Kim Linehan was one of the greatest long-distance swimmers in the world. She held the world record in the 1,500-meter freestyle competition from 1979 to 1987. According to her coach Paul Bergen, Kim did endless exercises and swam seven to 12 miles a day. The hardest part of her regimen? “Getting in the water,&rdquo...
Verses 1-4 of Titus chapter one introduce to us to the man Titus. Sometime ago Robert Schuller wrote a book entitled Tough Times Never Last, But Tough People Do! The book was a best seller. The reason is people are having a tough time. Life is hard. There are difficulties, there are hardships, there are obs...
When I was in college we used to sit around and discuss some of the deep theological issues of life. One of the questions we usually talked about was, “If God can do everything, then can he make a rock larger than he can lift?” It is a useless and unanswerable question because it pits God against himself. About th...
Former President Carter in his book Why Not the Best? tells of going to church one Sunday morning in Plains, Georgia, and being captivated by the preacher’s sermon title. It was this: “If You Were Arrested for Being a Christian, Would There Be Enough Evidence to Convict You?” He said he di...
She had a faint smile on her face when she walked into my study. She sat down and we visited for a while and then I said to her, “How are you doing?” As soon as I said that, she reached over and picked up a Kleenex and began to wipe the tears away. She said, “Pastor, I didn’t intend to cry today.&rdquo...
Last Sunday I told you about a national survey that revealed that 90 percent of the people in America claimed to believe in God. Now if you stopped right there you would think that God has never had it so good as he is having it in America today. But the surveys went on to ask more questions. One of them is, “Does your...
Dennis the Menace was trying to explain to a friend the difference between Father’s Day and Mother’s Day. He said, “Father’s Day is just like Mother’s Day only the presents are cheaper.” I think maybe fathers get cheated, not only in presents, but sometimes in church. We almost always preac...
A horseman went to Henry Ward Beecher, a great preacher of another generation, and said to him, “I have a good family horse I want to sell you. He is a good saddle horse, a good wagon horse, a good carriage horse. He works single or double with another animal. He pulls on either side of the tongue. In short, he is a goo...
Once we buried a young lady who was only 21 years old. She was killed in a head-on collision while on her way to church. The night before the funeral, my daughter asked why God allows things like this to happen.
I wish I knew. Things like this have puzzled saints, wise men, and philosophers since the world began.
There is simply no one easy answer as to why tragedies like this happen. The answer may lie in the fact that God made us free. He created us with the ability to make our own choices, and choices always involve consequences. If we are careless or foolish in our choices, or if others are, we may suffer because of them. If God did not allow us freedom, we’d be less than people. We’d be robots.
This may be the only explanation we will ever have for some suffering. However, we do not have to know why things happen in order to be victorious over them. On the cross Jesus cried out “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46) But the heavens were as brass. God was silent. He didn’t even answer his own Son. Jesus might have despaired and become bitter against God. But instead he said, “Father, into thy hands I commend [entrust, hand over] my spirit” (Luke 23:46).
This kind of faith is far more important than any answer we might receive. In our lives, as in the life of Jesus, it is faith that makes the difference between victory and defeat.
So keep believing in God no matter what. Commit your life to him and regardless of what happens, God will help you.