Paul W. Powell Legacy Library

The fear of death is one of the greatest fears we face. Saul Bellow, the famous novelist said, “The real problem is the problem of death. If people don’t know how to come to terms with it, souls have no preparation. Then the only thing is to be eternally young and in pursuit of pleasure and further sexual and hedonistic horizons.” English essayi...

Fast Lane Magazine once conducted a poll among 400 men between the ages of 18 and 34. Their question was, “Other than yourself, what person would you like most to be like?” In response to the question, number one on the list of those polled was Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North. Number two was President Ronald Regan. Number three was Clint Eastwood, and tie...

In his book Life Sentence, Chuck Colson tells about trying to win a Jewish lawyer friend to Christ. He had tried again and again to find an opening—a way to introduce the subject of Christ so he could share the Lord with this Jewish lawyer friend. Finally one night at a dinner engagement the opportunity came, and much to his surprise, the lawyer friend by the na...

I read about a slave woman, just out of slavery, holding the hand of her little grandson when the body of Abraham Lincoln was being transported up Pennsylvania Avenue where it would lay in state in the Capitol building. And as that body passed by, that old grandmother said to her little grandson, “You take a good look at that man. He died to set you free.”...

The man’s name was Dwight D. Eisenhower. The time was the early days of his presidency. The occasion was the Christmas season. And he sounded more like a preacher and prophet than he did like a politician when he said, “A person may deny Jesus Christ, but he cannot ignore him.” Because of who he was and what he did, Jesus cannot be ignored. We must d...

O. Henry, the famous short-story writer, was dying. His nurse surmised that death was coming very soon, and so as was the custom in that day, she reached up to pull the shades down and leave the room dark. O. Henry opened his eyes as if he were aware of what was going on and he said to her, “Push up the shades. I don’t want to go home in the dark.”&n...

In 1736 John Wesley entered in his journal an account of going to German pastors to ask them some questions concerning his conduct. One of those German pastors said, “My brother, I must first ask you a question or two. The first question is this: Have you the witness of the Spirit within yourself? Does the Spirit bear witness with your spirit that you know the S...

E. Stanley Jones, that great Methodist missionary who spent his life in India, said one day he had planned a trip to the jungle. It was his first, so he hired a guide. The guide had a machete and they came to the edge of the jungle and being unfamiliar with the ways of the jungle, Stanley Jones asked the guide, “Well, where is the trail? Where is the path?&rdquo...

Sometimes people have tried to compare Jesus to other great men like Gandhi, the great Indian teacher. And they have said that Jesus, like Gandhi, was just a good man, a holy man. But about 30 years after Gandhi died someone wrote a book about him and his disciples, those people who followed him. They wrote down every word he said, more than 400 books written about th...