Here is a typical day for any pastor in America today.
Received a telephone call from a young lady who recently married outside of her faith. She is now having trouble from both sides of the family.
Worked on a funeral sermon for a dear friend who passed away.
Visited with a young couple. They are new here in town. She is lonely. Her parents live in a distant state and...
Smiley Blanton, a Christian psychiatrist who helped pioneer better relationships between Christianity and psychiatry, said that one day a patient visited his office and saw a Bible on his desk. She asked, “Do you, a psychiatrist, read the Bible?” He said, “I not only read it, I study it. The Bible is the greatest textbook on human behavior ever put together. If people would absorb its truths, m...
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 essayist J. B. Priestley pointed out that we are frighte...
Christians are not to hide their light. Jesus said, “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven” (Matthew 5:16). He commanded us to live in open goodness and service. We are not to be secret disciples. We are to stand up and speak up for God and for good.
However, the Bible also warns us against a proud, self-seeking...
This is a time of moral confusion. There is a fog of uncertainty and doubt that clouds the minds of most people so that they have difficulty in making moral distinctions.
Some say there are no fixed moral principles for life’s moral questions. Each situation, they claim, must be judged on its own and they insist that there can be no rules applied apart from each particular case. And the...
Troubles take many forms in our lives. Sometimes they take the form of illness or death. Sometimes they take the form of financial losses or disappointments. Whatever their form, troubles do come and it's our attitude toward them that is most important. Trouble can make us bitter or better, depending on our attitude.
How are we to react to problems? I offer three suggestions to guide yo...
Someone has said, “Given a strong hub, a person can take a surprising number of shocks and bumps on the outer rim without sustaining permanent damage.”
Jesus Christ is the only hub sufficient for the rough and rocky road of life. For three years Martin Niemöller survived the horrors of Dachau: the smells of burning flesh and the sights of walking dead men. For three years this German pa...
A survey conducted several years ago revealed that the average person speaks about 18,000 words a day—enough to fill 54 pages of a book. In a year’s time this would be enough words to fill 66 books 600 pages long!
Since speech is such a vital part of our lives you might assume that God is concerned about its proper use. He most certainly is! Christianity is not only a way of thinking, a...
Running can be good for you—both physically and spiritually. The apostle Paul expresses this truth when he wrote to Timothy, “Flee these things; and follow after righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, and meekness” (1 Timothy 6:11).
The word flee means “to run away from.” The word follow means “to run swiftly after in order to catch.” The goal of every Christ...