All of us are called to a beautiful existence, being priests of, and evangelists to, the created order through Jesus Christ our Lord. A life of beauty is alluring and winsome to our world that is so devoid of such beauty, and living lives of beauty, goodness and truth is truly the hope for our...Read More
“And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly; and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down upon the ground.” Luke 22:44, RSV Over the years, as I have read or listened to this passage in the account of Jesus praying in the Garden of Gethsemane, the extreme anguish that our Lord...Read More
Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, Who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he...Read More
I have prepared a daily devotional guide for use during the season of Lent. This year’s guide contains all new material, and references John Bunyan’s classic allegory The Pilgrim’s Progress. You can learn more about the book and purchase it at the website of the First Presbyterian Church of Orlando.Read More
Today is Ash Wednesday, the start of the season of Lent. Lent is forty-seven days set aside for letting God renew us through self-denial and self-examination, casting off those habits and practices which lead to less than favorable results, and taking on those habits and practices that contribute to our spiritual, social and even physical...Read More
Lent is the time to identify a power working against us and crucify it with Christ and bury it in the tomb, never to be raised again. . . . [Fasting] controls the passion for food in order to deal with a passion of another sort that holds us in its grip. The purpose of...Read More
Lent . . . calls us back to God, back to basics, back to the spiritual realities of life. It calls on us to put to death the sin and the indifference we have in our hearts toward God and our fellow persons. And it beckons us to enter once again into the joy of...Read More
This article was printed in Reformed Worship in December of 2006. In the ancient church, pilgrims came to Jerusalem during Holy Week to follow the path that Jesus walked during his last days of suffering and to meditate on the final events of his earthly life. Gradually a tradition developed around the course of events...Read More
