Yesterday I gave a presentation to a small gathering of women. I had prepared a presentation and the week before the Lord led me to discard what I had prepared and start over. I love these reminders from God that He’s the one in control of things and messages he wants shared. Today I received an email from the organizer thanking me and said, “I now know more about the subtleties of evangelism.”
That’s the twist that God put into…..
This is a prayer for conversion from hatred of the church to love for it. I wrote it many years ago when I learned about the persecuted church and how many people hate the Christian church. It’s not included in my book “Praying Our Way Through Stress: Drawing Wisdom from the Lord’s Life and Prayer” but I think that is what Saul did for three years before his name was changed to Paul.
“Heavenly Father, In your will and with…..
So often people think or feel there is nothing they can do to help someone who is suffering through addiction or withdrawal. But there is something almost everyone can do and that is pray for increased faith in those who want to help themselves and others to help. Yesterday I read a poet’s blog post titled 3 Days Without about Heroin Addiction. (www.douglassteelepoetry.com) One of the lines in Doug’s poem is “help him help himself.” I wrote the following comment…..
When Jesus’ disciples asked him to teach them how to pray he replied by saying, Pray ‘Our Father’
Many people place the emphasis on the word father and the parent child relationship. We are used to thinking about the prayer in that way. Perhaps in part because of Matthew 23:9 where Jesus says don’t call anyone ‘your father on earth, for you have one Father…..
Years ago a young woman whom I worked with asked me why it was that the women in Jesus’ life went to the tomb so soon after Jesus died. Her question took me off guard and I could only answer that it must have been their grief. This young woman had come to my…..
There are three Gospel readings for Holy Saturday. I’m being drawn to write briefly about Matthew 27:63. The Chief Priest and Pharisees call Jesus an ‘imposter’ and then tell Pilate they remember what Jesus said about rising in three days.
These are enemies of his and they remember some of the same things Jesus’…..
The reading today is from John 18:1-19,42 What stands out to me is a six word sentence. “I find no case against him.” (18:13)
Pilate finds no case against Jesus and yet he follows the custom of asking the people who to release instead of releasing Jesus himself. There are some hard things to read in this…..
Today’s reading is John13:1-17 and 31b-35. What stands out to me most isn’t all the dialogue and action around the washing of the disciples feet. I’m a little surprised by that, probably because that’s what I’m most familiar with and the tradition held in the church I have attended through the years. I’ve had my feet washed…..
Today’s Gospel Reading is John 13:21-32, Jesus is having the Passover dinner in the upper room with his disciples. It’s a little bittersweet and sometimes I would just like to avoid this passage. But we can’t, there are too many lessons for us to learn. Lessons about love and friendship, lessons about choices, lessons about love and…..