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July 29, 2007

Be the Church, Part 3: Serve Humanity

This is part three of our summer series, “Be the Church”. In part one ("Connect with the Lord") we reviewed the seven basic components of a life in the church. Then last week, in part two ("Love One Another"), we...

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July 22, 2007

Be the Church, Part 2: Love One Another

This week, we are talking about how we can be the church to one another. In The Gospel of John, the Lord tells us, “By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.” A very powerful and important way we can keep this commandment is by supporting each other in one another's personal spiritual journeys. True Christian Religion teaches that the Church as a person's neighbor provides true teachings and good deeds by which that person enters the Lord's kingdom. If each of us is to be the church, then each of us is responsible for supporting our spiritual brothers and sisters as they try to understand truths and to do good deeds.

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July 15, 2007

Be the Church, Part 1: Connect with the Lord

here are seven things the Lord wants us to do: (1) Pray, (2) Read the Word, (3) Worship, (4) Repent, (5) Shun evils, (6) Serve other people, and (7) Regenerate, or be born again.

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July 8, 2007

Make Spiritual Victory a Habit (Matthew 11:30)

Leading a good life sometimes seems hard, but if we just make a habit of repenting then the Lord will do all the heavy lifting.

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May 20, 2007

God Speaks in Your Heart

“Then they said to one another, 'Here comes that dreamer!'” (Gen. 37:19) The Lord gives us dreams and stirs our affections for spiritual things, and for good reasons; we therefore must learn to trust Him and to dream with Him....

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February 25, 2007

How to Heal Spiritual Suffering

"And the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations." (Rev. 22:2b) Anyone can go to heaven, no matter what church they go to or what doctrines they are taught, so long as they try to shun...

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November 12, 2006

Exercise Alone Can't Cure a Heart Defect: The Ninth and Tenth Commandments

The Lord is waiting for permission to replace your heart with a pure one. This is because right thinking and useful living cannot overcome selfishness and greed on their own. We are all born with sick hearts, and no amount of exercise will save us. Spiritually healthy living is important, but without a spiritual heart transplant, we're still doomed.

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October 29, 2006

How Praising the Lord Frees Your Spirit

When you take credit for the good you do, you are stealing from the Lord and buying into the first and biggest of all lies: that you—and not the Lord—are the source of all life. Doing this leads to fear, anguish and suffering, because you also end up stealing the Lord's responsibility for all future good, which you cannot possibly hope to manage without disaster. If instead you learn to praise the Lord for every good thing, then you will find you are able to enjoy all the Lord's loving gifts with a new sense of freedom.

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October 22, 2006

Strengthen Your Relationships with Forgiveness

Beyond just warning us against physically adulterous relationships, the Lord commands us not to adulterate the truths from His Word. Put simply, He wants us to stop hurting each other with the truth. If you think about it, you will realize that most of the conflicts in your marriage, and in your other relationships, come from at least one person unforgivingly pursuing the need to be right. Don't put being right ahead of being merciful. Truth is a sword given to us for the sake of liberating ourselves and those around us; when we use it instead to attack people, we are whoring the Lord's Word. Repent of spiritual adultery and pray to the Lord for a forgiving heart.

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October 15, 2006

Love Your Neighbor by Shunning Evil in Your Heart

Murder is more than the malicious killing of a person's physical body. In the sermon on the mount, the Lord teaches us that there are degrees of murder. On the natural level, we first become angry, then contemptuous, and finally hateful, before we get around to physically murdering a person. Speaking spiritually, we also go through these stages with regard to a person's soul. At the deepest level, the same can be said for our relationship with the Lord. So that we do not walk down the path of spiritual murder, the Lord has given us not only an explanation of its degrees, but also a solution. We are to examine ourselves, looking to our motivations, and then ask the Lord to take the early seeds of murder from our hearts. Then we are to go out and do good in the world, for His sake and for the sake of our brothers and sisters.

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October 8, 2006

Thank the Lord and Your Neighbors, and Your Life Will Become Better

Honor your father and your mother. We are born helpless. The people who then raise us provide us with all we need, in ways we cannot at the time comprehend, and without any sort of repayment. In our spiritual lives, the Lord and His Church do the same. The fourth Commandment is a reminder to honor our natural and spiritual parents with gratitude and love. Do this, and you will be happier.

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September 24, 2006

How to Call Upon the Name of the Lord

The Lord wants you to pray. Why? Because in life there are evil things that get a grip on your heart and mind that you are powerless to break free from. The second of ten Rise Above It sermons on the Ten Commandments.

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September 10, 2006

Invest the Spiritual Wealth the Lord Has Loaned You

The truths of our faith are valuable, and the more of them we have, the more spiritually wealthy we are. But the truths do not belong to us, for they are on loan from the Lord. Using "The Parable of the Talents", the Lord has taught us that He expects us to invest this spiritual wealth for the sake of the world. If we accumulate truth without putting our faith to work in the world, it is as if we are burying the Lord's wealth in a hole in the ground. If we are good stewards over the Lord's riches and practice what He teaches, we will enter into the joy of heaven.

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September 3, 2006

Even Heaven Has Its Ups and Downs

In life we go through alternating states of cold and heat as we are being spiritually remade. What is more surprising is that even the angels in the highest heaven go through alternations of spiritual summer and spiritual winter. So, too, can we expect the Church to continually pass through such spiritual seasons. When we are in winter, it is not our failure but an opportunity for learning. Have faith in the coming of summer.

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August 6, 2006

You Can Heal Spiritual Suffering

Anyone can go to heaven, no matter what church they go to, no matter what doctrines they are taught, so long as they try to shun evils and live a life of charity. So why do people join the New Church if salvation isn’t “on the line”? To relieve suffering. The Lord is Love, and so He wants nothing more than for us to be happy. Yet, there is a lot of suffering in the world. We all suffer at one time or another, and if we’re not suffering now, it’s not hard for us to find someone around us who is. Some suffering is small, some is very great. And so, the Lord provides us with a way to be healed. The Book of Revelation ends with a beautiful image of the heavenly city New Jerusalem. In its midst grows the Tree of Life, about which we are told, “The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.” The city is an image of what the Lord’s New Church is meant to be like here, today. This final chapter of the Bible also presents an image of what each one of us is meant to be like. The “leaves of the tree” are the rational truths of the New Church, and “the nations” are all those people who suffer because of evil desires and false beliefs. Who of us does that not describe? So these “leaves”-these new, rational truths of the New Church-have the power to heal us when we suffer. This is no empty promise, as anyone who has experienced this in their own lives can tell you. So if you are suffering, turn to these new truths, and you will find relief. And if you have experienced the healing power for yourself already, then go out, and be a healer. The Lord has anointed you to preach the good news and heal the brokenhearted.

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July 23, 2006

How to Worship with Your Life

What does the Lord require of us, when it comes to worship? Why do we come to church? Why do we pray? Why do we read the Word? All these activities make up what might be called the life of piety. This sort of worship, though, is only external. The Lord has told us several times that vain repetitions, extravagant ritual and external worship in general is not what He is chiefly concerned with. External worship is merely a representative of-and support for-real worship. Internal, true worship is a life of charity. It is repenting, shunning evil, being useful, and doing good works for our neighbors. This doesn’t mean external ritual doesn’t matter. External worship is like clothing: we need it, but it can be changed. The only requirement is that it serve internal worship. Proper external worship is whatever ritual we choose that inspires, instructs and prepares us so that we may make our daily lives into continual, true worship, which is the life of charity.

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May 28, 2006

My Ordination (part 7 of 7): Reception

This part is a little bit cheesy, I'm afraid. It is a recording of the speeches given at the brief reception held on the lawn of the Bryn Athyn Cathedral right after the ordination service.

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My Ordination (part 6 of 7): Closing Music

This recording is merely the closing ritual and music at the end of the service.

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My Ordination (part 5 of 7): Sermon (Degrees of the Neighbor)

This is the sermon preached by the Rt. Rev. Thomas Leroy Kline, the Executive Bishop of the General Church of the New Jerusalem, and our ordaining priest.

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My Ordination (part 4 of 7): Interlude

This is an interlude that was played between the lessons read by we newly ordained ministers and the sermon preached by the Rt. Rev. Thomas L. Kline.

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My Ordination (part 3 of 7): Lessons (Luke 10.24-37; Mark 16; NJHD 89-91)

As a first official act as an ordained member of the priesthood of the New Church and as a minister under the General Church of the New Jerusalem, I read the first lesson in the service, right after my actual ordination.

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My Ordination (part 2 of 7): Ordinations (Vicente Nobre, Charles Blair, Scott Frazier, Glenn Frazier)

This is the mp3 that contains the actual ordination ceremonies. I was the last of the four. Plus: the complete text of my Confession of Faith and Declaration of Purpose.

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My Ordination (part 1 of 7): Opening

There are seven(!) files, altogether. This post links to the first one, containing the opening music.

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April 9, 2006

"Lord, Are You Washing My Feet?" part 2

For the podcast, for some reason only the children's talk portion of this sermon got picked up. So this separate entry contains the link to the adult talk that follows, so the podcast will carry both parts of the sermon....

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"Lord, Are You Washing My Feet?"

A sermon on dealing with the mess we often make of our external life, based on John 13:6b.

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December 5, 2005

Waiting for the Lord to Come (part 2)

This is the second half of the pre-advent sermon, "Waiting for the Lord to Come". The first half is in a previous post. ...

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Waiting for the Lord to Come

"Waiting for the Lord to Come" is a pre-Christmas sermon preached at Ivyland New Church, in Ivyland, Pennsylvania, on December 4th. This first post is the first reading, plus the children's talk. The rest of the readings and the adult...

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November 20, 2005

Get Ready (part 2)

And here is the main sermon, titled "Get Ready!". It follows the children's talk and first reading I just posted. It was preached just before Thanksgiving, and it addresses the beginning of the "Christmas Season". ...

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Get Ready

This sermon was preached the Sunday before Thanksgiving at Ivyland New Church, in Ivyland Pennsylvania. This is the children's talk, including the first reading. The adult talk will be posted next. ...

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November 6, 2005

My Mouth Shall Speak Praise (part 2)

And here is the full adult message from the November 6 service at Ivyland, PA. It follows the children's talk already posted here....

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My Mouth Shall Speak Praise (part 1)

Here's the children's talk from the third of my Ivyland sermons. The message for adults follows. ...

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October 23, 2005

My Sheep Hear My Voice (part 2)

Here's the audio of a sermon I preached in Ivyland. This follows a children's talk already posted here. A full text version of this sermon will be added when I get the time. ...

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My Sheep Hear My Voice (part 1)

Here's the audio of a sermon I preached in Ivyland. This is the children's talk (which, strangely, got clipped at the beginning); the adult sermon will be in the next post. ...

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October 9, 2005

Blind Bartimaeus (Mark 10:46-e)

The story of Jesus healing Blind Bartimaeus teaches us what we need to do when we are spiritually blind. We are spiritually blind when we cannot see the truth, either because of ignorance, because of false teachings, or even because of our own evil desires.

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