glory on Exclusion

Each of us, Lord, has failed to fully observe your beauty. We fall in love with our own image and are left disappointed and alone. Please be faithful to us, Jesus, even when we turn from You. We...

God of love—Father, Son and Holy Spirit: You loved us before we ever knew You. Give us such a deep love for You, that we can see the world as You see it, feel the compassion You feel, and be a people ...

In a very real sense not one of us is qualified, but it seems that God continually chooses the most unqualified to do his work, to bear his glory. If we are qualified, we tend to think that we have do...

A man can no more diminish God's glory by refusing to worship Him than a lunatic can put out the sun by scribbling 'darkness' on the wall of his cell.

Pastor: Now to God’s elect, exiles scattered throughout (insert your community) and the surrounding communities, who have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through the sa...

If silver and gold are things evil in themselves, then those who keep away from them deserve to be praised. But if they are good creatures of God, which we can use both for the needs of our neighbor a...

Only faith survives; faith which is not a work, not even a negative work; not an achievement, not even the achievement of humility. . . . Faith is the ground, the new order, the light. . . . Faith is ...

We do not segment our lives, giving some time to God, some to our business or schooling, while keeping parts to ourselves. The idea is to live all of our lives in the presence of God, under the author...

While summarizing the work of Joel Marcus, professor Lauren Winner describes the irony that in crucifixion, the victim is literally elevated above the rest of the crowd: As Joel Marcus explains, this...

No pain, no palm; no thorns, no throne; no gall, no glory; no cross, no crown.

Glory [is not] transient but eternal. Not vaporous but weighty. Not fragmented and fleeting, but joy fulfilled and forever. Because whatever glory may be like, it is defined by the presence of God him...

Introduction, 1:1-4 While Hebrews is an anonymous letter, it is interesting to note that the KJV’s first verse is, “God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers ...

He who is the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone has immortality, who dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see. To him be honor and ...

You will never glory in God till first of all God has killed your glorying in yourself.

Context This Sunday’s passage takes place during Jesus’ long final journey to Jerusalem (which takes up over a third of Luke’s Gospel). In the preceding pericope the disciples have asked Jesus to in...

"Son," he said, "ye cannot in your present state understand eternity…That is what mortals misunderstand. They say of some temporal suffering, 'No future bliss can make up for it,...

Context This Sunday’s passage takes place during Jesus’ long final journey to Jerusalem (which takes up over a third of Luke’s Gospel). In the preceding pericope the disciples have asked Jesus to in...

I command you before God, who gives life to all things, and before Christ Jesus, that you keep the commandment without spot, blameless, until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ, who is the blessed...

God is not opposed to our happiness; he only wishes that we find our ultimate happiness in him.

Holy God of light and glory: You alone are good. You alone are pure and righteous. And, therefore, You alone are worthy of our praise, our devotion and honor. In the brilliance of Your light, we are r...

On the one side there is God in His glory as Creator and Lord. . . . And on the other side there is man, not merely the creature, but the sinner, the one who exists in the flesh and who in the flesh i...

The great sin of the world is not that the human race has failed to work for God so as to increase his glory, but that we have failed to delight in God so as to reflect his glory.

But all at once I realized that it was not my success God had used to enable me to help those in this prison, or in hundreds of others just like it. My life of success was not what made this morning s...

Almighty God, we too often live in fear. Fear drives our self-preservation, our self-centered decisions, and prevents us from comprehending the wonder of your presence among us. Like Peter, we would d...

What is the meaning of life? Why is it that we exist? Or to put it in the immortal words of Douglas Adams, “what is the meaning of life?” If you ask Google, which I did, various answers come up. Wiki...

God uses the nobodies to show himself to be somebody. God uses the nothings to show himself to be something. And maybe you feel like a nobody, a nothing. My friend, you're the one God's chosen...

Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy, to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, ma...

Context Standard Letter Format In all of Paul’s letter there is a basic format, which is based on the Greco-Roman form that was common at the time. Paul’s letters almost always include: Salutat...

Our God, you love us unconditionally and with great sacrifice, yet we reject your love in search of another love other desires. We have make harmful decisions while on this search rather than acceptin...

One of the great ironies of sin is that when human beings try to become more than human beings, to be as gods, they fall to become lower than human beings. To be your own God and live for your own glo...