Paul W. Powell Legacy Library

Several years ago word came to me that a fellow pastor was critical of me. I knew that it had to be something in his own life because we had never had any dealings with each other before. We had never had any conflict; we had never had any differences. We had had very few dealings at all. So I just ignored the first word that came to me. Then there came a second word...

I read a good deal today about the fear of death and there are some people who believe that the greatest fear that man faces is the fear of death. I’ve come to believe that our greatest fear is not the fear of death, but the fear of insignificance, the fear that we shall live our years upon this earth and when we are through that it will be as though we have nev...

Several years ago somebody sent me a card. On the front of it was a simple saying: “Enjoy life.” And on the inside these words: “This is not a dress rehearsal.”  This is life. You are living it right now. And if you aren’t enjoying it, if you aren’t finding meaning in life right now, there is a great possibility that you will...

In 1909 Pierre Curie, a man who along with his wife discovered radium, was run over by a wagon and killed instantly. The loss of her husband was a devastating experience to Madam Curie emotionally. Thereafter for months, she wrote personal notes to him daily in her diary. In one of those notes, she described the funeral service and how they gathered by the graveside a...

I read some time ago that one of the directors of the Rockefeller Foundation said that the members of that organization are either patrons or they are partners. A patron is a person who lends his name and his support to an organization. He occasionally will attend one of the annual meetings. There is some kind of slight attachment to that organization. A patron intend...

I had the privilege this week of meeting Stanley Tam, the president of US Plastics in Lima, Ohio. He is a Christian businessman. I would have said a few years ago, and he would have said too, that he was the owner of US Plastics. But now he is only the president of US Plastics, because he has given his business to God. In fact he has written a book about his life enti...

One of our men shared with me some time ago about a financial disaster in his life. He explained that before that time, he was the most carnal Christian there was. He only remembered praying three times. When he got married, he prayed, “God bless my marriage.” When his first child was to be born, he prayed, “God help my child to be healthy.” Wh...

In his book Life’s Sentence, Chuck Colson says this: “We humans obviously have a problem of maintaining a steady level of spiritual fidelity. One solution is the continual checking and encouragement of a Christian friend.” He came to that conclusion when he was going to his first television interview concerning his book Born Again. He began to realiz...

I walked into a hospital room several years ago and the patient was dying with cancer. He knew it and I knew it. It was obvious when I stepped into the room that he had been crying. He brushed the tears off of his cheek and said, “Come on in, preacher. Let me explain why I am crying. I want you to know that my relationship with God is in good order. Everything i...