mystery on Love

Love all God’s creation, the whole and every grain of sand in it. Love every leaf, every ray of God’s light. Love the animals, love the plants, love everything. If you love everything, you will percei...

God, our Father: Your love gives us more than we can ever hope for, and far beyond what we deserve. You clothe us in the righteousness of Christ. You give us dreams and visions of what we can become b...

God of love, we give thanks for the mystery of this meal, in which, even in our sin, you offer us love and grace. Therefore we are bold to confess our sin to you with one another. Merciful God,...

To find love I must enter into the sanctuary where it is hidden, which is the mystery of God.

Context The body of the letter continues in chapter 3. If it were not for chapters 4-6, we could even believe that Paul was about to close this letter after we read what appears to be a benediction i...

Leader: God of promise, God of Mystery, you have sent a messenger to awaken us.        All: May the promise of your dawn awaken our hearts and minds.       May the light of your promise g...

Father, Son, Holy Spirit–our God, Mysterious, Awe-Inspiring, Wonderful, One-in-Three/Three-in-One: You surprise us not with flashing lights, loud crashing noises, and constant activity. You surprise u...

Turn around and believe that the good news that we are loved is gooder than we ever dared hope, and that to believe in that good news, to live out of it and toward it, to be in love with that good new...

Ancient Lens What’s the historical context? Background Structure This Psalm of David is unique. “It is the only hymn in the Old Testament composed completely as a direct address to God.” [1] It e...

The Eucharist is the very heart of Christian worship because it is so rich and far-reaching in its significance; because it eludes thought, eludes emotion, relies on simple contact, humble and childli...

Preaching Commentary Introduction John 1 contains some of the richest Christological passages in all of Scripture. It rewards deep meditation on its meaning. Its use as the Christmas gospel text is...

Preaching Summary An Incomplete Trinity? Protestant churches who lean evangelical but not charismatic have occasionally been accused of being more “binitarian” than “trinitarian.”  The suggestion i...

Ancient Lens What’s the historical context? Background Structure This Psalm of David is unique. “It is the only hymn in the Old Testament composed completely as a direct address to God.” [1] It e...

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...

Lord God Almighty: our Creator, Redeemer and Sustainer: There is no place where You are absent. There is no corner of our world that’s hidden from You. There is nothing about us You do not know, no ac...

Context Layers The responsible interpretation of any biblical text requires one to consider multiple levels of context, but these contextual strata are especially important to define and explore in ...

Context The body of the letter continues in chapter 3. If it were not for chapters 4-6, we could even believe that Paul was about to close this letter after we read what appears to be a benediction i...

Context Layers The responsible interpretation of any biblical text requires one to consider multiple levels of context, but these contextual strata are especially important to define and explore in ...

It is a world of magic and mystery, of deep darkness and flickering starlight. It is a world where terrible things happen and wonderful things too. It is a world where goodness is pitted against evil,...

The first holy truth in God 101 is that men and women of true faith have always had to accept the mystery of God's identity and love and ways. I hate that, but it's the truth.

An Incomplete Trinity? Protestant churches who lean evangelical but not charismatic have occasionally been accused of being more “binitarian” than “trinitarian.”  The suggestion is that such churches...

Jesus is the image of the invisible God and the firstborn of all creation. You were once sinners, alienated and hostile in mind to God, but you have been reconciled through his body and death. Continu...

Lord and God, Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, we have only begun to comprehend the wonder of the Incarnation, that you in Christ would become one of us, that you in Christ would live among us and be ...

God is often silent when we prefer that he speak, and he interrupts us when we prefer that he stay silent. His ways are not our ways. To live with the sacred God of creation means that we conduct our ...

The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in a...

Listen to your life. See it for the fathomless mystery it is. In the boredom and pain of it, no less than in the excitement and gladness: touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of i...

Contradictions can bring us into touch with a deeper longing, for the fulfillment of a desire that lives beneath all desires and that only God can satisfy. Contradictions, thus understood, create the ...

Listen to your life. All moments are key moments. I discovered that if you really keep your eye peeled to it and your ears open, if you really pay attention to it…Taking your children to school and ki...

Awe encourages us to think of God as a transcendent presence: someone outside and beyond our own small concerns and our own vulnerable lives. Awe opens us up to the possibility of living always on the...

AIM Commentary Ancient Lens What’s the historical context? Mixed Loyalties Diving straight into 2 Corinthians 4:3-6 without giving a nod to 2 Corinthians 3:1-4:2 gives a strange impression, bec...