Sermons by Beth Anne Gray

Bio can go here.

Matthew, love thy neighbour, love your neighbour, compassion, forgiveness, patience, temperance

Devotional: Love Thy Neighbour

In a world that is full of anger and frustration, it’s easy to allow our resentments to simmer. Nonetheless, Jesus reminds us that we are called to be peacemakers.

We are asked to love all neighbors, irrespective of their race, creed, color, ethnicity, national origin, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender expression, age, height, weight, physical or mental ability, and marital status.

Making peace begins within:

Until we have taken the sty from our own eye, we cannot say that we will make peace for others in our neighborhood or community.

So, consider for a moment: what triggers you? 

What makes you angry when you read the news? Who do you feel threatened by? Which neighbors are you struggling to love?

The TRUTH will set us free:

What resentment or anger am I feeling today towards another that I have not forgiven and dealt with?

This is our starting point! Feeling angry or fearful does not feel spiritual. You may be tempted to ignore it. Perhaps you tell yourself “I shouldn’t feel this way” – but failing to deal with the truth of your emotions leads to living a lie. ]When we ignore what we are truly experiencing and fail to do the inner work, there will be no fruit.

When we feel anger – or a certain person or situation triggers us – we have an opportunity to do the inner work of forgiveness and letting go. The first step in healing is to acknowledge the truth of what we feel. Then, we can ask for forgiveness.

We are promised that all this will be taken from us and we will be renewed! But in order for healing to take place, we have to be willing to let it go.

Loving God in order to love another

If we say that we love God, and we fail to love our neighbor, we lie to ourselves!

Loving God is seeing everyone else around us through the eyes of God. Because when we love God with heart and soul and mind – our heart connects to another through God’s heart. When we love Gop with all our minds – our mind thinks about others as God does. When we love with all our soul – we see their soul as God does.

Journal prompts:

journal prompts, love thy neighbour, love your neighbour

If you have time, sit down and journal these questions and answers for yourself.

  • What situations in the news recently have triggered anger, resentment, fear, or frustration in me?
  • What is the emotion that I am truly feeling?
  • Does this emotion or feeling remind me of any person or situation in my past?
  • Is there something or someone in my past that I have not yet forgiven, that I need to release and let go so that the truth can set me free at this moment?
  • Now that I have forgiven this person – how do I feel about the current situation and news?
  • Have I forgiven myself for holding onto these emotions all this time?
  • Is there someone I need to ask forgiveness from?
  • Are there any other emotions that I need to acknowledge and release?
  • How can I express love and compassion this week?

Matthew 22:36-40 King James Version (KJV)

36 Master, which is the great commandment in the law?
37 Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.
38 This is the first and great commandment.
39 And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
40 On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

Thou shalt love thy neighbour, love the Lord with all your heart, soul, mind, patience, kindness, compassion

fire, tongue, tongues of fire, speech, words, powerful, power, thoughts, transform, transformation, child of God

The Tongue is a Fire

How many of us have heard the warning – play with fire and you will get burned? This morning, our reading from the book of James reminds us that the tongue is a fire – and it can consume us.  On the one hand, fire brings warmth, safety, clean drinking water and cooked food. But…

Trinity, father, son, holy spirit, holy ghost, creator, redeemer, comforter, mind, body, soul, spirit, Christ, Jesus

What does it mean to be a Christian?

I recently discovered some of the works and thoughts of the Russian writer, novelist and philosohper Fyodor Dostoyevsky.  He was an Orthodox Christian with a deep faith, a faith which had “a strong emphasis on giving Christian love a social application”. But what I really have treasured have been two quotes that I have found in…

definition, define, carpenter, Jesus, teacher, prophet. purpose, vision, passion, chosen, calling, vision, profession, belief, acts, affiliation, who are you

Just a Carpenter

Jesus – was he “just a carpenter”. How do you allow others to define you?
How many of you today have felt that you have just received a huge new learning, something that has truly transformed your life, and you share it at home — and no one is listening?

Or maybe you have started a new diet and it is really working for you… you are excited about it, and share it with those who know you best… and they just don’t get how important this discovery is for you? You may choose to allow yourself to be defined by what you do. You may choose to be defined by the expectations others have of you.

Noble cedars & humble mustard seeds

A few months ago I threw some avocado seeds into my compost bin, and now I’ve discovered I have a beautiful avocado seedling growing in my compost.  I’ve very happy about that – but all I did was throw it away! I was expecting to make compost, but now I am very pleased that I…

Trinity, father, son, holy spirit, holy ghost, creator, redeemer, comforter, mind, body, soul, spirit, Christ, Jesus

Finding God: the Trinity

Welcome to Trinity Sunday, where we celebrate the Oneness of the Three: Father, Son & Holy Spirit Creator, Word & Breath of Life Creator, Redeemer & Sustainer Invisible God, Firstborn of all Creation, & Comforter Omnipotence, Omniscience, & Omnipresence God with us, revealed in us: alive within us. This morning we read from Genesis 1:1-3:…

light, darkness, faith, light of hope, Balboa, English speaking, church, Sunday service, sermon, Thomas, John, doubts

Light, darkness & faith

We all know what it’s like when the lights go off inside our home, and we are left in the pitch black. Can we imagine what it was like before electricity, when a home was lit solely with candles? There was no staying up watching TV. There was no working late on the computer. Imagine,…

Mount up with wings like eagles, wait on the Lord, wait, rest, run, walk, weary, faint

Mount up with wings like eagles

Readings:  Isaiah 40: 21- 31 Mark 1: 29-39 Isaiah 40:21-31 New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) 21 Have you not known? Have you not heard?     Has it not been told you from the beginning?     Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth? 22 It is he who sits above the circle of the earth,     and its inhabitants…

Follow, Jesus, Christ, called, chosen, Phillip, Samuel, Here I am, members, fornication, Andrews, Peter, Nathanael, fig tree

Follow Me!

Readings: 1 Samuel 3: 1-20 1 Corinthians 6: 12-20 John 1: 43-51 Follow Me! Leave everything that you have and that you are doing, and follow me. I want you to imagine, for just a minute, that instead of Philip & Nathanael, that Jesus had called you that day in Galilee. What would you be…