the soul on Condemnation

Pastor: O Lord, we are in over our heads. So many are the sins that we’ve committed this past week, and they condemn us in your presence. Only because you love us with a never-ending, unbreaking, alwa...

The torture of a bad conscience is the hell of a living soul.

Everything we do is about winning something or measuring one person against another or garnering goods in great quantity, not because we need them but in order that others can’t have them. We make lif...

I sometimes hold it half a sin To put in words the grief I feel; For words, like nature, half reveal And half conceal the Soul within.

The soul that is within me no man can degrade.

As your Servant Augustine said once long ago, “O Lord, the house of my soul is narrow; enlarge it, that you may enter in. It is ruinous, O repair it! It displeases your sight; I confess it, I know...

All that I ever really needed to know about uncivil language I learned in the fifth grade. At a small Dutch Calvinist school in a New Jersey city, I was playing with other students just before classes...

Leader: Heavenly Father, I confess that I have sinned against you. I have delighted my soul in other things more than I have in you. Why, then, is it any surprise to me that you feel far off from me? ...

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is his faithfulness. ‘The Lord is our portion,’ says our souls, ‘therefore, we will hop...

Let the soul thank God when she experiences his loving endearments, but let her not repine when she finds herself left in desolation. It is important to lay great stress on this point, because some so...

So cultivate the soul that all its powers will open out to God, and in beholding God be drawn away from sin.

In the days of the early church, believers affirmed their faith by saying, “Jesus is Lord.” We give lip-service to that same affirmation, but find it difficult to surrender control of our lives. Inste...

Kind words produce their own image in men's souls; and a beautiful image it is. They soothe and quiet and comfort the hearer. They shame him out of his sour, morose, unkind feelings. We have not y...

But silence speaks of solitude, and to some persons there is an oppressive sense of sadness wherever human beings are absent. Solitude is so awful to them. . . . Some men flee to solitude through bitt...

Weaned from all passing fancies, let my soul praise You, O God, Creator of all. You did not allow my soul to remain attached to corruptible things with the glue of love, attached to what my senses fin...

We can prostitute our very souls in our attempts to be successful. We can sell out, cave in and go morally bankrupt chasing the god of success. Knowing this perilous potential, Jesus himself warns us ...

There is one spectacle grander than the sea, that is the sky; there is one spectacle grander than the sky, that is the interior of the soul.

It is not the things of this world that either occupy the soul or cause it harm, since they enter it not, but rather the will and desire for them.

Dearest Father, we long for light, but dwell in darkness. We crave the warmth of the sun, but crawl into our caverns of sin and sadness. We are a people who prefer the misery and melancholy that we kn...

O Lord my God, tell me what you are to me. Say to my soul, I am your salvation. Say it so that I can hear it. My heart is listening, Lord; open the ears of my heart and say to my soul, I am your salva...

Pastor: Bless the Lord, O my soul; People: all that is within me, bless his holy name. Pastor: Bless the Lord, my soul, People: and forget not all his benefits— Pastor:...

In the deeply moving novel Silence by Shusaku Endo, the protagonist, a young Jesuit priest named Sebastião Rodrigues describes in horror what it is like to watch two of his disciples, Japanese nationa...

The real duty of man is not to extend his power or multiply his wealth beyond his needs, but to enrich and enjoy his imperishable possession: his soul.

The psalms illuminate the mind for the purpose of enkindling the soul, indeed to put it to fire. It may indeed be said that the purpose of the Psalms is to turn the soul into a sort of burning bush.

Those not familiar with ancient Greek philosophy may be surprised to find deep resonance with the teachings of Jesus. When on trial for his life, the 70-year-old Socrates pugnaciously responded that,...

I prefer painting people’s eyes to cathedrals. For there is something in the eyes that is not in the cathedral, however solemn and imposing the latter may be — a human soul, be it that of a poor begga...

Praise the Lord, O my soul: And all that is within me, bless his holy name. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits: Who forgives all your iniquities, Who heals all your d...

The author Oscar Wilde once remarked that by the age of forty everyone has the face they deserve. This is a truly profound, if painful, truth. But it really applies to the “within” expressed by the fa...

Pastor: “O LORD, rebuke me not in your anger, nor discipline me in your wrath. Be gracious to me, O LORD, for I am languishing; heal me, O LORD, for my bones are troubled. All: “My soul also is grea...

Pastor: In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. People: Amen. Pastor: We praise the One who extends the invitation: People: Come, all you who are thi...