Synonyms: thirstiness, dryness, parched, craving, strong desire, longing, yearning, avidity, hunger, voracity, keenness, eagerness, lust, appetite, passion, love, crave, want, covet, desire, hunger for/after, lust for/after, hanker for/after, have one's heart set on
Antonyms: aversion, distaste, apathy, dislike, hatred, antipathy, disgust, disregard, abhorrence, acrimony, wet, animosity, animus, antagonism, bad feeling, bitterness, be averse to, detestation
Showing 976 to 1000 of 3108 results
Sermon
King Duncan
This is an evening for looking deep within ourselves. It is an evening for pondering who we are in light of the cross of Jesus Christ. Tonight I ask you to ponder this question: is your faith more than skin deep? You know, sometimes you come across a new fact or idea that is so amazing, it just makes you sit up and take notice. I recently came across such a fact. Did you know that the average human being grows approximately 1,000 new layers of outer skin throughout his or her lifetime? That's right, we ...
Sermon
Donald B. Strobe
I wish that Ted Koppel would run for president. Sometimes he seems to make more sense than all of the politicians put together. You know him as the popular moderator of ABC’s “Nightline” program. In a speech at Duke University a year ago he said this: “We have actually convinced ourselves that slogans will save us. Shoot up if you must, but use a clean needle. Enjoy sex whenever and with whomever you wish, but wear a condom. No! The answer is no. Not because it isn’t cool or smart or because you might end ...
Sermon
David G. Rogne
One morning I was roused from sleep around 3 a.m. by the ringing of the telephone. The person on the other end of the line was distraught because, she said, she had committed the unforgivable sin. It is interesting to me that such calls often occur at such an hour, after the bars have closed. The woman went on to say that at some point in her life she had really been angry about something, and had said, "Damn the Holy Spirit." Now she was remorseful, but she knew that Jesus had said that blasphemy against ...
Sermon
David G. Rogne
Recently, when I renewed my driver's license, I was presented with the opportunity to renew the accompanying organ donor card. I decided to renew, but I subsequently asked a doctor what organs were likely to be harvested. He mentioned many that I was aware of through stories of successful transplants. Then he pointed out that there is a continuing need for the largest, oldest, most sensitive, most protective organ of the body. When I asked what that was, he replied, "Your skin." I never had thought of it ...
980. Loving Close-up
1 Corinthians 13:1-13
Sermon
Maxie Dunnam
I was with Bishop Bevel Jones recently, and he told me about a funny experience that happened to him recently. He was preaching at a camp meeting down in South Georgia. The tabernacle was packed with people and Bev was really getting with it. He had preached longer than normal – but still had about 10 minutes to go. He was in the midst of a dramatic point of sharing, when out of the corner of his eye he saw a little boy get up from the front row and start toward him. Well he didn't know what was going on. ...
Sermon
Maxie Dunnam
Today we begin a new series of sermons on the Epistle of James. If I were to give a subtitle to this epistle, I would call it "A Manual of Practical Christianity." All of us should be able to identify with the thought. We are always asking that everything be made practical. Speakers are admonished to use the "kiss principle": "Keep it simple, stupid." There is a sense in which the Epistle of James is a "how to" book, and any bookstore has a large section of such books, from How To Build a Patio to How to ...
Sermon
Maxie Dunnam
Have you ever stopped to think how many important things in scripture take place in a garden? It all began in a garden, really, in the Garden of Eden. Adam and Eve rebelled and through self-will they alienated themselves from the love of God. It was in the garden of Gethsemane that Jesus fought the greatest battle of his life there in the garden, the struggle was so intense that he sweat drops of blood. He knew what was before him, and undoubtedly He was talking about the Cross when he anguished, "If it be ...
Sermon
Mark Trotter
I have always been interested in those people who make speeches for a living, the professionals, the ones who speak at conventions, banquets and motivation seminars. They call themselves, "hired gums." I will confess to a certain degree of envy when I read or hear about them. Not because of the exorbitant fees that they charge, but because they give one speech over and over again. Preachers can't get away with that, not very often anyway. We have to write a new sermon every week to preach to the same ...
Sermon
James Merritt
We have been studying the 23rd Psalm together and there have really been only two characters in the Psalm—the shepherd and the sheep. But now a third party has been added—enemies. Do you ever feel surrounded by enemies? Do you ever feel like you are all alone; that all the world is against you and you can’t count on anybody? Do you ever feel just totally alone and that nobody cares anything about you? You may have heard the old story about Tonto and the Lone Ranger who were riding out in the desert, and ...
Sermon
Schuyler Rhodes
Have you ever denied something that, deep down, you know to be true? Have you ever turned from a situation or circumstance in order to avoid the uncomfortable process of dealing with it? Or maybe you have had the experience of keeping a stiff upper lip and pretending that something is not ... well, what it is. The term we use for this, of course, is denial. We all practice it to some extent or other. Some of us deny the fact that we're a few pounds overweight. Others of us deny the fact that the cars we ...
Sermon
Leonard Sweet
Jesus has two major metaphors for himself-Bread and Water: "Bread of Life" and "Living Water." For the Christian, the #1 soul food is bread and water. What makes bread come alive, what turns juice into wine, is YEAST. There is a Kudzu cartoon that shows the preacher reading from the pulpit the Lord's Prayer: "Give us this day our daily....low-fat, low-cholesterol, salt-free bread ..." The last frame has him saying to himself, "I hate these modern translations." Despite such modern translations, despite new ...
987. Easter Dreams
Luke 24:1-12
Sermon
Leonard Sweet
In a world of Good Friday nightmares, it is time for Easter Dreams. After the completion of Disney World, someone remarked, "Isn't it too bad that Walt Disney didn't live to see this!" Mike Vance, creative director of Disney Studios replied, "He did see it that's why it's here." (Ministry Advantage, July/August 1994, 3). Everything in life that we use or hold, eat or watch, wear, sit in or listen to in other words, everything that is a creation of human ingenuity started out as a dream. Before anything can ...
Sermon
Stan Purdum
When I was teenager, I worked one summer at a church camp washing dishes. One day, after cleaning up from supper, the cook, his assistant, the groundskeeper, and I ended up out behind the dining hall where there was an old tree stump on which someone had painted a target. The cook, who was always up to trying something new, had brought with him the kitchen's meat cleaver, a hatchet-like utensil, and he suggested a contest to see which of us could throw the cleaver most squarely into the center of the ...
Sermon
Stan Purdum
It's a bit odd that the lectionary committee placed this reading from the Song of Solomon in late summer, for it seems like a springtime text. Springtime, according to the poet Tennyson, is that time when "a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love,"1 but I guess summer love is pretty exciting, too. Some recent research, however, suggests that what actually may be going on in the young man may have more to do chemical molecules than with seasonal madness. The researchers recruited a bunch of ...
Sermon
Billy D. Strayhorn
In the movie, "With Honors," Joe Pesci plays Simon Wilder a homeless man slowly dying from asbestos poisoning. Brendan Fraser portrays Montgomery 'Monty' Kessler, who is a student at Harvard who has reluctantly befriended Simon. In one of their conversations Simon pulls out a leather pouch and says, "There it is. That's it, my life." He dumps a bunch of stones out in his hand, picks up one and says, "I got this one on a beach in Bali. Best night's sleep I ever had." Monty asks, "You remember one night of ...
Sermon
J. Howard Olds
“Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. ...For when I am weak, then I am strong” (II Corinthians 12:9-10). Let me tell you a very personal story. As a kid I was bullied a lot by older siblings and teased to tears almost daily by adults who somehow saw something humorous about intimidating a small child. In elementary school, I stayed to myself and avoided conflicts at all costs with the big eighth graders in that little four room schoolhouse. ...
Sermon
King Duncan
A group of boys and girls, ages 4‑8 was asked, “What does love mean?” Here are some of their answers: “Love is when a girl puts on perfume and a boy puts on shaving cologne and they go out and smell each other.” Karl - age 5 “Love is when you kiss all the time. Then when you get tired of kissing, you still want to be together and you talk more. My Mommy and Daddy are like that. They look gross when they kiss.” Emily - age 8 “Love is when you tell a guy you like his shirt, then he wears it every day.” ...
Sermon
Maxie Dunnam
Somewhere I read of an art show that featured a unique introduction. The entry area of the gallery featured what appeared at first to be four paintings. Actually the paintings were on mirrors and as you looked at each of them, it was your mirrored image that became dominant. It was an imaginative statement about the nature of art. It was an invitation to enter the paintings —— not to remain aloof to an indifferent viewer, but to identify. I want us to look at our scripture lesson today as a gallery of ...
Sermon
Scott Suskovic
What do you hear in Paul's words? Grace or judgment? Law or gospel? Hope or despair? Advent is a time of waiting. Often we wonder, "How long? How long can I wait for his coming? How long can I look off to the horizon? How long can I proclaim his return?" When we see Paul's words through the filter of grace, we realize the answer is just a little bit longer. During a British conference on comparative religions, experts from around the world debated what, if any, belief was unique to Christianity. They began ...
995. I’ve Got a Home in that Kingdom
2 Corinthians 5:6-10, 14-17
Sermon
Gibson “Nibs” Stroupe
I've got a home in that kingdom — ain't that good news. I've got a home in that kingdom — ain't that good news. I'm gonna lay down this world, I'm gonna shoulder up my cross, I'm gonna take it home to my Jesus, ain't that good news.1 These words from an African-American spiritual remind us that there is something about us that longs for home, a longing to feel that we belong. Saint Augustine located this longing in our restless hearts: "Almighty God, you have made us for yourself, and our hearts are ...
Sermon
David O. Bales
Josiah Harlan was the first American to enter Afghanistan. He did so as a doctor with British Forces. We’re not talking about the 1990s, but the 1830s. Harlan was a brilliant, self-absorbed adventurer who’d read a few medical books and passed a cursory exam to be an army surgeon. He later attempted to become an Afghan prince, leading his own army. No matter his extreme self-importance and self-centeredness, Harlan’s abilities as a primitive doctor helped a lot of people. An elderly Afghan woman heard he ...
Sermon
Maurice A. Fetty
Then all the people of the surrounding country of the Garasenes asked him to depart from them; for they were seized with great fear; so he got into the boat and returned. — Luke 8:37 In polite society we have not wanted to talk much of demons and the demonic. In our liberal, educated culture, we believe that sin was due mostly to ignorance and that evil could be eradicated by education. In our psychologically enlightened times we have avoided the more ancient religious and mythological language of devils ...
998. Claiming Hope
Matthew 3:1-12
Sermon
James L. Killen
"Hope" is one of the most beautiful words in the English language. It evokes thoughts of sunrises that push back all kinds of darkness. It suggests birth and healing and promise and possibility. Hope makes us able to keep on going, or if we have fallen to get up and try again. Hope is a gift that our faith can give to us that will indeed meet the need of our hungry hearts. Hope is the essence of the Christian faith. The good news is that hope is there for us. But most of us have yet to learn to discover it ...
Sermon
James L. Killen
Nothing that is really very big or very significant is ever accomplished without some cost. Why should we expect that the great and good new possibility that God offers to each of us and to our world, the one that Jesus called "the kingdom of heaven," should come without cost? It is costly to God. Why should we not expect that it will be costly to us? But once we recognize how great and good that possibility is, we will know that it is worth the cost. An interesting interchange took place between Jesus and ...
Sermon
Charley Reeb
Today I conclude our series “Pop Verses.” I hope it has been a useful and inspiring series for you. For the last few weeks we have looked closer at some of the most popular Bible verses. We have discovered why they are so popular and how they apply to our lives. If I did not cover your favorite verse or passage, email me and let me know. I have a feeling I will do a sequel to this series. So, if there is a verse you love and you would like to hear a message on it, let me know. It might make the sequel! Our ...
Showing results