Paul W. Powell Legacy Library

Stanley Tam said that one day a man visited him and asked him a question that changed his life. “Do you have a friend?” he asked. Stanley said, “Well, sure I have some friends.” The man said, “No, I mean the kind of true friend who will stick with you. Suppose you fell into some great sin. Would he still love you and would he still help y...

About a year ago, I was visiting with one of our ladies whose husband was in the hospital dying of cancer. He had entered the hospital just four days after she had returned home from surgery herself. She said that when she learned of his illness and his hospitalization, she became a bundle of nerves.  She could not eat; she could not sleep; she could not do anyt...

For more than 20 years as a minister, I have been trying to help people with troubles. Very often they are in trouble simply because they don’t know how to handle temptation. Temptation is universal and as old as the Garden of Eden. Much of your happiness depends on your ability to handle it instead of letting it handle you. Here are four rules that will help y...

When President John F. Kennedy appointed newscaster Edward R. Murrow director of the United States Information Agency, a Senate committee asked Murrow how he would combat communist propaganda against the United States. He replied simply that the agency should print all the news, “the warts and blemishes” as well as the “sunshine.” When the Bib...

The apostle Peter urges husbands and wives to live in harmony with one another in their marriage relationship so that their prayer would not be “hindered” (1 Peter 3:7). The word hinder means “to cut” or “to interrupt.” Strife in the home is like static on the radio or television. It interferes with clear reception and good co...

A minister who was conducting worship services in the White House quoted a maxim of Augustine: “I will work as if everything depended on me; I shall pray as if everything depended on God.” Prayer and work naturally go together. Jesus said, “Men ought always to pray, and not to faint” (Luke 18:1). Prayer is important but prayer is not a substit...

I once was invited to open the House of Representatives with prayer. Both Houses of Congress have a chaplain and both begin each day with prayer. Strange, isn’t it? We are not supposed to pray in public schools, but Congress opens each session with prayer...and have done so since the nation was founded. Don’t let anybody tell you our nation was not founde...

Nothing in our lives is more important than our thoughts. Writer Ralph Waldo Emerson once explained, “Sow a thought and you reap an act, sow an act and you reap a habit, sow a habit and you reap a character.” Every person’s character is ultimately shaped by his thoughts. The Bible says the same thing in another way: “For as a man thinketh in hi...

The Bible assumes that God will be a part of every marriage. In most instances a man needs a wife for love and companionship. Ordinarily a wife needs a husband. But both of them need God. That’s why prayer is such an essential part of a good marriage. The apostle Peter recognizes this when he urges husbands and wives to live together in a harmonious relationshi...