My father was born in 1902 and lived through two world wars and the Great Depression. I was born in the middle of that Depression. Life in the little East Texas sawmill town of Weirgate in Sabine County where I grew up was hard scabbed, and the Depression colored its citizens' thinking for the rest of their lives. The scriptures say, “Owe no man anything except to love one another.” (Romans 13:...
The Bible admonishes us to be honest in all our dealings. It says, “Better to be poor and honest than to be rich and dishonest.” (Proverbs 19:1)
Dishonesty is rooted in greed and if left unchecked, greed can cause us to lie, steal, cheat, as well as leave us susceptible to get-rich-quick schemes that almost always end in poverty. A good rule to follow is this: “If a thing sounds too goo...
I once was invited to open the House of Representatives with prayer. Both Houses of Congress have a chaplain and both begin each day with prayer. Strange, isn’t it? We are not supposed to pray in public schools, but Congress opens each session with prayer...and have done so since the nation was founded.
Don’t let anybody tell you our nation was not founded on Judeo-Christian principles...
The scriptures say, “He that hath pity on the poor lendth unto the Lord; and that which he hath given will he (the Lord) pay him again” (Proverbs 19:17). The Lord has always had a special concern for the poor and so should we. When we help them, it is as if we have made a loan to God, and God always repays his loans with interest.
The word of the angel to Cornelius in the Book of Acts t...
St. Augustine wrote, “God had only one Son without sin; he has no sons without suffering.” Likewise, the Apostle Paul, one of God’s most faithful servants, had to live with intense physical pain.
Three times he asked God to relieve it but it was not taken away. However, he does not surrender to a negative attitude of self-pity. There is no note of bitterness or complaint in his 13 lett...
I was preaching in a church years ago and at the close of the service a man told me that when he was a seventeen-year-old student at the University of Texas, God called him to preach. But he didn’t answer the call. He put it this way, “The phone rang, but I did not pick up the receiver because I knew who was on the other end of the line.”
God will call you, you know. Sometimes throug...
I once received a letter from a lady from Wisconsin whose daughter had been brutally murdered. She had read one of my books and wrote to ask, “Do you know what heaven is like? Has anyone ever come back from there to tell us about it?”
Her letter expresses one of the deepest longings of the human heart. “Does heaven have anything to say to us in times of sorrow?” Yes, yes, most defin...
I have said for a long, long time that I would rather wear out than rust out. The reason I feel this way is that life was made for a challenge. Most of us are our best and do our best when we are engaged in a meaningful and worthwhile work. It is too much leisure time that fills the bars and places of amusement. Too much time on our hands produces boredom and robs life of its zest.
Geor...
I do not only believe in the inspiration of scripture, but I also believe in the application of scripture. We are obligated to practice as well as to preach the inerrant word of God.
It seems to me that a lot of people are busy espousing their positions on the scriptures without having submitted themselves in obedience to the scriptures. If we take seriously the scriptures we claim to...