Category Archives: Worship

Sunday, April 6, 2025
Sermon on the Mount:
Gates & Paths

Yea, though I walk through the
valley of death, I will fear no evil.
Psalm 23:4

Reflect, Resonate, Reevaluate, Respond

Pursue some path, however narrow and crooked, in which you can walk with love and reverence.
~ Henry David Thoreau, American poet, philosopher and naturalist (1817-1862)

Jesus went before us on the narrow path along which He beckons us to follow him.
~ Rose Phillipine Duchesne, French saint and educator (1769-1852)

~~~~~~~~ Matthew 7:13-14 ~~~~~~~~

The narrow path had opened up suddenly onto the edge of a great black lake. Perched atop a high mountain on the other side, its windows sparkling in the starry sky, was a vast castle with many turrets and towers.
~ J.K. Rowling, Author, 1965-

An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity.
~ Martin Luther King, minister and civil rights activist (1929-1968)

Anybody who has been engaged seriously in scientific work of any kind realized that over the entrance to the gates of the temple of science are written the words: ‘Ye must have faith’.
~ Max Planck, German quantum physicist and Nobel Prize winner (1858-1947)

The best and sweetest flowers of paradise God gives to His people when they are upon their knees. Prayer is the gate of heaven.
~ Thomas Brooks, Puritan preacher (1608-1680)

Promptings for us to do good come from the Holy Ghost. These promptings nudge us further along the straight and narrow path of discipleship. The natural man doesn’t automatically think of doing good. It isn’t natural. How many people worry about the car behind them or the person below them? The natural man just doesn’t do it. For us, however, these promptings enlarge our awareness of other people’s needs and prod us to act accordingly.
~ Neal A. Maxwell, American educator and religious leader in LDS, (1926-2004)

Sunday, March 30, 2025
Sermon on the Mount:
Relationship

Anxiety is love’s greatest killer.
~ Anais Nin

Reflect, Resonate, Reevaluate, Respond

Jesus is referring, not to official lawcourts, but to the judgments and condemnations that occur within ordinary lives, as people set themselves up as moral guardians and critics of one another.
~ N.T. Wright, 1948- , former bishop of Durham

The current popular notion that judging others is in itself a sin leads to such inappropriate maxims as, “I’m okay and you’re okay.” It encourages a conspiracy of moral indifference which says, “If you never tell me that anything I’m doing is wrong, I’ll never tell you that anything you’re doing is wrong.”
~ Elisabeth Elliot, 1926-2015, from Leadership Vol. 3, no. 1

~~~~~~~~ Matthew 7:1-12 ~~~~~~~~

Remember particularly that you cannot be a judge of anyone. For no one can judge a criminal until he recognizes that he is just such a criminal as the man standing before him, and that he perhaps is more than all men to blame for that crime. When he understands that, he will be able to be a judge. Though that sounds absurd, it is true.
~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky, 1821-1881, The Brothers Karamazov

To be alive is to be addicted, and to be alive and addicted is to stand in need of grace.
~ Gerald G. May, 1940-2005, American psychologist and theologian

We cannot prioritize our doing before being, our assignment before healing, our service before freedom.
~ Rebekah Lyons, author of You Are Free

The cynic is one who never sees a good quality in a man, and never fails to see a bad one.
~ Henry Ward Beecher, 1813-1887, clergyman, social reformer

It is a simple, straightforward, and often neglected fact: The opposite of love is not hate. The opposite of love is fear. It is just that basic. For fear is the breeding ground—the simmering cauldron so to speak—of all the resentments, bitterness, anger, and destructive behaviors that constitute and give rise to hate. It doesn’t matter whether our hatred targets others or is turned inward in a form of self-loathing. The opposite of love is not hate. The opposite of love is fear.
~ Bishop Robert O’Neill, Episcopal priest