help on Believing in God

Richard Attenborough’s movie Gandhi has a scene set in South Africa where the young Indian lawyer and a white clergyman are walking together on a boardwalk, contrary to South African law at the time. ...

Pastor: Lord God, Maker of heaven and earth. You are amazing and powerful, yet You love each of us dearly. We give You thanks for sustaining all of creation and remembering Your covenant faithfulnes...

Jesus didn’t die on the cross to change God’s mind about us; Jesus died on the cross to change our minds about God!”

This story is probably apocryphal, but conveys a truth nonetheless. During the early 19th century, following the Napoleonic Wars, a French soldier was captured and imprisoned. He was thrown into a...

Pastor: "For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him." (Jn 3:17) All: His love endures forever Pastor: "...

Behold, the eye of the Lord is on those who fear him, on those who hope in his steadfast love, that he may deliver their soul from death and keep them alive in famine. We wait for the Lord; he is our...

Pastor: Let us confess our sin in the presence of God and of one another. People: Gracious God, have mercy on us. In Your compassion forgive us our sins, known and unknown, things done and...

God doesn’t help those who help themselves: he helps those who trust him.

Ask people what they must do to get to heaven and most reply, “Be good.” Jesus’ stories contradict that answer. All we must do is cry, “Help!”

“Historical insecurity” and “cosmic instability” are the ingredients of existential fear that inspire this Psalm of Trust, according to James Mays in his Interpretation Commentary series on the Psal...

Pastor: As we are about to receive our Lord’s body and blood in, with, and under this bread and wine for the forgiveness of sins, let us make confession to our heavenly Father. With the psalmist w...

O my Savior, help me. I am slow to learn, prone to forget, and weak to climb; I am in the foothills when I should be on the heights; I am pained by my graceless heart, my prayerless days, my poverty o...

Preaching Commentary “Historical insecurity” and “cosmic instability” are the ingredients of existential fear that inspire this Psalm of Trust, according to James Mays in his Interpretation Comment...

Leader: Our help is in the name of the Lord, People: who made heaven and earth.  Leader: If You, O Lord, kept a record of sins, O Lord, who could stand? People: But wit...

Preserve me, O God, for in you I take refuge. You are my Lord; I have no good apart from you. The sorrows of those who run after another god shall multiply The LORD is my chosen portion and my c...

Leader: Our help is in the name of the Lord, People: who made heaven and earth .  Psalm 124:8 Leader: If You, O Lord, kept a record of sins, O Lord, who could stand? People: ...

God you have promised to be our help, but we turn our eyes to lifeless idols, looking for help from other arenas. We fail to trust in your unfailing love and your ever-present help. Turn us back to yo...

Leader: Blessed are those whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the Lord their God, People: who made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, who keeps faith forever; Leader:...

O God, from whom to be turned is to fall, to whom to be turned is to rise, and with whom to stand is to abide for ever; grant us in all our duties your help, in all our perplexities your guidance,...

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...

God our helper, by your Holy Spirit, open our minds that as the Scriptures are read and your Word is proclaimed, we may be led into your truth and taught your will, for the sake of Jesus Christ our Lo...

Lord, You answer our pleas for help. You draw near to us when we are hurting; You save us when we are crushed by life. Your Psalmists declare it on every page. Yet we often feel abandoned and alone. W...

Following always involves a coming down, a humbling of oneself and a serving of others. Jonathan Edwards, the Puritan theologian, captured this condescension of God in his sermon "The Excellency ...

You who fear the Lord, praise him! All you descendants of Jacob, honor him! Revere him, all you descendants of Israel! For he has not despised or scorned the suffering of the afflicted one; h...

God of grace and God of glory on your people pour your power...Grant us wisdom, grant us courage for the facing of this hour. Lord—we need You...today, tomorrow and forever. We need you to heal those ...

Pastor: In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. People: Amen. Pastor: The Lord says: When you call to Me, I will answer you;  People: I will be with y...

Pastor: Our help is in the name of the Lord, People: who made heaven and earth.   Pastor: If You, O Lord, kept a record of sins, O Lord, who could stand? People: But with You th...

As the people of Judah cried out to God in their time of catastrophe, we remember that we, too, can bring our burdens before God. Let us join together in confession, confident that God hears us. Lord...

Sometimes to follow in the footsteps of Jesus is to walk away from others or to let them walk away from us.

God of grace and glory, compassion and power—Father, Son and Holy Spirit: You meet us right where we are at—not asking us to put on any masks, false fronts or airs. You love us just as we are while a...