Posted by Ray Pritchard on 3.7.09 in Devotional, Lent
“Yet when he heard that Lazarus was sick, he stayed where he was two more days” (John 11:6).Think about that for a moment. Jesus is the Son of God with power to heal the sick, yet when he hears about Lazarus whom he loved, he did not rush to his side to heal him. It does make sense on the surface. If you love someone, and if you can hel…
Posted by Ray Pritchard on 3.6.09 in Devotional, Lent
Lent feels like a long journey, and it is meant to feel that way. We often start in late February when winter still has a firm grip, and it seems like the promise of Easter and the coming of spring are a long time away. And the very nature of Lent, with its emphasis on introspection, repentance and confession, can weigh upon us, especially in the e…
Posted by Ray Pritchard on 3.5.09 in Devotional, Lent
“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God” (Matthew 5:8).Peace never just happens. You have to go out of your way to make peace. That’s why Jesus said, “Blessed as the peacemakers”—not the peacewishers or the peacehopers. In a world torn by strife and fueled by hatred, we need Christians w…
Posted by Ray Pritchard on 3.4.09 in Devotional, Lent
“Someone touched me; I know that power has gone out from me” (Luke 8:46). That’s what Jesus said when the sick woman fought through the crowd to touch the hem of his garment. In some way that we don’t fully understand, Jesus was conscious of God’s power flowing out from him into the body of the woman. Power that had be…
Posted by Ray Pritchard on 3.3.09 in Devotional, Lent
“Conformed to the image of his Son” (Romans 8:29).How does the Father shape us into the image of his Son? A new Christian gave the answer with unusual insight. I pass it along for your consideration.I can see now that when I prayed for tolerance, God handed me a seemingly intolerable situation. When I prayed that God would show me …
Posted by Ray Pritchard on 3.2.09 in Devotional, Lent
Charles Hummel’s classic booklet called Tyranny of the Urgent begins with a simple question. “Have you ever wished for a thirty-hour day?” Heads nod all round. When Hummel first wrote his classic essay in 1967, he identified the telephone as among the chief offenders against a peaceful life. What would he say today about the Inter…
Posted by Ray Pritchard on 2.28.09 in Devotional, Lent
In an article about John Henry Newman’s Lenten sermons, Edward T. Oakes said that Newman had one theme that he returned to time and again:No one sins without making some excuse to himself for sinning. Somehow when I read that, my mind drifted back to a volleyball game more than thirty years ago. I remember that it happened after a churc…
Posted by Ray Pritchard on 2.27.09 in Devotional, Lent
Death may seem like a heavy topic for Lent but it is, after all, what Ash Wednesday is all about. When the worshipers come, they have a little bit of ash (usually taken from the burning of the palm crosses used in the previous year’s Palm Sunday) smudged on their forehead, sometimes in the sign of the cross. More importantly, the pastor then …
Posted by Ray Pritchard on 2.26.09 in Devotional, Lent
“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God” (Matthew 5:8). Think of these simple words. Pure.Heart.See.God.We know what those words mean individually, but put them together and we enter a new realm. How do I know if I am “pure in heart”? What does it mean to “see God”? And how should we put these phrases…
Posted by Ray Pritchard on 2.25.09 in Devotional, Lent
This is Day 1 of Lent, the forty days of preparation leading up to Easter, the day of ultimate celebration. A quick check of the Wikipedia entry will give you some helpful background. Note that in the Western tradition, Lent starts today with Ash Wednesday and continues until Holy Saturday, the day before Easter. Sundays are not counted as part of …
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