Paul W. Powell Legacy Library

Some time ago a man just dropped in my office who obviously was despairing of life. It did not take long for me to know that he had virtually come to the end of his rope. He had no meaning, no purpose in existence. I had just been teaching to our church the Roman road of salvation and I decided that I would use that plan of salvation on him. I took that little book of...

George Sanders, the cynical and sinister film star for over 30 years, took his own life in 1972. In his characteristically simple way he explained in his suicide note, “I am leaving because I am bored.” Increasingly, there are people who are either so bored with life or so pressed down by the circumstances of life that they do not find life worth living....

I read with great interest some time ago an article in Texas Monthly about Georgi Vins, that Russian Baptist pastor who spent eight years in a Siberian prison camp because according to the Russians, he had injured the health of Russian people by preaching religious doctrine. His book, Testament from Prison, is characterized by simple joy. There is no word of complaint...

Some time ago, a man came to Norman Vincent Peale to share with him the problems of his life. The man was the manager of a hotel. He had a nervous breakdown early in his life, and he was afraid that he was about to have another one. He began to share all of his problems and his burdens with Dr. Peale. The more he shared those problems and burdens, the more uptight he...

You know a Christian without assurance of his salvation is about as useless, about as ineffective as a person who has no salvation for he can never be joyous and he can never be positive and he can never be aggressive. If Satan can’t keep you from being saved he’ll try to keep you from knowing for sure that you are saved. And if he can’t do that, the...

Kim Linehan was one of the greatest long-distance swimmers in the world. She held the world record in the 1,500-meter freestyle competition from 1979 to 1987. According to her coach Paul Bergen, Kim did endless exercises and swam seven to 12 miles a day. The hardest part of her regimen? “Getting in the water,” she said. If getting in the water is the hard...

Great men are born out of hardship. If you read enough biographies you will get to thinking that there can’t be a great man except he who suffers. God knows that you can’t develop strong men in easy places. The man who has never had his faith tested doesn’t know whether he has faith. God wants to make you and me into men like Christ and he allows us...