the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead. To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by hi...

Marriage has a unique place because it speaks of an absolute faithfulness, a covenant between radically different persons, male and female; and so it echoes the absolute covenant of God with his chose...

I die the king's faithful servant, but God's first.

Brandon and Faith Lee, who started Bird and Branch Coffee, are what faithful witnesses look like. When they sat down across from my wife and me, they had a dream to start a coffee shop that would serv...

When the Bible uses the term heart , it means the causal core of your personhood. The heart is your directional system. The heart is your steering wheel. Your behavior isn’t caused by the situati...

We must do our business faithfully; without trouble or disquiet, recalling our mind to GOD mildly, and with tranquility, as often as we find it wandering from Him.

Give us, O Lord, steadfast hearts, which no unworthy thought can drag downward, unconquered hearts, which no tribulation can wear out, upright hearts, which no unworthy purpose may tempt aside. Bestow...

The Swiss-German novelist Hermann Hesse published a short story in 1932 called "Journey to the East." In it, a group of men go on a long journey. Throughout their trip, they are accompanied ...

The dangers and hardships for the faithful are real indeed. Truth is tested and faith is confirmed not in idle speculation but in the crucible of adversity. Those who wish to find a more vibrant relig...