power on Agriculture

O most merciful Father, who has blessed the labors of the farmer in the return of the fruits of the earth; we give you humble and hearty thanks for this their bounty; asking you to continue your lovin...

Leader: For as the rain comes down and the snow from the sky, and does not return there, but waters the earth, and makes it grow and bud, and gives seed to the sower and bread to the eater; so is my w...

Power is the ability to make something of the world.

Jesus, you sow yourself The Word of Truth, generously The Word of Life, graciously Defend us from the Evil One Who seeks to snatch us away Fortify us for hard times and costly discipleship That we m...

Stewardship means to consciously take up our cultural power, investing it intentionally among the seemingly powerless, putting our power at their disposal to enable them to cultivate and create.

Sometimes, of course, the sense of God with us becomes much more distinct. My oldest brother, J. I. Willard, served for over thirty years as a minister under the blessing of God. But his entry into th...

What do you want to achieve? Greater riches? Cheaper chicken? A happier life, a longer life? Is it power over your neighbors that you are after? Are you only running away from your death? Or are you s...

Knowledge is power

In his excellent study of the famous Biblical passage on shepherds, ( The Good Shepherd: A Thousand Year Journey from Psalm 23 to the New Testament) , scholar Ken Bailey describes the nature of David’...

Christian politics concerns how we integrate our confession that Jesus is Lord with our call to love our neighbors.

Ability involves responsibility; power, to its last particle, is duty.

May you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, that you may walk worthily of the Lord, to please him in all respects, bearing fruit in every good work ...

WORDS. We think words, hear words, speak words, sing words, write words, and read words—all the time. Every day. What do words have to do with Christianity? Almost everything. At every stage in redemp...

Many Israelites Had Leprosy, but Naaman Was Healed As we go from mountains to fresh water, we go from Elijah to Elisha.  Despite having a double dose of Elijah’s power and a fraction of his hair, Eli...

Every ministry context-whether in the family, a church, or another organization-has a complicated structure of relationships. The capacity to act and to influence others is largely a result of the his...

Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen.

Love alone makes heavy burdens light and bears in equal balance things pleasing and displeasing. Love bears a heavy burden and does not feel it, and love makes bitter things tasteful and sweet.

The fact is there is nothing that we are doing that God could not raise up a stone in the field to do for him. The realization of this puts us in our true place. Though, lest we get too knocked down by...

My goal is to speak the truth in love. There are a lot of people speaking the truth with no love, and there are a lot of people talking about love without much truth.

Rabbi Jonathan Sacks tells a true story in one of his books about peacemaking in what is arguably one of the world's most difficult places to achieve it: the Middle East. One evening in the early ...

Two thousand years ago, triumphal processions were massively popular. It was, in all likelihood, the only chance most people would have to see the leaders and heroes of the day. For the Romans they t...

Loving God, you spoke the earth into motion. Your words have that much power. So instead of continuing to speak to you, we silence ourselves. Please show us our sins and forgive us for them as we list...

One of the main linguists that worked on Rosetta Stone , a computerized language-learning tool, moved to Vietnam in 1962… of his own free will! He and a ministry partner went to translate the Bibl...

For purposes of practicality and relatability, this series considers the Sea of Galilee to be a lake and classifies other fresh or mostly fresh water locations together under the same banner. Th...

Spread love everywhere you go. Let no one ever come to you without leaving happier.

The sin of injustice is defined in the Bible as the abuse of power—abusing power by taking from others the good things that God intended for them, namely, their life, liberty, dignity, or the fruits o...

Pastor: [The Lord] brought me to the banqueting house, People: and his banner over me was love. Pastor: Your steadfast love, O Lord, extends to the heavens, People: your faith...

The Hebrew word for “fool” is very close to the Hebrew for “noble,” with only one letter different, and it is sometimes only in the outcome of their lives that the people considered noble by the peopl...

In her book, Grateful: The Subversive Practice of Giving Thanks , Diana Butler Bass provides an insightful reflection on how Zaccheaus rose to become chief tax collector of Jericho:  Since Zacchaeu...

Reflection Most of us are familiar with the words attributed to the Roman Emperor Julius Caesar, “ Veni, Vidi, Vici .” I came. I saw. I conquered. That is the way of imperial rulers in their conquest...