The apostle Paul evaluated his own life when he wrote, “Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect: but ... I press toward the mark” (Philippians 3:12,14).
“Not perfect, but still pressing.” That should be the attitude of every Christian. We should never be content. We should always be contending.
About 400 years before Christ, a gifted Greek named Timanth...
A young fellow applied for a job furnishing references from his minister and Sunday school teacher. “These are good,” said the interviewer, “but we’d like a letter from someone who knows you on weekdays too!”
What the world wants to know about our Christianity is whether it works on weekdays as well as weekends. Does it affect the way we work as well as the way we worship?
The L...
Jeff Ray, former professor at Southwestern Seminary, used to say to his students, “Be kind to everyone because everyone is having a hard time.” He was right. Some burdens are seen. But some of the deepest and most powerful ones aren’t. If we but knew the battles people were fighting, we would be more understanding of them.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote, “If we could read the secret h...
Philosopher James Martineau once said, “We do not believe in immortality because we have proved it, but we forever try to prove it because we believe it.” Immortality, like so many things, cannot be proven by the scientific or historical methods. However, belief in it is credible for several reasons.
1. Reason. There are two truths that make immortality reasonable. Firs...
The excuses that people give for not attending church are abundant. They are also pretty shallow when carefully examined. I am sure you would agree that the same excuses people use for not attending church would be absurd if the preacher tried to use them as reasons for not attending a sports event.
Consider these common excuses for not attending church as reasons why someone wouldn’t...
It was a real verbal tug-of-war. She accused him of being sexually overbearing, and he countered that she was unresponsive. He then accused her of irresponsible spending. She accused him of being stingy. Back and forth they went.
When I had had enough, I said, “The real problem with you two is not sex or money. It is selfishness. You are self-centered to the core. You are both insensiti...
Conflict is inevitable in marriage. As Ruth Graham said, “When two people agree on everything, one of them is unnecessary.” The fact that you have conflicts is not what’s important. It’s how you deal with them that counts.
Here are five common sense ways to handle conflict in marriage.
1. Talk things over. The heart of a marriage is its communication system. If...
A Look article raised the question, “Can we still be shocked?” The author, William K. Zinsser, pointed out that gusts of outrage swept this country when the movie Gone with the Wind came out in 1939 and Clark Gable spoke his final line: “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.” To use such language in a movie in those days was considered morally objectionable and sinful. Now, h...
Let me point to just one area where we need some people to “yell” a little. That is in the field of entertainment. By the time a child enters the first grade, he has spent more hours in front of a TV set than he will spend in a college classroom, and much of what he sees is filth. Can anyone deny that movies, TV, and books are dirtier than ever? But we don’t call it dirt any more. Today we call...