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This past weekend at Eastbrook, I preached a message, "Looking Back and Stepping Forward," which was a stand-alone message for the new year. I shared some practices - looking back at the past year and stepping forward into the new year - that have helped me most over the years to close out one …
Continue reading "Looking Back and Stepping Forward: a new year’s message"
Many of us make resolutions for growth and change in the New Year. Unfortunately, statistics show that most of these resolutions do not hold for long or really make much long-term change. I believe this is in large part because we do not include the Living God in this process of resolution, and also because …
Continue reading "New Year: Questions for growth, reflection, and prayer"
O God, we thank you for this earth, our home; For the wide sky and the blessed sun, For the salt sea and the running water, For the everlasting hills And the never-resting winds, For trees and the common grass underfoot. We thank you for our senses By which we hear the songs of birds, …
Continue reading "A Thanksgiving Prayer of Walter Rauschenbusch"
Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; his love endures forever. Let the redeemed of the Lord tell their story. (Psalm 107:1-2) Thankfulness begins with our attention on the right sort of object. The object presented to us in Psalm 107 is God Himself. We read that God is Yahweh – the Savior, …
This is my final post in a series on Paul's letter to the Philippians. As he concludes his letter to the Philippians, Paul offers some final 'secrets' to living well for God. The first is to "rejoice in the Lord always" (4:4). This echoes Paul's theme of thankfulness from chapter one, that there is a …
Matthew Erickson 