Paul W. Powell Legacy Library

Today a man said to me, “My wife doesn’t like me to be like I was when she married me. She is always trying to remake me.” There are lots of people that way. They married “for better or for worse” but they didn’t realize how bad that worse would be. When they find out, they immediately set out to remodel their mate. This man didn&...

We are like the lady who went to a photographer to have her picture made. When she viewed the proofs she expressed her displeasure to the photographer saying, “These pictures don’t do me justice.” The photographer replied, “Lady, you don’t need justice, you need mercy.” That’s the way it is with all of us. None of us wants to...

I once talked with a young man who had fought a serious alcohol problem in his life for years. He had at one point almost ruined his own life and the lives of the members of his family. As we talked the thought struck me, “If you removed just one thing from that boy’s life—alcohol—his life would have been entirely different.” When I share...

Several years ago word came to me that a fellow pastor was critical of me. I knew that it had to be something in his own life because we had never had any dealings with each other before. We had never had any conflict; we had never had any differences. We had had very few dealings at all. So I just ignored the first word that came to me. Then there came a second word...

In Shakespeare’s play MacBeth, MacBeth comes to the court physician on behalf of Lady McBeth, whose heart has been pierced by the dagger of guilt over past sins. He says to the court physician, “Cure her of that. Her guilt, her misery, her despair, and her wretchedness. Cure her of that. Surely you can wipe that out of her memory. Surely you can erase the...

One of our men shared with me some time ago about a financial disaster in his life. He explained that before that time, he was the most carnal Christian there was. He only remembered praying three times. When he got married, he prayed, “God bless my marriage.” When his first child was to be born, he prayed, “God help my child to be healthy.” Wh...

Somebody told me about a bumper sticker they read the other day. It said, “The more people I meet, the more I like my dog.” We are not such a holy righteous bunch, you know. I mean when you get right down to it, when you shuck right down to the cob, there are a lot of us who are far from what we ought to be. We’ve drifted from the straight and narrow...

Everyone needs to know how to deal with other people’s sins. Daily we are affected by them and they cause us many a crisis and much misery. We are never free from the wrongs caused by others, and they are never free from the wrongs caused by us. Sometimes the sins of others touch us directly. A business partner turns out to be dishonest; your husband is unfaith...

There is a magnetism to the cross of Jesus Christ that cannot be explained apart from God. Jesus once said, “And I, if I be lifted up from the earth [on a cross], will draw all men unto me” (John 12:32). What is it that gives the cross such a universal and irresistible appeal? 1. It is the magnetism of love. In the cross of Christ we see the love of God a...