Sermon Illustrations on Spiritual Practices

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Praying Wholeheartedly

Author

Keywords

Scripture

Luke 11:1–4 , Romans 8:26–27, Psalm 119:171–173 , Exodus 33:11 , Deuteronomy 6:4–9 , 1 Samuel 3:1–10

When our will wholeheartedly enters into the prayer of Christ, then we pray correctly. Only in Jesus Christ are we able to pray, and with him we also know that we shall be heard. And so we must learn ...

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Cairns and Inherited Ways of Prayer and Worship

Author

Tish Harrison Warren

Keywords

Scripture

2 Corinthians 1:10, Psalm 61:2, Hebrews 12:1, Isaiah 30:21, Psalm 119:133

Years ago, during a vacation in New Hampshire, Jonathan and I climbed Mount Washington, which is notorious for erratic weather. It can change from sunny and warm to snowing in a few hours. The wind is...

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Restoring Love for Scripture

Author

Adam S. McHugh

Keywords

Scripture

Deuteronomy 6:4-9 , 1 Kings 19:11-13 , Nehemiah 8:1-12, Luke 24:13-35 , Hebrews 4:12, Psalm 119:9-16

After I graduated from seminary, I stopped reading the Bible. It’s been said that for all the gain that comes from dissecting a frog, all the hands-on knowledge one amasses from cutting out the organs...

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The Practice of Indirection

Author

James Bryan Smith

Keywords

Scripture

Psalm 119:11, Philippians 4:9, Luke 6:48, 2 Timothy 2:15, Proverbs 6:6-8, Hebrews 12:11

Payton Manning practiced indirection. He was the winning quarterback of Super Bowl XLI. It was a rainy night, and the ball was slippery. Rex Grossman, the quarterback for the losing team, fumbled the ...

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Spiritual Battles on the Journey of Faith

Author

Ruth Haley Barton

Keywords

Scripture

Genesis 3:1–7, 1 Kings 3:5–12, Daniel 1:8–17, Matthew 4:1–11, 2 Corinthians 1:13–15, Psalm 119:105

While I am not one to see a demon behind every bush or spiritual warfare in every difficulty, the fact is that we are regularly engaged in the struggle against good and evil—whether we know it or not....

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Two Enriching Words

Author

Richard J. Foster

Keywords

Scripture

Joshua 1:8, Isaiah 26:3-4, Genesis 4:63 , Luke 2:19 , Philippians 24:8, Psalm 119:15

Two Hebrew words deeply inform and enrich our understanding of meditative prayer: haga and siach . Our English Bibles most often translate both of these words with the simple word “meditate...

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Consider your Habits, They Make up 40% of Your Life

Author

Stuart R. Strachan, Jr.

Keywords

Scripture

Hebrews 5:14, Proverbs 4:23, Galatians 5:16, Colossians 3:16-17, Psalm 119:11, 1 Timothy 4:7-8

A 2014 study by Wendy Wood found that approximately 40% of people’s daily activities are performed out of habit. According to Wood, “an important characteristic of a habit is that it’s automatic…We fi...

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What Keeps us from Experiencing Renewal

Author

The Pastor's Workshop

Keywords

Scripture

Deuteronomy 6:4-5, 2 Kings 22:23, Isaiah 58:6-7, Psalm 119:105, Matthew 5:17-20 , Acts 2:42-47

There’s a quote by H. Richard Niebuhr that I believe is absolutely true. “The great Christian revolutions,” he argued, “come not by the discovery of something that was not known before. They happen w...

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Pruning Strengthens: A Botanist's View on Pain

Author

Ryan Bundrick

Keywords

Scripture

John 15:1-8, Jeremiah 17:7-8, Hebrews 12:11, 1 Peter 1:6-7, 2 Corinthians 4:17, Psalm 119:67-71, Isaiah 48:10

Any experienced gardener has heard of a botanical term called Apical (ah-pick-ul) dominance. In most plants that grow from a central stem, from maple trees to bush peas, whatever branch is at the top ...

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Psalm 119: 176 Steps to Heaven

Author

Calvin Miller

Keywords

Scripture

Psalm 119:, Isaiah 35:8, Hebrews 11:13-16, Psalm 137:1, Revelation 21:2

I have chosen to focus on this psalm [119] because it formed the important center of Celtic praise. In Ireland it was once referred to as The Biait . The word comes from Psalm 119: 1, which begins B...

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True Christianity is a Fight

Author

Timothy Keller

Keywords

Scripture

Deuteronomy 6:4-9, Joshua 1:8, 2 Chronicles 34:29-33, Matthew 4:1-11, Ephesians 6:10-17, Psalm 119:11

Now I have to ask you: If Jesus Christ, the Son of God, did not presume to face the forces of evil in the world without a profound knowledge of the Bible in mind and heart, how could we try to face li...

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Learning to Pray by Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Author

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Keywords

Scripture

Genesis 18:22-33 , 1 Kings 3:5-14, Daniel 6:10-23, Matthew 6:9-13 , Luke 18:1-8 , Psalm 119:9-16

When our will wholeheartedly enters into the prayer of Christ, then we pray correctly. Only in Jesus Christ are we able to pray, and with him we also know that we shall be heard. And so we must learn ...

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What Would You Erase?

Author

Kyle Idleman

Keywords

Scripture

John 16:33, Genesis 50:20, 1 Peter 1:6-7, Psalm 119:71, Isaiah 43:2

Recently I read about an experiment done by psychologist Jonathan Haidt. He came up with a fascinating hypothetical exercise, which went something like this: Participants were handed a summary of a p...

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“Remember the Signs” from The Silver Chair

Author

Casey Clark

Keywords

Scripture

Matthew 7:24, Proverbs 3:5-6, Psalm 119:105, Joshua 1:8, Deuteronomy 6:6-7

In C. S. Lewis’ The Silver Chair, Jill meets the lion, Aslan, high atop a mountain before her quest begins to save a prince. Aslan shares four important signs for her to remember along the way. These ...

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Healing with Words

Author

Eugene H. Peterson

Keywords

Scripture

Isaiah 58:11, Romans 8:28, Psalm 119:105, John 14:6, Isaiah 30:21, Psalm 32:8, Proverbs 3:5-6

Walker Percy wrote six novels in which he made us insiders to the spiritual disease of alienation that he found pervasive in American culture. His name for the condition is “lost in the cosmos.” We do...

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Sleepwalking in a Dark Wood

Author

Dante Alighieri

Keywords

Scripture

Psalm 119:105, 2 Corinthians 4:6, John 1:5, Isaiah 50:10, Psalm 23:4

For many of us, life can easily become disorienting and discouraging. Existential questions often emerge that never have before. As stressful as modern life can be, it is somewhat comforting to know t...

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A Vast Geographical Basin

Author

Richard J. Foster

Keywords

The Bible

Scripture

2 Timothy 3:16-17, Psalm 119:105, Hebrews 4:12, John 4:14

The Bible is like a vast geographical basin in which tributary streams feed into the currents of a parent river on its course to the ocean. The riverbanks are interspersed with openings where the trib...

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Convictions Rooted in God's Word

Author

Tim Muehlhoff & Richard Langer

Keywords

Scripture

Daniel 3:16-18, 1 Kings 18:16-39, Matthew 16:13-17 , Romans 4:18-20, Romans 14:5-12 , Psalm 119:105

[M]ost Christians attach their convictions to Christ personally. In other words, we form our convictions in order to please Jesus, not ourselves. Convictions do not express what we think or feel or li...

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Why It can be So Hard to Express Christian Convictions Civilly

Author

Tim Muehlhoff & Richard Langer

Keywords

Scripture

Daniel 3:16-18, 1 Kings 18:21, Isaiah 55:8-9 , Romans 14:5-8, Psalm 119:105, Matthew 7:15-16

First, most Christians attach their convictions to Christ personally. In other words, we form our convictions in order to please Jesus, not ourselves. Convictions do not express what we think or feel ...

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The Path of Explaining

Author

Emily P. Freeman

Keywords

Decision-Making

Scripture

John 14:26, Romans 12:1-2, James 1:6, Psalm 119:105, Isaiah 55:8-9, Proverbs 3:5-6

In her book, The Next Right Thing, Emily Freeman describes the difficulty in making decisions, including the decision that would eventually lead to her enrollment in Graduate school. After a prolonged...

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Missing the Signs

Author

Eunice McGarrahan

Keywords

Scripture

Luke 12:54-56, Matthew 16:1-4, Isaiah 60:1, Romans 13:11, Psalm 119:105, Genesis 12:1

Earl Palmer frequently tells the story of a cross-country with two other young pastors early in his pastoral ministry. They were making a cross-country trip from the East Coast back to California. I...

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The Gift of College Students

Author

The Pastor's Workshop

Keywords

Scripture

1 Samuel 3:1-10, Ecclesiastes 12:1 , Proverbs 2:1-11, Mark 10:17-22 , 1 Timothy 4:12 , Psalm 119:9-11

I have been moved to a different course of action, however, inspired largely by my daily exposure to college students in a great university during the course of a preaching and teaching ministry that ...

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Jesus Didn’t Drive

Author

The Pastor's Workshop

Keywords

Scripture

Deuteronomy 6:4-9, Proverbs 13:20, Matthew 28:19-20, Luke 14:27, Psalm 119:9

When singer John Davidson was learning to drive, his father, a Baptist minister, offered him a deal: he could have a car if he earned straight “B’s” on his report card, read the Bible more, and got a ...

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Take up and Read

Author

The Pastor's Workshop

Keywords

Scripture

Romans 13:13-14, Psalm 119:105, 2 Timothy 3:16-17, Hebrews 4:12, Isaiah 55:10-11

In Book Eight of Confessions , St. Augustine recounts how, in a state of deep inner turmoil, he “heard from a nearby house a voice, as of a boy or girl, I know not which, chanting repeatedly, ‘Ta...

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Dorothy Day: Read Books-Not the News

Author

The Pastor's Workshop

Keywords

Scripture

Proverbs 2:1-6 , Ecclesiastes 3:1-8, Philippians 4:8, James 1:5, Psalm 119:105

A common question I’m hearing from folks these days is whether it is beneficial (or a moral imperative) to pay attention to the news. The Catholic nun and social activist Dorothy Day asked the same qu...

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Remembering who we are and whose we are

Author

Mia Levetan

Keywords

Scripture

Genesis 8:1, Genesis 19:29, Exodus 2:24, Exodus 6:5, Exodus 13:3, Exodus 32:13, Leviticus 26:42-45, Deuteronomy 4:10, Deuteronomy 8:2, 18, Judges 3:7, Psalm 78:11, 1 Samuel 1:11, 19, Psalm 63:6, Psalm 74:2, Psalm 77:11, Psalm 78:35, 42, Psalm 105:42, Psalm 106:45, Psalm 111:5, Psalm 119:52, 55, Psalm 143:5, Isaiah 44:21, Isaiah 57:11, Jeremiah 14:21, Jeremiah 51:50, Jonah 2:7, Mark 14:72, Matthew 26:75, Luke 22:61, Luke 22:19, Matthew 27:33-55, Mark 15:22-41, Luke 23:33-49, John 19:16-30, 1 Corinthians 1:18, Philippians 2:8, Hebrews 12:2

God remembers Noah. God remembers Abram. God remembers Lot. God remembers the Israelites. The Israelites, in the book of Judges, do not remember God—this was their problem. God remembers Hannah. The P...

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Blind Bartimaeus and One-Eyed Thor

Author

Mia Levetan

Keywords

Scripture

1 Samuel 16:7 , Isaiah 42:6–7, 2 Kings 6:15–17 , Mark 10:46–52 , Luke 24:30–31, Psalm 119:18 , Luke 18:35-43, Matthew 20:29-34

I absolutely love Marvel movies. I’m talking about Thor, Spider-Man, Iron Man, Black Widow, Guardians of the Galaxy. All of them. In Ragnarok , Thor, the Norse god, played by the incredibly good-...

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Follow the Bubbles

Author

Stuart R. Strachan, Jr.

Keywords

Scripture

Romans 8:26, John 14:26, Psalm 139:9-10, 2 Corinthians 5:7, Isaiah 42:16, Psalm 119:105

When I graduated from college I was given one of the greatest opportunities of my young life. A group of my friends were told that if we were able to purchase a flight to the Cayman Islands, we would ...

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What is Vision?

Author

Chuck Swindoll

Keywords

Scripture

John 9:39, Habakkuk 2:2-3, Colossians 3:2, Psalm 119:18, Ephesians 1:18

Vision is the ability to see God’s presence, to perceive God’s power, to focus on God’s plan In spite of the obstacles….Vision is the ability to see above and beyond the majority. Vision is perception...

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Traveling the Highway

Author

John Bunyan

Keywords

Scripture

Psalm 16:11, Psalm 23:3, Psalm 119:105, Ephesians 2:8-9, 1 Peter 2:24, Micah 7:19, Romans 6:6

Now I could see in my dream that the High-way Christian was to travel on was protection on either side by a Wall, and the Wall was called Salvation. Burdened Christian began to run up the High-way, bu...

Sermon Illustrations on spiritual practices

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