"peace" Tagged Sermons

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

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…

light, Holy Spirit, spirit, godly, saintly, Christian, Christ, Jesus, filled, repentance

Let there be light

Readings: Genesis 1: 2-3 …And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. 3 And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. Mark 1:4-11 4 John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.  … 8 I have baptized you with water; but he…

called, chosen, anointed, Moses, Cyrus, Isaiah, prophets, Christians, purpose, calling, church

Called & Chosen

Readings: Exodus 33: 12-17 Isaiah 45: 1-7 1 Thessalonians 1: 1-7 Most of us know the story of Moses and his encounter with God at the burning bush, found in Exodus chapter 3, verses 1 to 17.  Although Moses was Jewish, he had been cast as a baby into the Nile River in a woven…

mindset, thoughts, habits, mental, words, verses, Word of God, actions, God, Jesus, Christian

Your mindset

When you say “I’m going to trust God and I’m not going to worry about ‘this'”, guess what your mind thinks about? Usually not about trusting God: in fact, it starts worrying about ‘THIS’! It’s especially the same thing when you are upset about something that someone else said or did, you mind just plays it over, time and time again. You try to focus on something else, and it the anger or frustration or hurt bubbles back up to the surface and you replay once again the whole scenario!

“Well, I’m just not going to think about that right now!”

How’s that workin’ for you?

The mind can be so fickle – it has to be trained to focus!
Is you mind set on Christ and God within? Have you set your mind on the Spirit, which is life and peace?

Our challenge, as Christians, is to have the discipline to set our minds on “things of the Spirit”, as expressed in Romans 8.

love, neighbour, true love, neighbor, God, God's love

If you really loved me…

Lectionary: Acts 16:9-15 Psalm 67 Revelation 21:10, 22-22:5 John 14:23-29 or John 5:1-9 If you really loved me… Recently I was listening to a presentation by Jim Rohn, where he was talking about measuring our personal progress – about how each of us, no matter how young or old, should be growing and progressing. We…

words, tongue, gossip, truth, think, feelings, criticism, self-control, speak, control

We all stumble in many ways

If you asked me to name my favourite book of the Bible, I would be hard-pressed to choose between Proverbs and James.  This could be because James seems to be so knowledgeable about Proverbs.  The book of James is quite short:  it has only five chapters and is known for its practical wisdom and common sense.…

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Put on the full armour of God…

Lectionary: Ephesians 6:10-20 The Bible depicts countless battles. From Genesis to Revelation,  from the time Cain killed his brother Abel, right down to the present day and even into the predicted future and the Apocalypse. In fact, it is estimated that more than 14,500 wars have been fought from 3600 B.C. to present day. Think…