Blog (Page 3)

Bet you’ve not heard the following statements from your Christian friends: “I was having my devotions in 1 Chronicles this morning and am so blessed by the twelve hundred plus names listed in the first nine chapters.” “Our pastor has been preaching a series on Joshua and those names of defeated kings, cities, and territories have really helped my growth in grace. In fact, I have the four hundred place names on sticky-notes on my mirror to help navigate difficult…

Bring light into your darkness. (Luke 1:79) Introduce you to God. (Genesis 1; John 14) Teach you how to glorify Him. (Psalm 145:1; Hebrews 11:5) Diagnose what is wrong with the world. (Romans 8:18-25) Diagnose what is wrong with the human race. (2 Corinthians 4:4) Tell you about your human condition and destiny. (Romans 8 or Philippians 3:18-19) Wise you up to the way of salvation. (2 Timothy 3:10-17) Teach you the will of God. (Deuteronomy 8) Firm up your…

The Lord’s Day is a wonderful gift from God (Isaiah 58). It gives us opportunity to rest, worship, fellowship, and feed on God’s Word. Our Puritan ancestors called Sunday the “market day of the soul”. It was and is a time for us to enter God’s house where there is plenty of grace available to us to fill our souls, scratch our spiritual itches and refresh our supply for yet another week of life. Someone once mentioned to me after a Sunday…

How you feel about sand largely depends on its location. Sand on the beach, the best! Sand in your luggage, laundry and car, not so great. Having made my annual pilgrimage to the coast, sand is on my mind. A run through the Scriptures gives interesting sand imagery that may make you think differently, unless of course you’re still finding last trip’s sand in places you don’t wish it to be. Sand imagery plays a significant role in the redemptive…

Infamous major league baseball umpire Ángel Hernández retired from a three-decade career last year. Players, coaches, and fans all had their reasons for being haters. I don’t follow baseball, but for some reason news of his retirement and the subsequent joy of so many was hard to miss. You can watch reels of his bad or controversial calls on the internet. Sometime back I read a anecdote that went something like this: Three umpires were chatting in the locker room…

I went to bed late Sunday evening with electricity, air conditioning, no roof leaks, and all accounted for. The worst of the storm that passed through our area flooded our cellar and a neighbor’s tree knocked out internet. My shoulders ached from bailing buckets of standing water. A load of laundry, a couple of pain killers, a warm shower, a night’s rest, a dehumidifier, and all was well by morning. Not so for others. News and images from Texas continue…

There are two chores I’d like to give up in middle age – yard work and climbing on the roof to clear off debris. The latter because I’ve heard orthopedists say men my age experience falls with attending curses in large numbers. Yard work – well, with this week’s heat, isn’t that self-explanatory? I can’t seem to shake either chore, so I have a set of noise-cancelling earphones I wear out in the yard. Bluetooth technology and a stream of…

Imagine a man struggling. He knows the terror of God – His wrath, curses, justice, condemnation, holiness and his punishment of sinners. And these things torture him! He knows that sin overcomes his life each day, many times over. Little lies, self-worship, no prayer life, cursing others, rejection of his family, lustful thoughts, and the general sins of heart, speech and behavior. Each sin makes his pack heavier. Is there any rest? The hill gets steeper, the road seems longer,…

I participate in a monthly lunch discussion we call “hot topic”. Last week we tossed out Elon Musk’s desire to see human beings become multi-planetary species. A similar discussion took place a few weeks earlier with a group of high schoolers in a logic class I teach at a local Christian school. It’s a an interesting idea to run through the Christian world and life view. In Musk’s view, life on earth will become impossible due to the heat of…

Our Sanctuary Renovations have been underway since August 2024. TIMELINE AUGUST 2024 – REMOVAL OF FURNITURE, PEWS, CARPET, & ITEMS NOT PART OF FINISHED SANCTUARY. SEPTEMBER 2024 – REMOVAL OF 8,000 SQUARE FEET OF CEILING – 1/4 PLASTER & 3/4 ACOUSTICAL TILES. OLD INSULATION WAS REMOVED FROM ENTIRE ROOM. OCTOBER 2024 – ELECTRICAL WIRING INSTALLED & INSPECTED. NOVEMBER 2024 – SPRAY FOAM INSTALLED IN ENTIRE ROOF STRUCTURE CAVITY TO PREVENT INTRUSION OF HEAT & MOISTURE, AS WELL AS TO MAINTAIN…

I cruise through a couple of news and information websites weekly. Good articles help continue my education and a variety of commentary allows me to keep up with current issues. A few sites I read point out quirky things in the church world. One particular headline caught my attention a few months back. It was nothing new, however, a video of the whole thing iced the cake. A church somewhere had decided that saying “amen” was leaving out the fairer…

God is very clear at the end of the Bible (Revelation 22) that we should not add to or take away from the written word of God. Plagues are for those who add to the Bible, while the ones who take away from the sacred word lose their heavenly reward. What do we do with the Lord’s Prayer ending, “for yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever”? Look it up! You won’t find it in Matthew…