Synonyms: renounce, relinquish, dispense with, forswear, disclaim, disown, disavow, discard, wash one's hands of, give up, stop, cease, drop, forgo, desist from, have done with, abjure, abstain from, discontinue, break off, refrain from, set/lay aside, desert, leave, leave high and dry, turn one's back on, cast aside, break (up) with, vacate, quit, evacuate, withdraw from, surrender, cede, yield, indulge in, give way to, give oneself up to, yield to, lose oneself to/in, uninhibitedness, recklessness, lack of restraint, lack of inhibition, unruliness, wildness, impulsiveness, impetuosity, immoderation, wantonness
Antonyms: keep, claim, continue, stick by, self-control, power through, achieve, defend, bear, hope, acquire, quick visit, adopt, continue along, adhere, remain, pursue, support, take up, keep up, reuse, advocate, stay, persevere, cherish, keep going, carry on
Showing 3651 to 3675 of 4963 results
Sermon
James Merritt
... of all, need a spiritual anchor called First Baptist Snellville. But neither can anyone deny the unbelievable opportunity that we must take advantage of to reach thousands of people to Christ in the North campus. I want to say clearly to everyone who is going to remain a part of this work, the greatest gift you could give to the new pastor coming in is to significantly reduce, if not eliminate, the debt on this campus. This would give this church the best opportunity to plan for its future, and again not ...
Sermon
James Merritt
It was Mexico City 1968. John Steven Akhwari of Tanzania had started the Olympic marathon with all the other runners hours before, but he finished it alone. When he finally arrived at the stadium there were only a few spectators remaining in the stands. The winner of the marathon had crossed the finish line over an hour earlier. It was getting dark; his right leg was bandaged and heavily bleeding. He was obviously in great pain, but he crossed the finish line suffering from fatigue, leg cramps, dehydration ...
3653. A New Hope
Jeremiah 18:1-10
Sermon
James Merritt
... what he was told and went south of the City of Jerusalem, through the Valley of Hinnom, past the place where the city dumped all of their garbage and burned it, to the headquarters of the pottery industry. Amazingly, the art of pottery has basically remained unchanged for thousands of years. Even today, the finest pottery you can buy is not mass produced - it is handmade. Today, the potter works with clay just about the same way as the ancient potter did thousands of years ago, because clay is simply water ...
3654. Dead Man Walking
John 11:38-44, John 11:17-37, John 11:1-16
Sermon
James Merritt
... , NASB) Even to this day in Israel, gravesites are carved into hillsides. The soft limestone is cut away, dirt and rock is removed, a body is placed in the hollowed out tomb and a large stone is then used to close off the opening to protect the remains from animals and grave robbers. When Jesus uttered those words, you could have heard a pin drop. Everybody was staring in amazement. Why would Jesus want to look into a graveside, simply to see a mummified body? In that culture, they didn't have the embalming ...
3655. Lasting Impression
Luke 3:34-38, Matthew 1:5, 16
Sermon
James Merritt
... Why is Ruth so important? Ruth was a Moabite. When I explain what that means you will see how it relates to all of us in this room. The entire Moabite race was a product of incest. A man named Lot had two daughters who were afraid that they would remain childless and never marry, so they got their father drunk and had relations with him and out of that incestuous act a son was born named, Moab. So, Ruth was from a tribe of people who was descended from a cursed race and whose very existence was repugnant to ...
Sermon
James Merritt
... that comes your way, but you miss it because you were too late. I heard about an old man who was dying in bed, and in the agony of death he suddenly smelled the aroma of his favorite food—chocolate chip cookies. He gathered his remaining strength and lifted himself from the bed. Leaning against the wall, he slowly made his way out of the bedroom and with even greater effort forced himself down the stairs gripping the railing with both hands. With labored breath, sweating profusely, he leaned against the ...
3657. Survivor
Luke 16:1-13
Sermon
James Merritt
... council. At this meeting each person votes secretly to send one fellow survivor home. The person with the most votes must leave the tribe immediately. Week-by-week, one-by-one people are voted off until at the final episode only two survivors remain. At that point, the seven most recently eliminated survivors are returned to form the final tribal council, and decide who would be the sole survivor and win $1 million. Two thousand years ago the Lord Jesus told a parable about another survivor. He survived ...
Sermon
James Merritt
... He had been placed down into the water. But, there is a reason why John not only baptized Jesus in this fashion, but also in this place. John 3: 22-23 says: "After these things Jesus and His disciples came into the land of Judea, and there He remained with them and baptized. New John also was baptizing in Aenon near Salim, because there was much water there. And they came and were baptized." That statement is very revealing. Why did John have to have much water? I mean after all, it doesn't take much water ...
Sermon
James Merritt
... cannot change them, why worry about them. A University of Michigan study determined that 60% of our worries are unwarranted; 20% have already become past activities and are completely out of our control; 10% are so petty that they don't make any difference at all. Of the remaining 10% only 4 to 5% are real and justifiable, and of those we can't do anything about half of them. So only 2% of our worries are real. [2] I am reminded of what Mark Twain once said: "I have been through some terrible things in my ...
Sermon
James Merritt
... past? Don't you think the God that has taken care of your past, can take care of your present and take care of your future? God said something amazing to the Nation of Israel through the Prophet Isaiah. Listen to these words, "Listen to Me...all you who remain of the House of Israel, whom I have upheld since you were conceived...and have cared for you since before you were born." (Isaiah 46:3, NIV/NLT) Get that in your mind. From the moment you were conceived in your mother's womb, when that cell was first ...
Sermon
James Merritt
... , the legal system was dumbfounded over how to honor his request. Finally, after weeks of deliberation the court decided that the best way to carry out the farmer's wishes was to permit the weeds and briars to take over the farmland, to allow the house and barn to remain unpainted, and rot, and to let the soil erode and wash away. The court declared in its ruling, "The best way to let the devil have possession of anything is to do nothing." Yogi Beara once said, "When you come to a fork in the road, take it ...
3662. The Buzzard, the Bat, and the Bumblebee
Mark 7:34
Illustration
Staff
... , in spite of its ability to fly, will be an absolute prisoner. The reason is that a buzzard always begins a flight from the ground with a run of 10 to 12 feet. Without space to run, as is its habit, it will not even attempt to fly, but will remain a prisoner for life in a small jail with no top. The ordinary bat that flies around at night, a remarkable nimble creature in the air, cannot take off from a level place. If it is placed on the floor or flat ground, all it can do is shuffle about ...
Sermon
James Merritt
... in Palestine. We not only know this from the New Testament, but also from history. An ancient decree of Claudius Caesar, who reigned from 41 – 54 AD was found by archeologists in Nazara, it reads, "It is my pleasure that graves and tombs remain perpetually undisturbed…in case of violation I desire that the offender be sentenced to capital punishment on charge of violation of sepulcher." Historians believe that the unusual step decreeing the death penalty simply for robbing a grave was a reaction to the ...
Sermon
James Merritt
... River on some sloping hills is the most famous cemetery in the world - ArlingtonNationalCemetery. Row upon row of crosses and Stars of David line those hills with people who were willing to pay a price for our freedom. Under one of those markers lies the remains of a young man - Martin Treptow, who left a prosperous job and a wonderful Mayberry life to go to France in 1917 to the Western Front in World War I. Martin Treptow was killed trying to carry a message between battalions under heavy artillery fire ...
3665. I’m Movin’ On
Philippians 3:12-14
Sermon
James Merritt
... then we forget what God wants us to remember. I read a story years ago about General Robert E. Lee who visited a lady in Virginia after the Civil War. She was extremely bitter toward the North. She took him out to her front yard and showed him the scarred remains of one of her prize trees. It was a tree that had gone all the way back to the Revolutionary War. During a raid, all of the limbs had been shot off by the Union Army. They had carved their initials on it; they had totally defaced the beauty of ...
3666. Don’t Stop Thinking About Tomorrow
Proverbs 16:1, 9, Philippians 3:12-15
Sermon
James Merritt
... is never final and failure is never fatal. I want to close with a story of two trees. Our son, James, one year gave us a Japanese bonsai tree. It was one of the most beautiful perfectly formed plants I've ever seen. The bonsai tree is small and it remains that way no matter how old it gets. As a matter of fact, the bonsai only grows 15 to 18 inches tall. How does this happen? When the bonsai peaks its head above the ground, the young sapling is pulled from the soil. The Japanese then tie off its tap ...
3667. In God We Trust
Proverbs 3:5-6
Sermon
James Merritt
... a Federal Appeals Court ruled that the phrase "In God We Trust" on a government building, does not violate the separation of church and state. The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, based in Richmond, Virginia, ruled on May 13th that the national motto may remain on the facade of a county government building in Lexington, North Carolina. Then listen to what the court has to say and I am quoting Judge Robert King. "The Fourth Circuit has 'heretofore characterized the phrase 'In God We Trust' when used as the ...
Sermon
James Merritt
... truly successful person bears fruit that lasts. Jesus said in John 15:16, "You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit – fruit that will last." (John 15:16, NIV) Finally, the truly successful person will bear fruit that remains fresh, because this tree has - "A leaf which does not whither." (Psalm 1:3, NASB) Here is a tree that is always green. Its leaves are always fertile. Its roots are always fruitful. That is the way God wants us to be; fruitful in season and fresh ...
Sermon
Stan Purdum
... with the sense that he was in the presence of absolute holiness. The seraphs he saw were heavenly beings whose function was to attend and praise the deity, but their pose tells us even more about holiness. They had six wings, and used two to remain aloft, but the other four served to protect them from the intense glory emanating from the throne. These beings praised God saying, "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of Hosts." (That triple use of "holy," by the way, is probably the reason the lectionary committee ...
3670. Things Change
1 Samuel 3:1-10 (11-20)
Sermon
Stan Purdum
... So we have difficulty imagining that some unwelcome experience will ever be wholly a thing of the past. As it happens, that very difficulty works against faith, for if there is one thing that the Christian faith asserts, it is that God will not let things remain as they are. Sin and evil will not be permitted to shape society forever. The kingdom of God coming in its fullness will change everything. But even before that, God alters attitudes and passions right now. There is a reason that accepting Christ is ...
Sermon
Stan Purdum
... had begun a personal turnaround for him, he had not yet come to see the slave trade as immoral. Eventually that did dawn on him, and he left the slave business. In 1764, at the age of 39, Newton entered the ministry of the Anglican church and remained in the pastorate — where he gained a reputation for sincere goodness — until his death in 1807 at the age of 82. Before his death, he wrote the words to be used on his tombstone: John Newton, Clerk. Once an infidel and libertine, A servant of slaves in ...
Sermon
Stan Purdum
... but in essence, he is right. People newly in love see mostly the object of their affection. While the love stage of the pair in the Song of Solomon is one in which the lovers are hyper-aware of each other's physical characteristics and sensuality, there remains plenty for people in love to notice about each other even when the relationship is quite a few years down the tracks of life. For example, sometimes you'll hear long-married people say things such as "My wife is an excellent mother" or "My husband is ...
Sermon
Stan Purdum
... , or hope for an end of troubles in a hereafter....2 Obviously, O'Hair denied belief in God, prayer, and heaven, but her words suggest that she had some values. She spoke of believing in love for her fellow human being, of doing good deeds, and of remaining involved in life. It might seem odd to be talking about spirituality when our text today is drawn from the book of Proverbs, for that is one of the most "secular" books in the Bible. The sayings in Proverbs were collected and written down during a period ...
3674. Stewards of Power
Esther 7:1-6, 9-10, 9:20-22
Sermon
Stan Purdum
... were marched off to exile in Babylon. More than half a century later, the Persians conquered Babylon and allowed the exiled Jews to return home. Many did, but by then, many others, especially those born in Babylon, felt at home there, and chose to remain — living in what was then the Persian Empire. In 486, a king named Ahasuerus1 comes to the Persian throne, and eventually, he marries a beautiful young woman named Esther, without realizing that she is Jewish. Esther had been raised by an older cousin ...
3675. The Disciples' Culture Shock
Mark 9:30-37
Illustration
Father George Griener
... words: it was a rather banal ditty, uttering the commonplace wisdom that sunshine and rain are part of every life. But hearing this American hit song in Munich played havoc with my expectations. In fact, it was such a culture shock that the memory remains vivid even today, three decades later. Two millennia later Mark's Gospel continues to recall the culture shock the apostles had when the cost of discipleship finally dawned on them; when their expectations of the reign of God came face-to-face with hard ...
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