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 1176 to 1200 of 1838 results
Sermon
Schuyler Rhodes
... , through the limitations of experience we build up a multi-layered set of expectations, and then too often, we live out of those expectations. Who would expect, after all, a man like Nelson Mandela to survive decades in prison and emerge without rancor or bitterness to be the father of a new South Africa? Who would expect, after all, the likes of an Eleanor Roosevelt to be one of the earliest and most powerful advocates of racial justice in the United States? Who would expect, after all, a Mexican migrant ...
Sermon
Ron Lavin
... decision. Then they acted on the task to replace Judas. Judas probably never meant Jesus to die. It is likely that he betrayed the Lord with the intention to force his hand and show his power. Judas' plan went frightfully wrong. His plan was ill conceived. In bitter remorse, he hung himself. Judas' plan was not God's plan. Jesus had told all of the apostles, including Judas, that God's plan was that he would go to Jerusalem to die and then be raised again to life. Judas stubbornly clung to his own plan ...
Sermon
Mary S. Lautensleger
... Ruth makes her painstaking way from Moab back with Naomi to her hometown of Bethlehem. Ruth sacrifices for another who is in need of her love, without regard for the loss of her own well-being. Ruth's persistent care and concern enable Naomi to lay aside her bitter feelings and to take charge of her life again after the devastating loss of her husband and sons. An older widow like Naomi, in a foreign country, had no future at all. By returning to her own people, she could at least hope for some charity. But ...
1179. Baby Blues
1 Samuel 1:4-20
Sermon
Mary S. Lautensleger
... at producing offspring, there were no other options. Hannah tried hard to love her stepchildren, and felt that she could have built loving relationships with them if it were not for Peninnah's constant presence. Hannah found herself becoming more and more bitter and reclusive. She discovered that one way to avoid some of her pain was to avoid other people. Going to the synagogue on Mothers' Day was absolutely out of the question. It was hard enough on other Sabbaths when all those little darlings ...
1180. Parable of the Talents Retold
Matthew 25:14-30
Illustration
Unknown
... . Once, the king had to go overseas on important business. Before departing he called his three sons together and told them he was depending on them to keep the people contented in his absence. Now for a while things went well. But then came the winter, a bitter and cruel winter it was. There was an acute shortage of firewood. Thus the first son was faced with a very difficult decision. Should he allow the people to cut down some of his beloved fruit trees for firewood? When he saw the people shivering with ...
1181. Gutsy Joy
Nehemiah 8:1-4a, 5-6, 8-10
Sermon
Leonard Sweet
... day - the joy of the Lord can be yours. A cartoonist successfully divided the entire human race into two types with one telling illustration. The cartoon pictured two women at a well. Each has a bucket with which to draw water. One woman, looking sad and bitter, remarks, "Life is terrible. Every time I fill this bucket up, it is empty within minutes." The other woman, who appears at peace with herself, replies, "I think life is wonderful. Every time this bucket is empty, I can simply fill it up again." Is ...
Sermon
Leonard Sweet
... for Damascus, he expects nothing less than the worst - a nightmare, a horror, a holocaust. Yet both men are transformed from the inside-out. Saul, through his encounter with the living Christ on the road, spins 180 degrees in his life orientation. The bitter well of hatred from which he had been drawing his sustenance is sweetened by Christ's touch and changed into an eternal spring of love and dedication. Ananias' fear and loathing of his persecutor is also changed by Christ's words into openness and ...
Sermon
Leonard Sweet
... of fear of AIDS. Active, life-saving love could cost you your life. And these are the days when a burgeoning number of young families find themselves helpless, homeless and on the street. Active, compassionate love could fill your own home with a bitter, despondent stranger, shattering your serenity. And these are the days when our own nation's urban ghettos constitute a floundering Third-World country on American soil. Moving into such a neighborhood to try and help redeem it could jeopardize your own or ...
1184. Rags and Robes
Micah 1:1-7; 2:1-11
Sermon
Leonard Sweet
... it means responding to homeless people as people, with a sincerity of interest and genuine concern. Unless we do, we shall ourselves wear rags spiritually and emotionally, even while wearing Ralph Lauren robes and Calvin Klein jeans. During a series of bitter textile factory strikes in the late 19th century, the Massachusetts sweatshop workers united themselves and their plea for decent wages and human dignity under one of the most compelling campaign slogans ever penned: "Give us bread, but give us roses ...
Sermon
Leonard Sweet
... by Jesus at moments we might call Gethsemane Suppers. At Gethsemane, in the garden, Jesus faced his greatest soul struggle. Here, in the evening prior to his death, Jesus left the companionship of the Passover supper table to finish dining alone. It was a bitter dessert. One of his disciples was about to betray him. The specter of an excruciating death on a cross faced him. But at this moment of tremendous conflict and torment, the shadow of the vertical beam of the cross fell squarely upon the praying ...
Sermon
Leonard Sweet
... agendas, so fixated on our own productivity and creativity, that we have little space to receive gifts from God. The third bowl position is up, open, but riddled with stains, cracks and debris. Whatever gets put into it gets polluted and colored by our pain, bitterness and anger. Or it simply seeps out through the cracks that have not been filled or healed. The fourth bowl position is up, empty, clear, clean and censed. There may be all sorts of cracks in it. But those broken places are actually where we ...
Sermon
Leonard Sweet
... to God in the Highest" because we have found in a child the locus of our hopes and fears; we have found in a child a miraculous source of poetry in a prosaic world. We can, with Kenneth Patchen in "I Have Lighted the Candles, Mary," see in a "bitter world," "the cold, swollen face of war lean in the window," and still find joy, love and peace. The poet then speaks to his wife ("the taste of tears is in her mouth"), and to Christ's mother, revealing that Christmas may have been betrayed by the world, but ...
Sermon
Leonard Sweet
... her, before he revealed her miraculous conception, the angel declared Mary’s secret name: “God’s Favored One.” Today’s text reveals that just because your secret name is “favored one” doesn’t meant that “favoritism” erases pain and suffering, even bitterness. Simeon’s prophecy predicts that Mary’s heart will be “pierced” by swords of opposition and antagonism directed at Jesus. This was hard truth, hard to take by a new mother celebrating the birth of her first born son. No other ...
1189. Ephesians 4:25-5:2
Ephesians 4:25-5:2
Sweet
Leonard Sweet
... the pagan society surrounding them. Paul initiated this message in verses 4:17-19, drawing a dismal portrait of the lives of those untouched by the knowledge of Christ. Christians are to renounce all marks of a Christless culture, "bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice." Yet the Christlike qualities he enjoins are remarkably simple: being "kind," Tenderhearted" and Forgiving." None of those qualities appear especially heroic or dramatically expressive, but rather ...
1190. Ephesians 6:10-20
Ephesians 6:10-20
Sweet
Leonard Sweet
... begins this admonition to "armor up" by identifying "the wiles of the devil" as the most menacing danger threatening Christians. Despite all his run-ins with local authorities, all his nights in gloomy prison cells, all his constant refereeing of bitter internecine quarrels, Paul cites none of these specifics as the real danger to Christian faithfulness. Instead, after spending much of the previous two chapters narrowing his view to particular actions and attitudes, Paul now broadens the scope of his ...
1191. James 3:13-18
James 3:13-18
Sweet
Leonard Sweet
... and leading in determining the prevailing beliefs and behaviors of communities. Those in prominent positions shoulder a great responsibility. Whether the community will savor the sweetness of spiritual harmony, fellowship, and peace; or whether the bitterness of acrid divisiveness, suspicion, and Cain-killing spirits will flavor all communal relationships is often determined by these leaders and teachers. Unsurprisingly, James is more than passingly familiar with the negative energies that are easily ...
1192. Jeremiah 31:7-14
Jeremiah 31:7-14
Sweet
Leonard Sweet
... destruction and exile the people have suffered (and have yet to suffer) will come to an end with the entire world a witness. While the image of all the nations pricking up their ears to attend to the deliverance of this broken people may have been bitterly laughable to these beaten exiles, the message that God's intent could not be deterred by Jacob's weakness was still powerfully consoling. God's grasp on Jacob never fails. Like the lifeline hooked to a mountain climber, God's hold on Israel preserves the ...
1193. Hebrews 12:1-2, 12-17
Hebrews 12:1-2, 12-17
Sermon
Leonard Sweet
... note, reminding this community that they are their brothers' keepers. In chapters 8-10 the writer carefully explains the promise of the new covenant. Now he urges this church to take this offered grace, to "not fail" to obtain it. The "root of bitterness" alluded to here is not any vague sense of hostility rankling in the community. This phrase comes from Deuteronomy 29:18. It defines the situation wherein any member of the community turns from worshiping God and begins to worship idols. The author is ...
1194. Matthew 3:1-12
Matthew 3:1-12
Sweet
Leonard Sweet
... , the test of baptism was in the "fruit" it brought forth in the baptized one's life. The actions and attitudes of many in the religious establishment had certainly borne fruit in the first-century community - but it was all too often a bitter, poisonous fruit, soured by collaboration with Rome, tainted by self-imposed authority and rotten at its ethically hollow core. This was no fruit borne of repentance, and John would have none of it. He taunts these super-spiritual elitists by insulting the uniqueness ...
1195. Ephesians 4:25-5:2
Ephesians 4:25-5:2
Sweet
Leonard Sweet
... the pagan society surrounding them. Paul initiated this message in verses 4:17-19, drawing a dismal portrait of the lives of those untouched by the knowledge of Christ. Christians are to renounce all marks of a Christless culture, "bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice." Yet the Christlike qualities he enjoins are remarkably simple: being "kind," Tenderhearted" and Forgiving." None of those qualities appear especially heroic or dramatically expressive, but rather ...
1196. Ephesians 6:10-20
Ephesians 6:10-20
Sweet
Leonard Sweet
... begins this admonition to "armor up" by identifying "the wiles of the devil" as the most menacing danger threatening Christians. Despite all his run-ins with local authorities, all his nights in gloomy prison cells, all his constant refereeing of bitter internecine quarrels, Paul cites none of these specifics as the real danger to Christian faithfulness. Instead, after spending much of the previous two chapters narrowing his view to particular actions and attitudes, Paul now broadens the scope of his ...
1197. James 3:13-18
James 3:13-18
Sweet
Leonard Sweet
... and leading in determining the prevailing beliefs and behaviors of communities. Those in prominent positions shoulder a great responsibility. Whether the community will savor the sweetness of spiritual harmony, fellowship, and peace; or whether the bitterness of acrid divisiveness, suspicion, and Cain-killing spirits will flavor all communal relationships is often determined by these leaders and teachers. Unsurprisingly, James is more than passingly familiar with the negative energies that are easily ...
1198. Jeremiah 31:7-14
Jeremiah 31:7-14
Sweet
Leonard Sweet
... destruction and exile the people have suffered (and have yet to suffer) will come to an end with the entire world a witness. While the image of all the nations pricking up their ears to attend to the deliverance of this broken people may have been bitterly laughable to these beaten exiles, the message that God's intent could not be deterred by Jacob's weakness was still powerfully consoling. God's grasp on Jacob never fails. Like the lifeline hooked to a mountain climber, God's hold on Israel preserves the ...
1199. Micah 1:2; 2:1-10
Micah 1:1-7; 2:1-11
Sweet
Leonard Sweet
... of Jerusalem in mind. This indicates that Micah's home was on the front lines of any enemy invasion. Thus Micah himself would feel the brunt of the foretold punishment in a deeply personal way. Yet Micah apparently accepts inclusion in this punishment without bitterness. His very name, "Micah" (from the Hebrew "micayahu" or "who is like the Lord"), suggests that this prophet was willing to accept the mysterious means and motives of the divine without question. Indeed Micah 7:18 puns on the prophet's name by ...
1200. 2 Timothy 3:14-4:5
2 Timothy 3:14-4:5
Sweet
Leonard Sweet
... remember the sound teaching he has received from his devoted teachers and family members. Paul is here preaching an unmitigating message of Scripture's divine origins and unquestionable worth. As Scripture, all the words of God, no matter how hard or bitter, how amazing and triumphant, are to play a part in faithfulness - "for teaching, for re- proof, for correction, and for training in righteousness" (v.16). It is through Scripture and its teachings, whether tough and terrorizing or pleasant and peaceful ...
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