Articles Tagged 'Joy'

Until...

I dreamed of traveling the world, getting married, and sailing off into the horizon. And I am, only it's a whole lot nittier and grittier than I imagined.

Melissa Troyer looks at her life, the gray in hair, the wrinkles around her eyes, and reflects that things are not quite what she dreamed, but then, in a way, they are better and God is not through with her yet.

Resurrection!

Have you read the story lately? Are you celebrating life made new by our resurrected Savior?

A Bible description of Jesus' resurrection taken from a harmony of the Gospels.

Thankful for Our Greatest Gift

God has blessed us with many gifts, but the greatest of all gifts was God coming to us in Jesus of Nazareth!

Christmas card and thank you from the Heartlight.org and VerseoftheDay.com team.

Be an Agent of Happiness

The people in our world can be moody, fickle, and stubborn and Jesus wants us to bring joy to them!

Max Lucado reminds us that we are God's agents of joy in our lonely planet full of discouraged people.

ToGather: Interrupting the Silence of Foolishness (April 17, 2022)

Before Jesus’ resurrection, to believe in a crucified savior was a ridiculous and foolish!

Demetrius Collins and Phil Ware combine to bless us with a powerful Resurrection Sunday message on Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection and the power God blesses us with to triumph over sin and death.

Learning About Life in the Middle of Death?

He just stared for a moment, then reached up, kissed the forehead, and touched the hand of the women in the casket.

Ron Rose reminds us of the value of being family and friends in the face of death and realizing that we are learning as much about life as we are about death!

God of Fresh Starts

Hope is an olive leaf — evidence of dry land after a flood.

Max Lucado reminds us that the God of hope gives us fresh starts just as he did to Noah with the olive leaf and the dove.

Merry Christmas!

We pray the Lord blesses you with the grace of Jesus' presence this Christmas!

Merry Christmas blessing

ToGather: Leaving an Enduring Legacy through Christmas (December 19, 2021)

The enduring legacy we want to leave at Christmas is our lasting trust in God to deliver us from darkness and to lead us into the grace of his goodness by being present with us in Jesus!

Demetrius Collins and Phil Ware lead us in a virtual, DIY, worship through words and music using YouTube videos to call us to recognize God's great love that led Jesus to come to earth and live as one of us to save us and show us how to live.

Our Intersection with Joy

God's long story of grace intersected the mess of our world, and the rest of this story is our good news of great joy.

James Nored on video and Phil Ware with words remind us that the circumstances of the moment can be swallowed up in the greater joy of God's long story of grace that came to us in Jesus of Nazareth.

Blessed Thanksgiving!

The prayers of the Heartlight.org and VerseoftheDay.com team pray that you have a blessed Thanksgiving!

The Heartlight.org and VerseoftheDay.com team gives thanks for you and prays you have a blessed Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving!

How do we keep our concerns for the future and our hardships from the last two years of Covid 19 from stealing the joy of our Thanksgiving?

Phil Ware reminds us to keep thanksgiving a part of our daily lives even though we face challenging times, difficult circumstances, and discouraging realities.

ToGather: Cheerful Generosity (November 7, 2021)

Why we should we be thankful, cheerful, and generous in a world full of negativity!

Demetrius Collins and Phil Ware lead us in a virtual, DIY, worship through words and music using YouTube videos to call us to live generous lives of grace where we are joyful recipients of God's grace and cheerfully generous in our acts of mercy.

Izuba Talibbili

Botiyasi just stood there a moment, speechless. He choked, then cleared his throat. Kneeling beside his friend, he spoke the request the old man coveted.

Roy and Kathi Merritt share a beautiful story of love and conversion from Zambia and a servant of God named Botiyasi.

I Remember Mimi as the Fireflies Dance

I still remember the feeling of holding my mouth perfectly still while she put lipstick on my lips, the smell of the old wig on my head making me want to sneeze.

Melissa Troyer shares her memories of her grandmother, Mimi Margaret, and tells her children about the safest place of her childhood.

When Easter Feels Messy

Maybe your Easter was picture perfect and everything you hoped it would be. Or, maybe you found yourself too far away to see or hear anything clearly.

Melissa Troyer shares her busy and messy Easter morning when she arrived in a mess and exhausted from the messiness of the morning only to meet Jesus there.

Overcoming the Greater Pandemic: Finder and Mender

God's people have been in lost places before our time. They made it safely through their wilderness to better times and better places.

James Nored in video and Phil Ware with words reminds us that God is the finder and mender of lost and broken things and lost and broken people.

ToGather.church is Ready!

You're invited worship with us!

Dr. Demetrius Collins and Phil Ware invite you to join us for our Sunday Verse of the Day home worship guide and videos, called ToGather.church!

Until We Find Our Dream

What an incredible story of transformation from an atheist to a Christian missionary in primitive Papua, New Guinea, and it is the real

James Nored and Phil Ware share in video and words the wonder of Jesus’ birth and how it changed the world with the Sound of Music and tie this to the New Year with New Hope prayer hour.

Our Intersection with Joy

God's long story of grace intersected the mess of our world, and the rest of this story is our good news of great joy.

James Nored on video and Phil Ware with words remind us that the circumstances of the moment can be swallowed up in the greater joy of God's long story of grace that came to us in Jesus of Nazareth.

To the Ends of the Earth

God uses the most amazing connections and people to fulfill his promises to bless all people!

James Nored and Phil Ware share Jesus' plan to reach all peoples, like the Ethiopian Nobleman and the people in the farthest reaches of the earth, with the goodness of grace.

Lord, Teach Us to Pray: Abba Father

How do we combine both reverence and familiarity, respect and intimacy?

Phil Ware and Doug Peters remind us what it means to pray to God as our Abba Father and then give us some pratical ways that we can experience God as Abba in our prayer life.

Jesus Came to Be One of Us! (SOR 4.1)

God didn't come to our world as a heavenly tourist with special arrangements to keep him safe and to give him special treatment in his journey through mortality with all its grit and danger.

James Nored and Phil Ware remind us to push past the glittering lights of Christmas and see that God came to be one of us in the gritty and dangerous birth of Jesus of Nazareth to a virgin named Mary and her faithful to Torah husband to be, Joseph the car

Beyond Our Impatience, Loneliness, and Fear

What if loneliness has an invitation for a great discovery about God?

Max Lucado reminds us that discovering God's love for us in Jesus, his perfect love, helps us overcome our feelings of loneliness, impatience, and fear.

The Power Behind Our Story

Jesus walked triumphantly out of the tomb and transformed the lives of defeated and afraid friends into world-changing witnesses!

Phil Ware and James Nored remind us that the center of our faith is Jesus' resurrection and that the Lord's resurrection from the grave has changed everything.