People: Oh God, whose name is great in all the earth, You have been good and gracious to give us Your name and for making Yourself known through your titles, qualities, regulations, word, and works. Y...
Prayer of Adoration Great God our Father: You are good and You are strong. You are faithful and true, and You won’t tempt or lie to us. In a world that appeals to our sinful cravings and dominated b...
Context If you're jumping into Luke partway through the story, it helps to do one of those "Previously On..." clips you see at the beginning of an episode in a TV series. The most impo...
Questions on the Road When we encounter today’s text, Jesus and the disciples continue to make their way from Capernaum to Jerusalem. According to Google Maps (the most trusted first century map appl...
Great and loving God, we know that one day all peoples will worship you on your mountain. We struggle to live into that reality. We turn inward, thinking mostly of ourselves rather than giving you glo...
How great and glorious You are, O God. There is no one like You. You transform our weakness into strength. You forgive our stubbornness and arrogance, and fill us with Your generous wisdom. You turn o...
Introduction Only John’s Gospel tells us that Jesus washed his disciple’s feet during his last meal with them. The other texts for this day remember the Passover and the context it sets for Jesus’s w...
Context We haven’t been following the story of Luke yet. We’re now jumping into Luke partway through, so it helps to do one of those review clips you see at the beginning of an episode in a TV series...
John 13:1-17, John 13:31-35, Luke 22:25-27, Matthew 20:25-28, Mark 10:42-45
Reflection We all are aware of cultures that have a hierarchy—a pecking order. The elite and the hoi polloi. The acceptable and the unacceptable. In such cultures, the hierarchy determines the role. ...
Leader: Come, let us enter into God's presence. People: Lord, I am here, waiting. Let me hear Your voice; for I am poor, and needy in spirit. Be gracious to me, gladden the soul of Your servant,...
Isaiah 26:3, John 20:19-21, Philippians 4:6-7, John 14:27, 1 Kings 19:11-12, Psalm 46:10
O God who is greater than the most powerful forces in this world, enable us to be still and know that You are God. O Lord who answers out of the whirlwind of everyday life, breathe in us Your Holy Sp...
The apostle Paul said, “If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on thin...
Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.
Greatness lies, not in being strong, but in the right using of strength; and strength is not used rightly when it serves only to carry a man above his fellows for his own solitary glory. He is the gre...
Pastor: “I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, People: “who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty.” Pastor: Lord, you have been our dwelling place throughout al...
Have you ever heard of a Stradivarius violin? It’s the gold standard of violins—instantly recognizable and famously expensive. These aren’t $29.95 instruments. One sold for $1 million, another for $4 ...
Lord, we confess that we are tempted to be relevant, to be popular, and to be powerful. In our pride, we seek to be recognized as great. Humble us and remind us that we are your beloved children, who ...
When Jesus caught his disciples arguing about who among them was the greatest, they felt embarrassed—but Jesus didn’t rebuke them for wanting to be great. He simply gave them an unexpected formula: Be...
Luke 1:46, Luke 1:39-56, Psalm 145:3, Psalm 48:1, Psalm 34:3
Another Bible translation says that Mary said, “My soul magnifies the Lord” (NKJV, emphasis added). What did she mean by magnifies? When you look at something through a magnifying glass, it looks much...
Great and gracious God, we have run after things and others instead of coming home to You. We have lived as though we were the centers of our universe. We have avoided the harder issues in life so o...
Holy and gracious God, you are the greatest of all. You are full of wonders that no mere human can comprehend. Lord, we seek to understand you and your ways so that we can live according to your comma...
Leader: I will exalt you, my God, the King. I will praise your name forever and ever. All: Every day I will praise you. I will extol your name forever and ever. Leader: Great is the Lord, and grea...
Leader: Great is the Lord and most worthy of praise; People: his greatness no one can fathom. Leader: One generation commends your works to another; People: they tell of your ...
Laughing at the Disciples? This is one of those texts where it’s pretty easy to laugh at the disciples. This is the second time Jesus told them he was going to die and then rise again after three day...
Great is the Lord and greatly to be praised His holy mountain is the joy of all the earth. We have thought on your steadfast love, O God. Walk about Zion, that you may tell the next generation t...
To be really great in little things, to be truly noble and heroic in the insipid details of everyday life, is a virtue so rare as to be worthy of canonization.
Leader: Sing to the Lord a new song! Sing to the Lord, all the earth. Sing to the Lord! Bless his name! Proclaim his salvation from day to day! Declare his glory among the nations, his marvelous works...
Holy God, we forget you are near. We forget that you are everywhere. We are so wrapped up in our own worlds that we cannot see beyond ourselves. God, you are so much greater! Lift up our head...