Paul W. Powell Legacy Library

Life has been defined as the sum total of a person’s choices. From the cradle to the grave we face many great decisions. What is life’s greatest choice? It is not the choice of a vocation, or education, or a mate. Life’s greatest choice has to do with God and one’s spiritual life. The Bible presents that choice to us when it says, “Choo...

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 af...

Hurrah for Johnny Cash when he refused to perform a bedroom scene with a nude actress in his movie A Gunfight. The scene was fairly tame by film standards at that time, but this is what Cash said about it: “I couldn’t do that scene. How could I do that and then record an album of hymns? Or talk on my television show about what religion means to my life? I&...

Convicted Soviet spy Stig Wennerström told his interrogators that his basic procedure during the five years he worked in the U.S. included the cultivation of “big shots” by first winning the friendship of their wives. “Women,” he said, “have a much greater influence over men than we realize.” This is true. Women do have tremen...

Jesus said “Ye are the salt of the earth; but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted? It is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men” (Matthew 5:13). He reminded all of his followers for all time that it was their task to save the world from moral and spiritual decay. “Salt is natur...

Several years ago I ran across the phrase “The stormy north side of Jesus.” It stuck in my mind because this is a side of Jesus we so seldom see and so often forget.   We have so long thought of him as “gentle Jesus, meek and mild” that we’ve overlooked the fact that he was capable of anger (Mark 3:5). Jesus has a stormy north sid...

There is planted in every person a sense of right and wrong and he is often called on to choose between these two. Today it is increasingly more difficult to make a distinction between them because our standards are sometimes muddled.  In the face of moral decisions, some people say, “I do as I want.” They reject all standards of morality and live on...

In his book, Trial by Ordeal, Craig Parshall tells of a conversation between Tess and Kevin. A homeless man has died and Kevin felt no responsibility for him. Then Tess reminds him of A Christmas Carol by Dickens where a ghost comes to Scrooge’s door and tells him, “Mankind is your business.” Then she tells Kevin, “This man is a part of your r...

The late E.V. Hill, a pastor from California and a popular speaker, had a sign in front of his church that read, “Conservative, liberal, militant.” One day somebody asked him what it meant. He replied, “Conservative means we believe every word of the Bible. Liberal means we’ll give our coat to any man that needs it.  Militant means we are...