As a small child, we are taught a few emotional expressions. We all learn happy, sad, angry and surprised at a young age. The natural maturation process eventually teaches us that all things are not so simple. Sometimes good news has a sting to it, or we take bad news and try to find the silver lining. When a terminally ill child passes away, sometimes there is comfort in knowing he will no longer suffer. Or the opposite may be true; a child leaving for college or getting married is an exciting occasion, but also sad in a way for the parents staying behind in the empty nest. I’m not sure MySpace or WordPress have an emoticon for bittersweet. Continue reading
Tag Archives: prayer
A Benediction
Now go into the world in peace,
Have courage;
Hold on to what is good.
Strengthen the fainthearted;
support the weak;
help the suffering;
and share the gospel.
Love and serve the Lord in the power of the Holy Spirit.
And may the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all.
Amen
Where’s the Love?
I wanted to share this classic video from the Blayed Eyed Peas, but the best I can do is show a preview. You can click this link to watch the entire video. There’s a lot of Gospel in this pop.
Vodpod videos no longer available.
posted with vodpod
Very busy
This is a very busy week!!! I’ve driven a bus for our baseball team twice this week, did Wednesday night with church youth, and I’m taking a group of kids to Bible drill Friday night. Yeah, they still have Bible drill where I live. It’s like I died and went to the 50’s. A group of our local kids qualified for like a regional thing. We’re driving 2 hours for this. ANYWAY, very busy, little time for blogging, let’s hit it.
Today was May 1st. It was RSS Awardness Day, and I didn’t make up a new post for it last night. Click here to read up on RSS, then tell a friend. Most bloggers already know about it, but the vast majority of internet users do not.
May 1st is also the National Day of Prayer each year. I knew there would be events all over the country, but haven’t heard of any that made news so far. Often, the only news I get is what my students see in first period each day; and what I read in blogs, yeah, there’s that.
Pray Without Ceasing (part 4 of 4)
Pray without ceasing means that we are continually in a spirit of communion with our Heavenly Father. It means to pray frequently, about everything, until it becomes our nature to be in prayer, not something we have to be reminded of.
Jesus not only taught his disciples to pray, but we see in the gospels how important pray was in Jesus’ own life. On one occasion, we read that Jesus gets up early in the morning, while it is still night, and goes off by himself to pray. Another time, we find that Jesus has stayed up the entire night in prayer. Even Jesus, who was God incarnate, spent time alone with God in prayer. There is no way we can be so close to God that prayer isn’t necessary. The night before his arrest, Jesus prayed in agony until his sweat became as great drops of blood. Jesus was passionate about a lot of things, but he never did anything else until it nearly killed him the way he spent this evening in prayer. Continue reading
Teach Us to Pray (part 3 of 4)
I found out that I couldn’t make just one post and say everything I wanted about prayer. I was afraid of that. On this occasion, let’s look at what we commonly call The Lord’s Prayer as Jesus’ example of how we are to pray. This is the prayer he taught his followers.
“Our Father which art in heaven,” addresses the Father to let him know we are speaking to him, and reminds us who it is we pray to. The relationship is constantly before us; he is our father, and we are his children. We are children of the adoption, having been bought with a price and redeemed. “Hallowed be thy name,” since his name is holy and above all names. If we daily pray this prayer, not using God’s name in vain is almost guaranteed. “Thy kingdom come,” is both a request that God come quickly into this world, and reminds us that the kingdom of God is presently being built. We are a part of that. Continue reading
Read the Bible and pray (part 1 of 4)
Weren’t we all told this as children? Perhaps as a new believer the pastor shook your hand and encouraged you to read the Bible every day. As basic as it sounds, as obvious as it seems to any believer, these two activities are the cornerstones of a close walk and fellowship with our Heavenly Father. But do we practice them?
This is an introduction to a series on reading the scriptures and praying. Continue reading
The Master's Table 