Devotional

Christmas Homily As a young vaudeville actor Bob Hope found himself alone each Christmas. The grueling road schedule prevented him from returning to Cleveland for the holiday. Each Christmas morning Hope would think of his family worshiping at Euclid Avenue Presbyterian Church without him, followed by a family dinner of turkey and plum pudding. For the Hope household Christmas was family day, and Bob longed to join them around the hearth. In 1948 Senator Stuart Symington, a Democrat representing Missouri, asked Bob Hope to entertain American military personnel in Berlin with a special Christmas celebration. Never forgetting the loneliness he…

Christological Titles – Lord Thesis Eat your cornflakes! And Praise The Lord for this is truly the breakfast of champions! – the late eighteenth-century advertisement read. William Miller (1782-1849) was a fundamentalist Baptist preacher from Low Hampton, New York. A biblical literalist, his study of the scriptures in 1818 concluded that the “2,300-day prophecy” of Daniel (8:14) ought to be interpreted as “years.” Using a finely tuned self-conceived mathematical formula he calculated Christ would return on October 22, 1843. Miller, along with his followers, expecting the immediate advent of the Lord, became known as “Adventists,” and derogatorily referred to by…

Community He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation, for in] him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers—all things have been created through him and for him. He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together. He is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he might come to have first place in everything. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him God was pleased to…

See, I am going to bring them from the land of the north and gather them from the farthest parts of the earth, among them the blind and the lame, those with child and those in labor together; a great company, they shall return here. With weeping they shall come, and with consolations I will lead them back; I will let them walk by brooks of water, in a straight path where they shall not stumble, for I have become a father to Israel, and Ephraim is my firstborn. Jeremiah 31:8-9 STORY Seventeen-year-old Joni Eareckson, on July 30, 1967, dived off…

no devotional for this holiday

Religion In reading this, then, you will be able to understand my insight into the mystery of Christ, which was not made known to people in other generations as it has now been revealed by the Spirit to God’s holy apostles and prophets. This mystery is that through the gospel the Gentiles are heirs together with Israel, members together of one body, and sharers together in the promise in Christ Jesus. Ephesians 3: 4-6 (NIV) STORY Why is it that we practice a religion that has so little room for others? Can we ever forget the remark made by the Rev. Jerry…

Worship Around the throne, and on each side of the throne, are four living creatures, full of eyes in front and back: the first living creature like a lion, the second living creature like an ox, the third living creature with a face like a human, and the fourth living creature like a flying eagle. And the four living creatures, each of them with six wings, are full of eyes all around and inside. Day and night without ceasing they sing, “Holy, holy, holy, the Lord God the Almighty, who was and is and is to come.” And whenever the living creatures…

Resurrection 24 But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they went to the tomb, taking the spices that they had prepared. 2 They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, 3 but when they went in they did not find the body. 4 While they were perplexed about this, suddenly two men in dazzling clothes stood beside them. 5 The women were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here but has risen. 6 Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, 7 that the Son of…

Martyrdom When the Lamb broke the fifth seal, I saw underneath the altar the souls of those who had been slain because of the word of God, and because of the testimony which they had maintained Revelation 6:9 STORY Frederick Faber was born in 1814 in Yorkshire, England. He was ordained in 1843 as an Anglican priest in the Church of England. He became disillusioned when the Church of England began to emphasize piety and disavowing the necessity of liturgy as an avenue for understanding and receiving grace. Faber, along with many other Anglican priests, considered the Church of England…

Conversion 4 even though I, too, have reason for confidence in the flesh. If anyone else has reason to be confident in the flesh, I have more: 5 circumcised on the eighth day, a member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; 6 as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless. 7 Yet whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ. 8 More than that, I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my…