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 551 to 575 of 609 results
Sermon
King Duncan
... will look through perhaps hundreds of photos or home videos and relive these days. For some of you, this entire year has been one you will want to remember. A wedding, a graduation, a new grandchild—there are many events that we will want to remember and cherish for many years, some for the rest of our lives. Of course, there are some events that we would just as soon forget. The downturn in our economy, a personal sickness, maybe a divorce in the family, a death, the loss of a job, etc. The late Charles ...
Sermon
Albert G. Butzer III
... well as religious — demanding your loyalty every time you used it — the emperor is the Son of God, there is no other. No faithful Jew would ever willingly call Caesar a god or Tiberius “Son of God.” Such statements flew in the face of their most cherished belief: “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord alone” (Deuteronomy 6:4). What then did Jesus mean when he said, “Give to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and give to God the things that are God’s”? While some people ...
Sermon
King Duncan
... the right decisions are valuable in every area of life. Allegedly this is why leaders of great corporations are paid an obscene amount of money. They’re paid to make right decisions. A wrong decision can cost a big corporation literally billions of dollars, so they cherish in their leaders the ability to make the right choices. But isn’t that true in our everyday life on a much smaller scale? Isn’t success determined by the choices we make? Randy Myers was in his early 30s when he was sentenced to ...
554. Where Is He?
Matthew 2:1-12
Sermon
Lori Wagner
... wish to please. This is the normal stuff of children. Most of the time, the child’s fears are put to rest, as the parent kindly explains whatever consequences must occur and gives the child a hug, assuring he or she is still loved and cherished. But not all households behave in this way. Unfortunately, in our world, some children aren’t merely afraid of disappointing a kind and loving parent, but are physically and emotionally terrified of a caregiver, who may or will act violently, whether or not the ...
555. R.S.V.P.
Matthew 22:1-14
Sermon
Will Willimon
... -eight dollar Sears special suits, clutching our little goodness, our miserable little virtues, pathetically standing in the darkness as the party goes on. Hell is for the sweet, good, beautiful silent majority ("Many are called, but few are chosen.") who play it safe, and cherish their dignity, rather than risk the party. If heaven is a great, glorious, gracious party, hell is for the silent and the serious. But why end in such a somber, non-festive note? The main point of this party parable: All is ready ...
556. Homecoming
Exodus 17:1-7
Sermon
Will Willimon
... pillow on the sofa. There was our house, exactly as it was when I was a boy. Every night for months after my mother's death, this same dream. My mother was never in these dreams. I kept expecting her to be, but she never appeared amid all her cherished belongings. I expected her eventually to appear, just as she was, at home. But she never did. After a few months the dreams ceased. Ever since, I've wondered at their significance. I think I now know. When my mother died, I needed a home. The death of someone ...
557. Homecoming
Mark 16:1-20
Sermon
Will Willimon
... raised dead Jesus to life everlasting, may condescend to do the same even for us. On the week after my mother died, I had a recurring dream. In my dream, I was back home again, the home designed and built by my mother, a house whose every inch she cherished, and whose ever corner spoke of her and her love of beauty. In my dream, I'd move from room to room and be surprised that all of her dispersed furniture was back in its original place. Every book was there, on the shelves, all perfectly remembered from ...
558. Written In Stone
Luke 24:36b-48
Sermon
Lori Wagner
... with the laws of God etched into them. If something is “written in stone” it has come to mean that it carries sacred authority, that those words set into stone are “fixed for all time.” And certainly, we still monumentalize our most cherished buildings and art with etched stone. We etch dates into cornerstones. We create monuments and tombs with writing set into stone. And our museums and even walls of giving display etchings of donors and dates etched into stone. To write something into stone ...
559. Clean Hands
Psalm 26:1-12
Sermon
Will Willimon
... keep the rules. He doesn't ask anything of God, for what is there to ask? The relationship to God is fixed, settled, complete, finished. All you come to church for is to reiterate the settlement, to go over the terms again each Sunday. We are God's cherished ones. Let's check each other out to be sure that we are still right with God, that our social attitudes are suitably progressive, that our hands are clean. Who prayed this Psalm? It is the Psalm of an obedient person. It is the prayer of those who live ...
Sermon
Mark Hensley
... this precious couple gifted me those two 62 year old letters! Only God could place a Pastor in a home in Boulder, Colorado to meet an 85 year old professor who then presented a gift that (at this writing) is already framed in my office and will be cherished for the rest of my life. I am sure that in the decades ahead the generations following will ask us . . . did you ever hear Dr. Adrian Rogers preach? They will wait with anticipation as they hear what he was like and who knows . . . if God grants you a ...
Sermon
King Duncan
... are loved. It means that God has a purpose for you. You don’t choose a painting unless you plan to display it and enjoy it. You don’t choose a pet unless you plan to nurture and protect it. You don’t choose a spouse unless you plan to cherish and love that person. Now consider that God chose you and destined you for adoption as His child before the creation of the world. Once we understand this truth, how can we doubt God’s love for us or God’s plans for us? In November 1984, a young man ...
Sermon
King Duncan
... you make me angry or disappointment me.” Circumstantial love says, “I will love you until our circumstances change. Forget about those old wedding vows of ‘for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death us do part.’” Conditional love says, “I will love you until that love requires any sacrifice on my part. And then I’m out the door.” But God’s love, as demonstrated through Jesus Christ is steadfast, unconditional, everlasting ...
Sermon
Lori Wagner
... you today to think seriously about your relationship with Christ today, your commitment to God as God’s people and disciples of Jesus. As you partake of the Bread of Life, take this opportunity to increase your relationship with Jesus, to make him your most cherished relationship, and allow him to nurture you, fill you, and infuse you with God’s promise now and always. And remember, you are filled not only so that you can expand your life but that so you now can expand and nurture the lives of others ...
564. Briny Faith
Mark 9:38-50
Sermon
Lori Wagner
... Spirit. In the Book of Leviticus, we learn that we are not to allow the salt of the covenant of our God to be lacking from our offerings. For everything we offer must be due to the covenant that we carry in our hearts, our covenant with God, which we cherish above all things. Jesus takes this a step further. He assures his disciples that the closer we are to God, the more we allow our lives to be shaped and regulated, molded and guided by the power of the Holy Spirit, the more our lives will live out that ...
565. For The Love of God Is Empowering
Matthew 22:36 -40 · John 4:1-32
Sermon
Billy D. Strayhorn
... . For them, it really is too good to be true and so they open the gift and it appears to be empty, like all the other promises that have been made and broken in their lives. For others, at some point in time, the gift was very real. They cherished it. And gloried in it but throughout their life it was slowly stolen away by the cruelties of life. Bit by bit, little by little, the gift was stolen. An unkind word slipped in and took its share. A disparaging phrase carried off some more. Unmet expectations by ...
Sermon
Will Willimon
... with a poor family in the mountains of Honduras, sleeping on a dirt floor, living without electricity or running water. In the evenings she sat with the family in the twilight, singing, listening to stories around the fire. In that family, the elders were cherished, the children were adored. ''That family," she said later, ''made me think of my family. Compared with that family in Honduras, my family is dysfunctional. Why is it that we have so much, yet have so little of what matters?'' She went to Honduras ...
Sermon
Frank Ramirez
... is known as the Shema, from the Hebrew word for “Hear!” This is the call to Israel that begins with verse 4: “Hear O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one” (Deut. 6:4) The prayer, the command to “Hear!” is one that Israel was called to cherish, writing it on every blank surface and praying it daily. The reminder that the Lord our God is one, and is to be loved with heart and mind and strength is paired with the Levitical command to love one’s neighbor as oneself (Lev. 19:18). This is the ...
Sermon
King Duncan
... quotes from the poem: I had to love today, because you couldn’t promise me tomorrow. . . I had to hold tightly to purpose, because you might not give me time for carelessness, and lifeblood is too precious to spill on selfish whim; I had to cherish hope, because you couldn’t guarantee light amid despair, and I was tired of hurting . . . Because I was forced to live life boldly, thankfully, lovingly and joyfully, death is tender, and life was a triumph.” (4) What a painful and beautiful truth to live ...
569. Treasure Hunters
Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21
Sermon
Schuyler Rhodes
... cinders in the space of 45 or so minutes? I wafted for some time between anger and sadness — not a great location for one’s spirit. Then it came to me like a holy vision. It was, for me, a God moment. I suddenly realized that, like my children who cherished the search for clues and the treasure hunts, I treasured all the moments I had in that place. No one could burn down the time Dad and I had building that cabin together. No one could strip us of the memories and good times that place held for us. The ...
Sermon
Schuyler Rhodes
... streets of New York City. On June 21, 1990, this man who gave his life for his nation was given a hero’s welcome in our country. I will never forget the roaring cheers that echoed across New York City. I was standing wedged in between countless strangers cherishing this glimpse of greatness as it passed. My heart was filled. I found myself covered in ticker-tape and sobbing on the curb after the parade had moved on uptown. I was not sad or upset. These were tears of joy. My tears came because it was clear ...
571. Dirty Feet
John 13:1-17, 31b-35
Sermon
Schuyler Rhodes
... being barefoot. We squished through the mud of July rainstorms and scuffed in the dust of high noon heat. Our feet got scuffed and scraped, cut and bruised, and still we would not surrender to the oppression of socks and sneakers. It is a memory that I cherish and share with my siblings when we gather. The one thing about going barefoot that must be confessed, however, is that feet get dirty — really dirty. Feet get so dirty that it is possible to wonder whose feet those are under the layers of dried mud ...
572. True Worship
Ephesians 3:14-21
Sermon
Will Willimon
... a relative, a grudge which has kept her away from family gatherings for twenty years. Somebody else is seething, eaten up with resentment for one who was once a friend because that person succeeded in a way that he did not. Secret, unseen, yet rigidly enforced, deeply cherished boundaries, walls which divide. I had a man in my church who, years before I got there, years I think before I was even born, had desired a piece of property. But his best friend beat him to the draw, got the land, and this man had ...
Sermon
Mark Ellingsen
... his holiness and virtue, but sees in himself nothing but unholiness and vice... In a word, our holiness is in heaven where Christ is, and not in the world before men’s eyes... If only the word of the gospel remains pure among us, and we love and cherish it, we shall not doubt that Christ is with us, even when things are at their worst. As we shall see in this book [in Revelation], that through and beyond all... evil... Christ is nonetheless with his saints, and wins the final victory.[2] Let me run those ...
Sermon
Will Willimon
... Bible. We ought to take a dose or two of it every morning before class. It would do us all good. But every now and then, if you really listen to the Bible, you come across a story, a story so strange, so against the grain of our cherished suppositions, that the Bible doesn't seem to be the solution for anything. In fact, it seems to be the problem. Take this story of the Laborers in the Vineyard, for instance. Here we are, Sunday morning, a beautiful chapel, good music, so much substantial stone, order, and ...
Sermon
Will Willimon
... our family life, the way we act as parents, IS a religious, deeply spiritual, deadly important matter. God cares what happens around the family dinner table. God expects us to treat our children and our parents for who they are -- cherished, awesome gifts from the very hand of an awesomely loving God. Blessing entails responsibility and every responsibility risks failure. Sometimes our families are in a mess because loving people is a messy, unpredictable, demanding venture. Love is like that. Everybody ...
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