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Dedicating our own lives to...

Illustration
First Sunday after Christmas Day - C
1 Samuel 2:18-20, 26
Dedicating our own lives to God is one thing. Dedicating someone else's life is a different matter. People get all glassy-eyed at Hannah's giving her child, Samuel, into God's service. They don't realize that today no one wants that done to them -- to be donated into a holy child slavery.

A much better approach to one's children for God's sake was taken by Charlotte M. When each of her children was born, she vowed to pray for them five minutes a day. She vowed to take them regularly to worship. She vowed to listen carefully and to speak to them respectfully.

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New & Featured This Week

The Immediate Word

Thomas Willadsen
Bethany Peerbolte
Mary Austin
Christopher Keating
Ron Love
George Reed
Dean Feldmeyer
For June 16, 2019:
  • Lover. Beloved. Love. by Tom Willadsen — The concept of the Trinity is imperfect, incomplete and mysterious. Words can never fully express what it means that God is in “three persons,” as the song goes. Still, there is benefit for Christians to imagine God in this way. (Aren’t you glad Trinity Sunday is only once a year?)

Emphasis Preaching Journal

David Coffin
Who is the God of our congregation? How is this God made known in the community? These two questions get at the core of the existence and operation of any congregation. The texts of Trinity Sunday could be used as an opportunity to explore church history and the creedal controversies. In the congregations that I have served, such deep, doctrinal sermons on the history of the Triune God will result in glassy eyed parishioners who wonder if they will have to confess the Athanasian Creed.
Bonnie Bates
Bill Thomas
Frank Ramirez
Bob Ove
Ron Love
Mark Ellingsen
Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31
Wisdom is vividly and dramatically personified as she speaks in this chapter of Proverbs. This is an historically challenging text. Arius used this verse from the Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures, which puts the phrase like this: The Lord created me at the beginning of His way. Arius argued that Jesus is the wisdom of God, and this verse spoke of his creation. If he was created, then he had a beginning and was not eternal, and if not eternal, he was not God.

StoryShare

David O. Bales
Contents
“The Spirit’s Guidance” by David O. Bales
“I Tertius, The Writer Of This Letter (Romans 16:22)” by David O. Bales


The Spirit’s Guidance
by David O. Bales
John 16:12-15

CSSPlus

Arley K. Fadness
“When the Spirit of Truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth...” (v. 13a)

Hello children,

The Village Shepherd

Janice B. Scott
Mary Louise was a little bit lonely. Not completely lonely, but just a little bit. With no brothers or sisters, Mary Louise spent quite a lot of time playing by herself. Although not completely by herself, for Mary Louise had a number of silent companions, who were a great comfort to her.

Every night when she went to bed, Mary Louise would line up her silent companions on the foot of the bed, and give them a big kiss. Then she'd sigh happily, climb into bed and fall asleep very quickly, for she knew her silent companions were looking out for her.

SermonStudio

April Yamasaki
In 1980, NBC introduced a new television game show called Chain Reaction. Since then, the show has appeared in different forms, but the main idea has always been for different teams to fill in a chain of words. For example, the first word in a four-word chain might be "light," the last word "spring," with the team needing to guess the two words in-between. In this case, "light" comes from a light "bulb," and out of the bulb grows a "daffodil," which comes up in the "spring." It's a chain reaction of words, where one word leads to another, and "light" turns into "spring."

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