life on Armor

Context As the letter concludes, Paul offers exhortations—put on the armor of God and persevere in prayer! This is an encouragement to abide in God’s own strength so that the church may live worth...

Context As the letter concludes, Paul offers exhortations—put on the armor of God and persevere in prayer! This is an encouragement to abide in God’s own strength so that the church may live worth...

Pastor: Be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might, wielding well  the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. Go out into the world with joy and hope, standing firm in your fa...

Pastor: God not only provides us with armor to stand against the devil’s schemes, but once fitted for battle, He tells us to pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests ...

Almighty God, give us grace to cast away the works of darkness, and put on the armor of light, now in the time of this mortal life in which your Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility; th...

Pastor: God not only provides us with armor to stand against the devil’s schemes, but once fitted for battle, He tells us to pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and request...

Pastor: Heavenly Father, You created a wonderful world for us. You give us all we need for our body and life. We thank You for all the blessings that come from Your hand: food and drink, house and h...

Ancient Lens What can we learn from the historical context? A Hard Saying There are (at least) two leaps that Jesus’s listeners have to make here.  One is the reality of the incarnation and the o...

Ancient Lens What can we learn from the historical context? A Hard Saying There are (at least) two leaps that Jesus’s listeners have to make here.  One is the reality of the incarnation and the o...

The human capacity for burden is like bamboo – far more flexible than you’d ever believe at first glance.

Across all barriers of land and language, wealth and poverty, knowledge and ignorance, we are one, created from the same dust, subject to the same laws, and destined for the same end. With this compas...

The dangers and hardships for the faithful are real indeed. Truth is tested and faith is confirmed not in idle speculation but in the crucible of adversity. Those who wish to find a more vibrant relig...

Cross-bearing is the long lesson of our mortal life. It is a part of God’s salvation, called sanctification. It is a lesson set before us every moment of every day.” “If life were an art lesson…we cou...

Paul tells the bride in Ephesians 6:10-12 that her enemies are 'not...flesh and blood,' but the unseen spiritual forces of evil and darkness. She is called to arm herself for battle, to 'b...

O God, you are the sure foundation and the certain cornerstone. Building on you brings life, yet we often turn away and try to find hope by building on other foundations. Self-esteem, money, career, f...

Leader: We trust in you, O Lord. People: We say, "You are our God." Leader: Our times are in your hand. People: Rescue us from the hands of our enemies and our persecutors. Leader: M...

Jesus also spent time—decades even—building stuff. Jesus was a tradesman. He is called a tekton (Mark 6:3), a builder who used his hands. God came to earth and apparently thought it worth his while to...

God–Father, Son and Holy Spirit; Lord of all our yesterdays, todays and tomorrows: thank you that we don’t need to be afraid of what’s coming because you’re already there ahead of us. Nothing takes yo...

He is a bold surgeon, they say, whose hand does not tremble when he performs an operation upon his own person; and he is often equally bold who does not hesitate to pull off the mysterious veil of sel...

An American businessman went to Oberammergau to witness the famous passion play, just before the outbreak of World War II. Enthralled by this great drama that depicts the story of the cross, he went b...

Hope is called the anchor of the soul (Hebrews 6:19), because it gives stability to the Christian life. But hope is not simply a ‘wish’ (I wish that such-and-such would take place); rather, it is that...

The Oxford scholar and apologist C. S. Lewis... once closed a lecture to a group of apologists like this:  I have found that nothing is more dangerous to one’s own faith than the work of an apologis...

Please know that when I take up my cross every day I am not talking about my wheelchair. My wheelchair is not my cross to bear. Neither is your cane or walker your cross. Neither is your dead-end job ...

When I teach on the dynamics of real change and maturation, I often describe a “furnace of transformation” each of us must pass through for the sake of growth and refinement. I’ve never seen real grow...

O God, who gives to every man and woman their work, and through their labors does accomplish your purposes upon earth: Grant your blessing, we beg you, to those who are engaged in the work and busines...

Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill.

Life can often feel like a bully, throwing punches at us we didn’t see coming. We get taken out, for a moment. But how we jump back in becomes our decision.

Living for what gives or maintains the greatest amount of personal comfort is our long-established habit. At the core, that’s what comfort is—it’s a habit, a way of life. Comfort has become the defaul...

There’s an aphorism repeated often in the writings of the medieval church: per crucem ad lucem, through the cross to the light. God loves us passionately and wants to bring us joy and flourishing, but...

In this short excerpt, the scholar and Anglican clergyman N.T. Wright discusses the famous “weight of glory” passage in 2 Cornthians 4:17: For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an ...