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 401 to 425 of 747 results
401. Prepared The Moment
Matthew 25:1-13
Illustration
Brett Blair
... when his great moment in history came, he was not prepared and he missed his great opportunity. Charles Colson also repented of his role in the infamous Watergate affair. He is now involved in full time Christian work, has authored books, and has been an advocate of prison reform. His conversion is truly a genuine one and I affirm that. But the tragedy will always be there that when his great opportunity in history came, he was not prepared, and he missed it. Oh the tragedy of missed opportunities. Jesus is ...
Sermon
King Duncan
... , into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” This is one of the best known of Jesus’ parables, and, perhaps, one of the most misunderstood. Some demagogues have totally distorted the meaning of Jesus’ words. They twist them to mean that Jesus advocated taking from those who have little and giving it to those who have much. That, of course, is absurd. This is a story about a man who was afraid. Afraid to take what his master had given him and use it. Many people are ruled by ...
Sermon
Leonard Sweet
... throughout the twentieth century. Arendt summed up her observation of Adolf Eichmann during the Nuremberg Trial after World War II by describing his actions and those of the Nazi regime as examples of “the banality of evil.” But Hannah Arendt also advocated that the philosophies we live by (for people of faith, our “theologies” more than “philosophies”) should be based as much on formative powers of natality as on finalizing powers of mortality. Our stories of birth, she argued, should define us ...
404. Church Slugs
1 Corinthians 12:1-11
Sermon
Leonard Sweet
... course, to churches. But lately it is getting more and more difficult to earn a PC stamp of approval. Political correctness has come to be associated with an increasingly rigid ideology which might best be described as a "new fundamentalism." Militant PC advocates will tolerate no disagreement, allow no diversity of opinion, brook no open-ended, "more light" stances. Those not stamped PC are "slugs." What is unique about this single-minded quest for political correctness is that it comes from the left, not ...
405. Home Alone
Revelation 21:10, 22-27
Sermon
Leonard Sweet
... Hunter and Helen V. L. Stehline have correctly diagnosed this prescription as an attempt to perpetuate the 19th-century bourgeois family ideal. They cite several evangelical sourcebooks on the family as examples of well-intentioned attempts to advocate "Christian family" when they were actually endorsing a form of isolationist protectionism (see ch. 4 of Hunter's Evangelicalism: The Coming Generation [Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989], 76-115). We must also remember that there are structural ...
406. From a Distance
Hebrews 11:1-3, 8-19
Sermon
Leonard Sweet
... on even if, like Abraham, we feel like aliens sojourning in a strange land. This year the American Friends Service Committee, which received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1947, reaches its 75th anniversary. Few groups have been as faithful in advocating peace and human rights, while aggressively providing emergency aid for refugees and economic development assistance, as the AFSC. It has selected as its anniversary theme three words that, when brought together, will help the world in the "continuing challenge to ...
407. Shame on You
1 Timothy 1:12-17
Sermon
Leonard Sweet
... hurt he has caused others and his own involvement in violence and injustice. But Paul found a sense of motivation in that "godly grief," as shame and guilt is sometimes called. From the day of his conversion Paul became the busiest, most zealous advocate for Jesus Christ in the struggling new church. Paul forthrightly acknowledged his sin, his sense of shame was genuine, and his numerous confessions suggest that a certain sense of "godly grief" seemed to stay with him throughout his life. But Paul was not ...
408. The Arrival of Hope
John 1:6-8, 19-28
Illustration
Joel D. Kline
... city to find employment, but while there had gotten involved with the wrong crowd, and when Pastor Kumalo finds his son, Jonathan is in jail for killing a white lawyer named Arthur Jarvis. In an intriguing turn of events, we learn that Arthur had been a leading advocate for the rights of black Africans and had just finished writing a book about the need for justice in that hate-torn nation. In his grief the pastor goes to the father of Arthur Jarvis, to apologize for his son's crime. The elder Jarvis little ...
409. UpTime
Mark 6:30-34, 53-56
Sermon
Leonard Sweet
... trying valiantly to find the bottom on your "In" box? Can you recognize God's time while you are logged on? Can you recognize God's time while stretching out in the hot summer sun? At first glance, it may appear that today's gospel text depicts Jesus advocating a kind of "time off" from doing God's mission for his disciples. The "apostles" had returned from their mission (Mark 6:7-13) bubbling over with enthusiasm, anxious to tell Jesus all they had "done and taught"(v.30). In the midst of all this hubbub ...
Sermon
Leonard Sweet
... must pause and reflect on the uses to which "family values" is being put. The way in which "family values" is being used to justify just about anything and hide just about any agenda is even recognized by some of the leading advocates in the family values movement. "'O Family Values, what wonders are performed in your name!' writes Herbert Stein, a senior fellow at the American Heritage Institute, a conservative Washington think tank. 'In your name some political leaders propose to give a tax credit ...
411. Dr. God
Matthew 9:18-26
Sermon
Leonard Sweet
... healing practices and procedures, about the same amount spent each year on hospital care, or half the total spent on traditional medical doctors' treatments. (See Utne Reader, [September/October 1995], 51.) Medical doctor, author and alternative healing advocate Larry Dossey has spent years studying the positive effects that prayer seems to have on the healing process. Dossey and other scientifically trained physicians have actually run a raft of methodologically precise, double- blind experiments to test ...
Sermon
Leonard Sweet
We are called to lay up treasures in heaven, not possessions on earth. Not too long ago, small was "in." The trendy catch phrase touted "small is beautiful." Advocates of a conscientious style of eating called for a "diet for a small planet." We read bumper stickers that urged us to "think globally" but to "act locally." There is now a new housing trend that flies in the face of all attempts to cultivate the validity of those "small" ...
413. Mark 1:21-28
Mark 1:21-28
Sweet
Leonard Sweet
... 8, Paul's proclamation, "Food will not commend us to God" is not directed at those Gentile Christians struggling to erase their pagan tapes. Rather it is a barb aimed at the rationalist party, exposing their own fixations and failures. You who have been advocating the eating of idol-offered food, Paul argues, have yourselves become focused on the food rather than on your brothers and sisters in Christ. The food has become a god for you, a new idol, and a blatant, even boorish way of exalting yourselves ...
414. 1 Corinthians 12:1-11
1 Corinthians 12:1-11
Sweet
Leonard Sweet
... ). Conversely, those churches traditionally scooted to the furthest folds of the faithful - the charismatic-pentecostal - have claimed for themselves the most dramatic, show-stopping gifts like speaking in tongues, prophesying and healing. Not surprisingly, the advocates of these two very different-looking kinds of gifts glare suspiciously at one another from across a theological chasm. While the oldliners accuse the pentecostals of grandstanding and hoopla, the charismatic crowd declares the liberals ...
415. Luke 4:1-13
Luke 4:1-13
Sweet
Leonard Sweet
... point was not a matter of life or death for Jesus. It was more like the temptation an unguarded cupcake represents to a struggling dieter. The issue is not survival. The issue is willpower and a sense of purpose. The devil is advocating an "if-it-feels-good-do-it" philosophy that celebrates petty indulgences. But Jesus isn't biting. Preacher and exegete extraordinaire Fred B. Craddock, in his new commentary on Luke Interpretation series, [Louisville: John Knox Press], 1990), makes a fascinating observation ...
416. John 17:20-26
John 17:20-26
Sweet
Leonard Sweet
... the city." Then they divorce Paul and Silas from the mainstream by carefully isolating and identifying them as "Jews," setting up an outsider/insider dichotomy. Finally the disgruntled slave owners make their own quasi-religious appeal, accusing Paul and Silas of "advocating customs not lawful for us as Romans to adopt or observe." It is a masterful argument, fabricating a case against the two on the grounds of safety, citizenship and religion - and it accomplishes its purpose completely. Paul and Silas are ...
417. Genesis 11:1-9
Genesis 11:1-9
Sweet
Leonard Sweet
... Truth, dwells in the Spirit of truth which is now given to the disciples. As the Spirit of truth dwells in each and every one of them, so does Jesus. The text now skips to verses 25-27, where Jesus continues to reassure his followers that their Advocate, or Helper, will come to be with them. The divine will once again descend to the earth to be with humanity in this new form. Jesus emphasizes the active role this Spirit will take, teaching anew and reiterating the words Jesus spoke while on earth so that ...
418. Philippians 2:5-11
Philippians 2:5-11
Sweet
Leonard Sweet
... his readers to be "of the same mind" and have "the same love" as Christ. In light of this plea, then, Paul offers Christ's astoundingly humble and obedient acts of incarnation and crucifixion as the supreme examples of the kind of behavior he is advocating. Even if these verses are not an appropriated earlier hymn, as we have come to believe, limiting their meaning to a supreme example of the behavior Paul wished to inspire in the Philippians ignores the message contained in the second half of this "hymn ...
Sweet
Leonard Sweet
... an individual king caught up in a life- threatening political atmosphere, or of an entire nation which has found itself once again homeless and wandering, there remains the comforting theme of abiding trust in God's presence and providence. The trust Psalm 23 advocates and radiates is far from childlike naiveté. Part of the power and enduring relevance of this psalm is the fact that it pulls no punches. Clearly, the author of these verses has experienced pain and loss and adversity. If Psalm 23 suggests a ...
420. John 14:23-29
John 14:23-29
Sweet
Leonard Sweet
... Father who sent me." Jesus is the messenger, indeed he is the message, the incarnation of this love, but both he and love are from God. Now Jesus mentions for a second time (see John 14:16) the imminent arrival of another who will be "Advocate," "Helper," even "Counselor" to the disciples once Jesus himself has returned to the Father. The "everything" this Holy Spirit will teach should best be understood as "everything you need to know about what I have said." Jesus also reveals just how this Holy Spirit ...
421. Luke 14:1, 7-14
Luke 14:1, 7-14
Sweet
Leonard Sweet
... with learned Pharisees and rich lawyers, but with "the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind." Furthermore, Jesus' instructions indicate that the banquet for the dispossessed, those with negative status, is not to be just a one-time thing. Jesus is advocating this behavior as a continuing expression of the kingdom in our midst. As verse 11 had tagged a divine meaning onto the first series of Jesus' instructions, so verse 14 gives an eschatological explanation for the behavior condoned in verses 12-13 ...
422. Matthew 24:36-44
Matthew 24:36-44
Sweet
Leonard Sweet
... events about to unfold in Jerusalem. The texts preceding today's gospel reading focus on some of the miraculous signs and heavenly portents that will light the world before the Messiah makes his return. Yet, just when Jesus seems to be advocating the imminence of these wondrous events (see Matthew 24:34), he suddenly steps back from confirming any exact time frame. Verse 36 flies in the face of all those who, throughout Christian history, have declared they have deciphered exactly when the Messiah ...
423. Mark 1:21-28
Mark 1:21-28
Sweet
Leonard Sweet
... 8, Paul's proclamation, "Food will not commend us to God" is not directed at those Gentile Christians struggling to erase their pagan tapes. Rather it is a barb aimed at the rationalist party, exposing their own fixations and failures. You who have been advocating the eating of idol-offered food, Paul argues, have yourselves become focused on the food rather than on your brothers and sisters in Christ. The food has become a god for you, a new idol, and a blatant, even boorish way of exalting yourselves ...
424. 1 Corinthians 12:1-11
1 Corinthians 12:1-11
Sweet
Leonard Sweet
... ). Conversely, those churches traditionally scooted to the furthest folds of the faithful - the charismatic-pentecostal - have claimed for themselves the most dramatic, show-stopping gifts like speaking in tongues, prophesying and healing. Not surprisingly, the advocates of these two very different-looking kinds of gifts glare suspiciously at one another from across a theological chasm. While the oldliners accuse the pentecostals of grandstanding and hoopla, the charismatic crowd declares the liberals ...
425. John 17:20-26
John 17:20-26
Sweet
Leonard Sweet
... the city." Then they divorce Paul and Silas from the mainstream by carefully isolating and identifying them as "Jews," setting up an outsider/insider dichotomy. Finally the disgruntled slave owners make their own quasi-religious appeal, accusing Paul and Silas of "advocating customs not lawful for us as Romans to adopt or observe." It is a masterful argument, fabricating a case against the two on the grounds of safety, citizenship and religion - and it accomplishes its purpose completely. Paul and Silas are ...
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