Paul W. Powell Legacy Library

Maybe I’ve shared with you the experience of one of the greatest football coaches I’ve ever known. He was the athletic director at Southwest Texas State University in San Marcos, where I pastored, and he was a small college Bear Bryant. He had the kind of record, disposition, and reputation that Bear Bryant had. Most everybody was afraid of him. But he cam...

We are in the greatest business on earth and God has something for us to do. We are not here just to occupy time and space and to give our money. We are to be his workers. I’m not worried about anybody becoming a fanatic. It is easier to cool off a fanatic than it is to resurrect the dead! We need some people with that holy fire inside of them. There is nothing...

Education is of no avail if the fire goes out. Vance Havner was once talking about the bent toward education, and the coldness that sometimes goes with it when there is a lack of spiritual fire in the church. He said that there never has been a time when the church had so many degrees and so little temperature. We need to be sure that with all of our degrees 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...

1 Paul, a servant of God, and an apostle of Jesus Christ, according to the faith of God’s elect, and the acknowledging of the truth which is after godliness; 2 In hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began; 3 But hath in due times manifested his word through preaching, which is committed unto me according t...

11 For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, 12 Teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world; 13 Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ; 14 Who gave himself for us, that h...

1 Put them in mind to be subject to principalities and powers, to obey magistrates, to be ready to every good work, 2 To speak evil of no man, to be no brawlers, but gentle, shewing all meekness unto all men. 3 For we ourselves also were sometimes foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving divers lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, and ha...

Very few people seem to understand what marriage is all about. Three words sum up the heart of it. Marriage is companionship, commitment, and compromise. First, marriage is companionship. In the beginning God said, “It is not good for man to be alone.” God was right as always. Loneliness is devastating. God gave marriage to meet the basic loneliness in us...

If love is to continue in your marriage, it must be kept alive. There are some things that must be tended or else they will die a natural death. Love is like a fire. The Bible says, “Where no wood is, there the fire goeth out” (Proverbs 26:20). A fire left untended will soon die a natural death. Gossip without someone to spread it will also die a natural d...