Psalm 32:1-5: Blessed is the one whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered.  Blessed is the one whose sin the Lord does not count against them and in whose spirit is no deceit. When I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night your hand was heavy on me; my strength was sapped as […]
3140) Prayers of Confession Read More »
Painting above: Paul and the Jailer *******************************    (…continued)  In his book Radical Son, David Horowitz confessed his sins to the whole world– but how about to God? Did Horowitz ever pray that prayer of the tax collector, “God be merciful to me a sinner?”    It doesn’t look like he did. Horowitz
3040) Open Your Heart (3/3) Read More »
Painting above: The Pharisee and the Publican, James Tissot, 1894 *******************************    (…continued)  There is still another factor to add, and that is the influence of God and the devil.  “I can’t help it,” said a popular comedian many years ago, “the devil made me do it.”  The Bible does indeed talk about how
3039) Open Your Heart (2/3) Read More »
   David Horowitz died on April 29th of this year at the age of 86. It was the end of a most interesting life.    Horowitz told his story in his 1998 book Radical Son. Sixty years ago he was a central figure in the revolutionary student movement in the United States.  He
3038) Open Your Heart (1/3) Read More »
From The Word for Every Day, by Alvin Rogness, page 63, © 1981 Augsburg Publishing House    Let me say at the outset that I don’t always feel the need to repent and be forgiven.  I believe I need to be; I know I do, because the Scriptures say very clearly that I do.
3037) Why Do I Need to Repent? Read More »
   Today’s meditation is brief, but it requires a slow and prayerful reading.  It is taken from the book A Diary of Private Prayer by John Baillie (1949).  This book contains 62 prayers, one for every morning and evening of the month.  It is one of the resources I use every day in my own personal
2922) A Prayer for Self-Examination and Confession Read More »
By Fred Craddock (1928-2015), Craddock Stories, ed. by Mike Graves and Richard F. Ward, 2001, Chalice Press, pages 101-102. ————————-    I remember the first time I went to a minister to talk about something personal; it was tough as toenails.  It was hard to go and talk to a minister.    I had
2790) What Are You Carrying Around? Read More »
   (continued…)  The next day one of the nurses saw her pastor who was visiting one of his parishioners in the same hospital.  She asked if he would stop in to see the woman, and he agreed to do so.  He went into her room and introduced himself and asked if she wanted
2700) Deathbed Confession (b) Read More »
   I heard this story from another Lutheran pastor.  I will tell it as I remember it, filling in the conversation a bit as I go– but this was the gist of it.    A middle-aged woman was dying of cancer in a big city hospital.  She received no visitors, and she was
2699) Deathbed Confession (a) Read More »
By Scott Hubbard, posted July 3, 2019, at: http://www.desiringgod.org    Very few of us fail to learn, at some point in our growing-up years, the fine art of the fake apology.    We have spoken a careless word to a friend, for example. Conscience lays a millstone of guilt upon our shoulders, but
2029) God Does Not Forgive ‘Buts’ Read More »
