Kindness flows from you, Lord, pure and continual. You had cast us off, as was only just, but mercifully you forgave us; you hated us and you were reconciled to us, you cursed us and you blessed us; y...
Job 1:42, James 1:2-3, 1 Peter 1:6-7, Mark 5:1-20, John 8:36
Pastor: Father in Heaven, I have sinned times without number. I am guilty of pride and unbelief. I’ve failed to delight my heart in your Word and have neglected you in my daily life. All: My transgr...
Romans 8:17, Ephesians 2:6, John 10:28-29, 2 Corinthians 5:21, 1 Peter 2:24, Philippians 2:6-8, 2 Corinthians 8:9
Pious souls can derive great confidence and delight from this sacrament, as being a testimony that they form one body with Christ, so that everything which is his they may call their own. Hence it fol...
When [Abraham] Lincoln was running for the House of Representatives from Illinois, he was charged with being “a scoffer at religion,” wrote the historian William J. Wolf, because he belonged to no chu...
The sense that we will live forever somewhere has shaped every civilization in human history…the unifying testimony of the human heart through history is belief in life after death. Anthropological ev...
1 John 1:9, James 5:4, Psalm 24:1, Isaiah 5:7, Micah 6:8
Gracious God, you tend to the earth as your vineyard, longing for it to bring fruit. You want our society and our lives to look more and more like the Kingdom of Heaven. We work against your plans, so...
[To have Faith in Christ] means, of course, trying to do all that He says. There would be no sense in saying you trusted a person if you would not take his advice. Thus if you have really handed yours...
After thirty years of being pastor, I am still amazed by the number of people who believe God is going to grade on a curve. They know they have done wrong, have mistreated others, particularly those c...
Both processes begin even before death. The good man's past begins to change so that his forgiven sins and remembered sorrows take on the quality of Heaven: the bad man's past already conforms...
Heaven: A place where the wicked cease from troubling you with talk of their personal affairs, and the good listen with attention while you expound on yours.
The soul on earth is an immortal guest, compelled to starve at an unreal feast; a pilgrim panting for the rest to come; an exile, anxious for his native home.
Matthew 13:31-33, Matthew 13:44-52, Genesis 28:15-28, Romans 8:26-39
Intro These are incredibly rich texts. This guide recommends taking a detour through salvation history to put them in their right context. This helps your congregation expand their understanding of ...
In her short story Revelation, Flannery O’Connor describes a woman sitting in a Doctor’s office, gossiping away without concern for who hears her questionable commentary: This woman says to hersel...
Intro These are incredibly rich texts. This guide recommends taking a detour through salvation history to put them in their right context. This helps your congregation expand their understanding of ...
Mark 4:26-34, Matthew 13:31-32, Luke 13:18-19, Matthew 13:33, Luke 13:20-21, Matthew 13:44, Matthew 13:45-46
If we only had eyes to see and ears to hear and wits to understand, we would know that the Kingdom of God in the sense of holiness, goodness, beauty is as close as breathing and is crying out to born ...
Isaiah 25:6-9, Daniel 7:13-14, Zechariah 8:4-5, Luke 24:36-43, Revelation 21:1-5, Psalm 16:11
One day when George MacDonald, the great Scottish preacher and writer, was talking with his son, the conversation turned to heaven and the prophets’ version of the end of all things. “It seems too goo...
Isaiah 53:5, Romans 5:8, John 14:27, 1 John 1:9, Colossians 1:13-14
Hear the good news: For the joy set before him, Jesus Christ endured the shame of the cross, taking all our weakness and failure. Jesus went to the cross for the joy of having you as part of God’s Kin...
Genesis 5:21-24, Job 19:25-27, Daniel 12:1-3, John 14:1-3, 2 Corinthians 4:16-18, Psalm 90:1-4
In this brief excerpt, the French Catholic Francis de Sales reflects on how his meditations on eternity consistently elevate his spirit: I never think upon eternity without receiving great comfort...
O God, we thank thee thou that hast made man in thine own image. Help us to see ourselves as thou seest us, all standing in need of thy mercy yet dear unto thee. We confess to the many injustices and ...
Exodus 14:10-16, 1 Kings 18:21-39, Matthew 14:28-31, James 1:5-6, Psalm 121:1-2
An atheist fell off a cliff. As he tumbled downward, he caught hold of the branch of a small tree. There he hung between heaven above and the rocks a thousand feet below, knowing he wasn’t going to be...
Introduction Our text falls within a larger section (Luke 16) in which Jesus deals head-on with questions of money, specifically the need to choose God over mammon (the worship of money), in other wo...
Ancient Lens What's the historical context? The Gospel in a Pagan World Paul writes this letter to the Christians in the church at Corinth, which he founded during his second missionary journ...
Introduction This text is used in the first week of Advent, but preparing for Jesus' return isn't something for just one time of the year. For a treatment that is more focused on Advent, see ...
Ancient Lens What's the historical context? The Gospel in a Pagan World Paul writes this letter to the Christians in the church at Corinth, which he founded during his second missionary journ...
Introduction Our text falls within a larger section (Luke 16) in which Jesus deals head-on with questions of money, specifically the need to choose God over mammon (the worship of money), in other wo...