The Apostle Paul wrote that he was "convinced that He [the Lord] is able to guard what I have entrusted to Him for that day" (2 Timothy 1:12). Likewise, I trust that the Holy Spirit will continue to work in me toward full sanctification. That is my assurance, my security. It is about His love and His power, not anything I can do. I have work to do, but as Jesus told His disciples, the work He requires is easy and the burden is light...
Read moreSince He is omniscient, lives in eternity, and is not limited by our space-time constraints, God knew even before His creation of the universe exactly what would happen to His Only Begotten Son on one special weekend outside Jerusalem-- and so from the beginning He made Saturday a Holy Sabbath Day of rest, silence, prayer, and waiting on God.
Read more(Written by Brian Stableford from his Sherlock/Mycroft Holmes pastiche story entitled "Art in the Blood", 2003).
The trained scientist in me totally understands and can identify with these words. I want to know the answers to all the hardest questions. I seek, and increasingly, I find. It gives me a sense of security, even a false sense of control. But then of course it all breaks down when a mysterious killing horror (like the COVID-19) breaks into my reality.
Read moreAnd while the censer later swung helped mask the odor, I wondered whether the fragrance also shielded our eyes from his hurts.
Read more"He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not" (Isaiah 53:2b-3).
Read moreSo... I can trust no one... but does that lead me to live in fear and hiding? Must I become a hermit or constantly live with attitude of self-defense? Not at all. This is because there is one Person that I can completely trust, and that is our triune God.
Read moreI am going to bracket "The Sacrifice," with two other poems by Herbert that bear on the theme of the day. The first is titled "The Agony." Herbert was highly educated in the Greek and Latin classics and was elected Orator of Cambridge University, a post he gave up in order to enter the parish ministry where he served in the village of Bemerton, outside Salisbury.
Forgiveness of sins has been partnered with repentance and baptism from the days of John the Baptist. On Easter night, the Risen Lord breathed on the apostles and promised: "Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you withhold forgiveness from any, it is withheld" (John 20:22b-23).
Read moreEASTER OCTAVE: DAY ONE
By Stephen Noll
https://contendinganglican.org/2019/04/12/easter-octave-day-one/
April 12, 2019
PALM SUNDAY: THE CROWN AND THE CROSS
Note: I preached this Palm Sunday 2001 sermon at Makerere University in Kampala shortly after we arrived in Uganda. The text is Luke 19:28-40.
The Palm Sunday Procession
Read moreBut as bad as I may have it, nothing compares to the indignity which Mary and Joseph endured, traveling 90 miles in a late term pregnancy to be enrolled (taxed in the King James), or the burden which first century Jews bore paying taxes to a foreign empire, all so that some semblance of peace could be imposed on them.
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