Following Jesus is most likely not going to make you wealthy, it doesn’t guarantee that you’re going to be healthy but the message here and in the Gospel is that Jesus is enough. Following Christ will not mean that everything goes right, but following Him means that you know, that you acknowledge and accept that He is enough no matter what.
” that we may perfectly love thee, and worthily magnify thy holy Name; through Christ our Lord. Amen.”
The brilliance of Cranmer’s “Collect for Purity” reaches its magnificent summit in the final clauses of the prayer, moving the worshipper from a posture of desperate confession into a breath-taking vision of holy devotion.
“cleanse the thoughts of our hearts”
Just as the Spirit of God hovered over the chaotic waters at the dawn of creation to bring forth life and order, we are asking that same Holy Spirit to hover over the chaotic waters of our internal thoughts.
“all hearts are open…”
We are remarkably adept at dressing up our selfish ambitions in highly pious language, perhaps trying to convince both ourselves and our fellow parishioners that our desperate prayer for a lucrative promotion is solely so we might give more to the church building fund, when Jesus is perfectly aware we simply fancy a slightly nicer car.
For centuries prior to the English Reformation, the ordinary men and women who gathered in the great cathedrals and modest parish churches of England experienced the liturgy as a distant spectacle rather than an intimate communion
When Jesus stepped away from the pressing crowds to deliver His most famous sermon, He was speaking directly to a small group of disciples whose rough, working-class backgrounds naturally prepared them to understand the harsh realities of worldly poverty.
Theological libraries across the globe are groaning under the sheer weight of scholarly volumes dedicated to the Sermon on the Mount, with countless academics dissecting every Greek syllable to uncover the deepest nuances of what was spoken on that hillside.
The unalterable Persian decree of death is a striking picture of the reality of human sin and the spiritual law that dictates the wages of sin is death. God, being perfectly just, cannot simply pretend that this spiritual law does not exist, and the sentence of death hangs over humanity.
“Oh death where is thy sting?” Then Jesus, crying out with a loud voice, said, Father, into your hands I commend my spirit. And having said this, he breathed his last. Luke 23:46 I’ve never really delved into the structure of this sentence in Luke before in too much detail Read more
Watching Spielberg’s Disclosure Day, I felt the “spine-tingling” pull of the unknown, but as a reformed anglican, I see a devalued humanity. Is the “Alien Hypothesis” a spiritual diversion? From “nothingburger” UFO files to the elevation of empathy over truth, I explore why our unique place in God’s story remains unshaken by cinematic disclosures.