heart change on Discipline

Jesus, we receive your blessings and pray for the Holy Spirit to make them real in our lives. Renew a right spirit within us, a poor spirit, a spirit that knows our deep need of your grace and deliver...

Uncontrolled temper is soon dissipated on others. Resentment, bitterness, and self-pity build up inside our hearts and eat away at our spiritual lives like a slowly spreading cancer.

Behavior modification that’s not empowered by God’s heart-changing grace is self-righteousness, as repugnant to God as the worst sins people gossip about.

Self-deception is a major part of what defeats spiritual formation in Christ. In self-deception the individual or group refuses to acknowledge factors in their life of which they are dimly conscious. ...

Holy God, You call us to a passionate, all-consuming faith. Yet, so frequently, we give You half-hearted obedience or distracted, leftover moments of our time. You tell us that we are the salt of the ...

We readily confess our little faults in order to suggest that we have no big ones.

One common mistake is assuming that everyone else finds faith easy, while we alone struggle. Yet there is comfort in recognizing that we are not alone in our pursuit of Christ in the midst of a broken...

Leader: King Jesus, you taught your disciples a great deal about your kingdom, and we confess that we have thought much more about our own kingdoms than about yours. In fact, you are the king over all...

Unless God begins to move in my heart - and my wallet, my schedule and my to do list - I’ll never receive His best for me.

Alcoholics Anonymous has a great definition of how we change: We change when the pain of remaining the same is greater than the pain of changing .

Forgive us, O God, when we limit you – When we remake you in our image, When we claim our causes as your own, When we box you in, And explain you away, And in our attempts at understanding, whittle aw...

Almighty God, to you all hearts are open, all desires known, and from you no secrets are hid: Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of your Holy Spirit, that we may perfectly love you,...

All: Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin! Let me hea...

I am convinced that the scourge of our scientific and technological age is depersonalization. There is a heartbeat pulsating at the center of the universe, giving life and meaning to everything, but o...

Ancient Lens What can we learn from the historical context? Prophetic Struggles The job of a prophet does not appear to have been pleasant. Jeremiah struggles with the message he is entrusted to ...

Gracious Spirit, you are at work all around us. You prompt us to follow you, and you convict us when we have missed your leading. Please forgive us for the times that we miss your presence. Please hum...

The needed change within us is God's work, not ours. The demand is for an inside job, and only God can work from the inside. We cannot attain or earn this righteousness of the kingdom of God: it i...

Our sins had taken root deeply, down to the deepest soils of our hearts. Know that Christ has uprooted our sins to the last fiber, planting His Word of forgiveness that can never wither.

When he [the prodigal son] found himself desiring to be treated as one of the pigs, he realized that he was not a pig but a human being, a son of his father. . . . Once he had come again in touch with...

During the time of Oliver Cromwel ascendancy in England, a young soldier faced execution as the curfew bell was set to toll. Desperate to save him, the soldier's beloved approached Cromwell, plead...

Behold, you desire truth in the inward parts. You teach me wisdom in the inmost place. Purify me with hyssop, and I will be clean. Wash me, and I will be whiter than snow. Let me hear joy and gladness...

Leader: Create in us clean hearts, O God, and renew right spirits within us. People: Cast us not away from your presence, and do not take your Holy Spirit from us. Leader: Restore to us the joy of...

A heart renewed--a loving heart--a penitent and humble heart--a heart broken and contrite, purified by love--that and only that is the rest of men. Spotlessness may do for angels, repentance unto life...

The blood of Christ cleanses us on the inside, our hearts. The word of God cleanses on the outside. That's the method God uses.

The whole course of human history may depend on a change of heart in one solitary and even humble individual - for it is in the solitary mind and soul of the individual that the battle between good an...

The question for each parable is: How did Jesus seek to change attitudes and behaviors with this parable?

Pastor: Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions. All: Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin! ...

I actually want to believe that when it comes to communication, my biggest problem is outside of me, not inside of me. I want to think that it’s my kids, my wife, my neighbors, my boss. I want to thin...

Leader: Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy, blot out my transgressions. People: Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my si...

Holy Spirit, you have come to reconcile us to each other, but we resist your work to bind us together. We hold onto grudges. Even though we know God has forgiven us in Jesus Christ, we are slow to for...