O Give Thanks Unto the Lord!

“Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever.” Psalm 136:1While Thanksgiving Day is not a festival on the Church’s calendar, it is central to the Church’s life. Thanksgiving Day may not be celebrated across the border in Canada or among sister congregations across the...

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Thankful in All Circumstances

“Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.”1 Thessalonians 5:18The person who taught me about thankfulness the most was not a pastor or seminary professor, but a young mother of two. As a new pastor, I visited this young woman who...

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Songs of Thankfulness and Praise

“Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God.” Colossians 3:16“Songs of Thankfulness and Praise” is not just an Epiphany hymn, but also the joyful response of the saints to God...

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Grateful Receiving

“Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe…”  Hebrews 12:28The Christian life is one of receiving from God innumerable blessings of body and soul. The primary way that we know God is through His...

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The Power of the Growing Seed

"And he said, 'The kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed on the ground.  He sleeps and rises night and day, and the seed sprouts and grows; he knows not how.  The earth produces by itself, first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in...

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Recklessly Sowing the Seed

“A sower went out to sow his seed. And as he sowed, some fell along the path and was trampled underfoot, and the birds of the air devoured it. And some fell on the rock, and as it grew up, it withered away, because it had no moisture.  And some fell among thorns, and...

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Doing the Word of God

“Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock.” Matthew 7:24 The Word of God does what it says, as we were reminded last week.  However, Christians who believe the Word of God are to...

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God’s Word Does What It Says

“For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return...

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Confidence in God’s Living and Abiding Word

“Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart, since you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God; for “All flesh is like grass and all its glory like...

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Held Together

“Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so...

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