freedom on Trouble

Father God: It is sometimes hard for us to understand what You do. We are in trouble. We want You to come rescue us right now, like the cavalry riding over a hill or the Lone Ranger appearing out of n...

The Leader and People pray responsively In peace, we pray to you, Lord God. Silence For all people in their daily life and work; For our families, friends, and neighbors, and for those who are...

Preaching Commentary A Psalm of Trust Psalm 4, the lectionary psalm for this third Sunday of Easter, follows a psalm of lament (Psalm 3) in which David bemoans his political enemies, who included h...

Modern Language Version Almighty God, who has given us this good land for our heritage: We humbly ask that we may always prove ourselves a people mindful of your favor and glad to do your will. Bles...

Thank you Lord God for the opportunity of worship, for the freedom to be amongst your family meeting together in your house, and in the warmth of your embrace Thank you that in worship we can put asid...

It is not good to be too free. It is not good to have all one needs.

Freedom is found when undesirable habits are identified and the cue-routine-reward structure is defined, pulled apart, and reframed. In the context of our discussion, the cue is a desire for comfort, ...

Nothing is more desirable than to be released from an affliction, but nothing is more frightening than to be divested of a crutch.

Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom.

When every option is available to us, we don’t actually have freedom; we tend to shut down. I experienced what sociologists call choice overload (or paralysis) and decision fatigue. If you’ve ever tri...

Freedom always faces a fundamental moral challenge. Freedom requires order and therefore restraint, yet the only restraint that does not contradict freedom is self-restraint, which is the very thing t...

Dear Christ, hasten to me. Release me from my sins. Free my arms from the chains of evil, that I may embrace you. Lift the scales of ignorance from my eyes, that I may see you. Why do you delay? What ...

The truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off.

Leader: My soul is laid low in the dust. Revive me according to your word! People: I declared my ways, and you answered me. Teach me your statutes. Leader: Let me understand the teaching of yo...

After the fall of our first parents, boundaries were something to push past, to transgress. It’s worth pausing to note how we use the word transgression for “sin.” With its Latin roots, “across” and “...

The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding.

Holy God, to Your grace how great a debtor daily I'm constrained to be. Let Thy goodness like a fetter, bind my wandering heart to Thee. Prone to wander, Lord I feel it; prone to leave the God I l...

I once had the opportunity to speak briefly to a large Mormon audience at the Tabernacle in Salt Lake City. I told them that I feel badly about the fact that we evangelicals often tell Mormons what th...

Gracious God of love–Father, Son and Holy Spirit: We are grateful that You’ve revealed yourself to us, telling us that each of us are loved by You as children, each precious in Your sight, each a refl...

Leader: Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience All: bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against an...

Do not free a camel of the burden of his hump; you may be freeing him from being a camel.

God's terrible insistence on human freedom is so absolute that he granted us the power to live as though He did not exist, to spit in His face, to crucify Him.

To secure one's freedom the Christian must experience God's light which is God's truth.

When every option is available to us, we don’t actually have freedom; we tend to shut down. I experienced what sociologists call choice overload (or paralysis) and decision fatigue. If you’ve ever tri...

If we do not abide in prayer, we will abide in temptation. Let this be one aspect of our daily intercession: "God, preserve my soul, and keep my heart and all its ways so that I will not be entan...

Modern man is a bleak business. To our chagrin we discover that the declaration of autonomy has issued not in a race of free, masterly men, but rather in a race that can be described by its poets and ...

License they mean when they cry liberty.

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...

God of all mercies, Father Jesus and our Father–You know us intimately ... and you still love us immensely. Therefore, we come confident of your welcoming embrace, your gracious attention and your lov...

If you think of your identity and heart as an engine, you could say there is a kind of fuel that powers it cleanly and efficiently—and a kind of fuel that is not only polluting but also destroys the e...