-
| Feb 04, 2025
Let's talk about the offering, the time during the weekly worship service when the plate is passed and most people daydream or fidget around, feeling uncomfortable. If that describes you, you're missing a golden moment!
Full story
-
| Feb 03, 2025
Your response to the heading of today's reading is probably: "Uh, oh—another money plea!" or "Here we go again . . . some Christian ministry trying to get into my wallet." If that's your response, I hate to disappoint you, but you're wrong.
Full story
-
| Feb 02, 2025
Who really cared? His was a routine admission to busy Bellevue Hospital. A charity case, one among hundreds. A bum from the Bowery with a slashed throat. The Bowery . . . last stop before the morgue.
Full story
-
| Feb 01, 2025
The Great Plague stretched across London like a thick, drab blanket. It came as a thief in the night . . . unannounced, treacherous, silent. The mortality rate was astounding. Someone came up with the foolish idea that polluted air brought on the plague.
Full story
-
| Jan 31, 2025
Yesterday we looked at the grim, pitiful life of Samson, a powerful leader whose lust ultimately destroyed him. (Read Judges 16.) Lust is a deadly intruder you dare not entertain for a moment. When lust knocks on your door, you must call on Christ to meet it.
Full story
-
| Jan 30, 2025
Samson was a he-man with a she-weakness. In spite of the fact that he was born of godly parents, set apart from his birth to be a Nazirite, and elevated to the enviable position of judge in Israel, he never conquered his tendency toward lust.
Full story
-
| Jan 29, 2025
Could it be that you are beginning to feel the nick of falling rocks? Maybe the avalanche has already fallen and you're more than a little desperate. Job is our model for staying faithful when life is reduced to rubble. How'd he do it? Let's take a look.
Full story
-
| Jan 28, 2025
Job could write about wounds. His words were more than patronizing platitudes and armchair proverbs. He'd been there and back again. He could describe intense inner suffering in the first person because of his own sea of pain.
Full story
-
| Jan 27, 2025
Yesterday, I mentioned my penchant for time-management books. It's a vital topic to address because it bleeds into every area of life. Let me mention a few specifics. Some people are always running late. Yes, always.
Full story
-
| Jan 26, 2025
I'm a sucker for time-management books. Some people can't say no to a salesman at the door. Others have the hardest time passing up a free puppy . . . or driving by a garage sale without stopping. Still others find it almost impossible to withstand the urge to gamble.
Full story
-
| Jan 25, 2025
Discernment is essential. Undiscerning love spawns and invites more heresy than any of us are ready to believe. One of the tactics of survival when facing "the flaming arrows of the evil one" (Ephesians 6:16) is to make certain we have cinched up the belt of truth rather tightly around ourselves.
Full story
-
| Aug 08, 2024
THERE IS A STRANGE STATEMENT IN Scripture that flashes like a bright neon sign. Paul made it while he was saying good-bye to a group of friends standing near him. It was a sad moment heavy with emotion.
Full story
-
| Aug 07, 2024
DISORIENTATION IS THE PITS. When you travel a lot (like airline personnel) you must deal with it.
Full story
-
| Aug 06, 2024
TUCKED AWAY IN THE FOLDS OF Hebrews 11 is a two-word biography worth a second glance: "He endured" (11:27, NASB).
The Living Bible says, "[he] kept right on going."
Full story
-
| Aug 05, 2024
WEBSTER DEFINES THE WORD "cordial" as of or relating to the heart: vital, tending to revive, cheer, or invigorate, heartfelt, gracious. That's really a mouthful; in fact, that's worth a few minutes of our time together.
Full story
-
| Aug 04, 2024
PAUL WANTED TO BE IN HEAVEN but needed to be on earth. In a temporal sort of way, this time of year, I share his frustration.
Full story
-
| Aug 03, 2024
THERE IS ONLY ONE YOU. In our overly-populated, identity-crisis era it is easy to forget this. Individuality is played down. We are asked to conform to the "system."
Full story
-
| Aug 02, 2024
YEARS AGO, when I pastored in California, an usher met me as I was leaving the church. He had been involved in counting the morning offering.
Full story
-
| Aug 01, 2024
ALL OF US HAVE PRACTICED certain areas of wrong from our youth. It is a pattern of life that comes "second nature" to us. As a result, it strongly resists change.
Full story
-
| Jul 31, 2024
IT HAPPENS TO ALL OF US. Teachers as well as students. Cops as well as criminals. Parents as well as kids. The diligent as well as the lazy.
Full story