Christians are role models. By our behavior we influence others for good or for evil, toward truth or away from it. When Christians are in leadership they have a greater influence. To be an example of Christ and His teachings, we must be familiar with Him and what He...

God created the octopus—a creepy body that is mostly brain. God also created the sloth. It may not be the dumbest living thing, it just looks that way—slow-moving and slow-witted—with a perpetual half-smile on its face that says, “I know stuff. But I’m not...

If your confidence is based on God’s presence rather than circumstances, you will experience the peace of God. However, many Christians do not live with the comforting presence of God as a daily reality. They do not draw strength from His Word and do not seek Him in...

The secular tide debilitating Western civilization for the past hundred years has removed the fear of God from the hearts of men. It’s most damaging effect has been on "Christians".  The effect is most evident within the mega church movement and seeker-friendly...

We live in a crazy world! Violence, wars, immorality, and much more. The Bible warns us of these times. We should not be surprised by them, but it doesn’t make the world any better—except for the knowledge that it will all end one day. So, the question is, “Where do...

America is hurtling towards events that may change us beyond recognition in the months and years ahead. Whether we are located on the political left or right it looks like an approaching train wreck and we wonder how bad it will be.  If you feel the need for...

The circumstances of modern life may cause feelings of depression and loneliness—ten minutes of watching the evening news can do that to you! Here’s a thought that might help to lift the gloom.    In the darkest moment of world history—the crucifixion,...

You appoint yourself in His place! After years of assigning God to the margins of society an impulse to self-deification seems to be the response of increasing numbers of our fellow citizens who have established a new home-grown religion complete with priests (the...

Left to our own devices, we tend to lie to ourselves. We deceive ourselves into hearing what we want to hear, doing what is pleasing to our senses, and pursuing what makes us feel happy.  When we seek to live by God's wisdom, we say to our emotions; "I walk...

A shepherd of God’s people is a living testimony to the reality of God. Sunday sermons are only one aspect of the larger sermon that is the outworking of the Life of God in a pastor’s life and in the life of his family. He is “known and read by all men” as an object...

God has given each person an internal moral compass. The conscience can be a powerful inner voice that helps guide our behavior, but it can also be beaten into silence so that it no longer warns us that what we are about to do is wrong.    The best way to...

The old idiom says that every cloud has a silver lining. But when the “bad weather” of life’s trials come your way, what do you see—the storm clouds or the silver lining?  It may be true for some people that there are few silver linings in their circumstances,...

Joseph suddenly lost everything—his family, his home, his freedom (Genesis 37). We can only imagine how stunned and rejected he felt when his brothers sold him into slavery, and he was taken to Egypt.   Life is like that at times. Sudden changes usher us...

The gift of salvation is transformative – it makes “all things new” (2 Corinthians 5:17). Yet this marvelous restoration of what God intended for us in the beginning, before sin entered the human heart, cannot be fully appreciated when it is first experienced because...

The Spirit of Truth is with us forever if you are a Christian. He convicts us of sin, leads us to repentence, inclines us to trust in Christ, furthers our progress in godliness, fills us with power and joy, and raises us from the dust of death at the end. Yet the...

Doubts or questions about what the future holds should be eased by the simple, powerful, unequivocal statement that opens the Scriptures: In the beginning, God!  The familiar words are compelling in their brevity. The powerful majesty of creation is sketched with...

Everyone wants success, but if it comes at the expense of integrity and honor, the cost is too high. God is interested in your success, but He's more interested in your character. Putting Him first is the secret to success!   Psalm 15:1-3 measures success as...

Jesus invites little children to come to Him. The Apostle Paul, a brilliant religious scholar,  declares emphatically in his letter to the Corinthians that he values God’s power much more than his own intellect. What the worldly wise consider foolishness says...

We don't know what God knows about every situation in our lives and the lives of others we care about. What we do learn as we meditate on His Word and the way He works in us, is that God is more interested in developing us than He is in delivering us!   A...

The Apostle Peter was a rough, outspoken fisherman. Brave and impulsive, his habit was never to look before he leaped.  It often landed him in trouble, as on the notable occasion when he declared that he would die for Jesus and heard the sad reply that he would...

Someone has said that we do not go by our own energy and genius from dust to glory, but from dust to dust. Such cold certainty exposes the absurdity of men seeking to dethrone God—but it doesn’t discourage them from trying! Confirmed atheists are a particularly...

None of us are good enough to make it to heaven by our own efforts. Why would Jesus have had to endure death and suffering if we could do it alone?   God's plan is for all of us, in every generation and in every nation, to ask for His mercy, confess our...

A newspaper report several years ago focused on “the Christian hard rock and metal scene”.  The reporter identifies himself as “a teenager growing up in the evangelical subculture [who] was a huge fan of Christian hard rock and metal in the early 2000s.” He says...

God calls us to stand firm in His Word and in the life He wants us to live. Standing your ground is sometimes easier said than done! Life will run over us at times. When others don’t live by the same rules we do, we may be unpopular, we may be ridiculed, and we may...

Chicago Community Organizer Saul Alinsky published his famously controversial Rules for Radicals in 1971. The book is dedicated to Lucifer whose rebellion won him a kingdom.  Long before Alinsky there was Christ, whose humility and submission won Him a very...

Some people think that Christianity offers “pie in the sky” – promises that sound good and never deliver. But for real pie in the sky look at advertising! It has become so much a part of life we hardly notice how it constantly churns out pies somewhat less substantial...

Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning (James 1:17). Christians know that blessings and success in life come only from God. Yet we are sometimes guilty of...

Paradox is inherent to Christianity. Paul writes of being strong when he is weak. Jesus warned that whoever desires to save his life will lose it. On other occasions our Lord promised that the least among his followers would be great, and the meek would inherit the...

The absurdity of atheist man lies in his determination to make himself God in defiance of the certainty that he is separated from the grave by no more than the next step, the next breath, and the last heartbeat.   From this unstable pulpit of a brittle and...

It can be scary to stand at a crossroad, knowing that the choice you make about which direction to take could affect many people. God provides help during such periods of indecision. He knows we don’t have the wisdom to choose which path to take, so He provides many...

Our integrity as Christians reflects on God and reflects the God in us! None of us are perfect, but we can be authentic, grow in character, and live in a way that makes people trust us and want to associate with us. The minor choices we make when nobody is watching...

We know a measure of love when we feel it towards others, or when we receive it. The Bible speaks of love in its many forms—divine, filial, emotional, erotic—but its most important statement on the subject is this: God is love (1 John 4:8).  Of all the sacred...

We all have fears, but it's how we face them that defines us. David ran toward Goliath! He ran in faith based upon God's previous deliverance of him from a bear and a lion. He ran in confidence, knowing God had given him the ability. He ran with wisdom, knowing he had...

In an increasingly dark world, the concept of excellence may still be seen in its purest form in the sports arena, where individuals and groups meet in open competition that produces a winner. The Olympic Games represent the pinnacle of achievement, crowning athletes...

In His last meeting with the disciples before returning to Heaven, Jesus gave the Apostles a series of instructions to follow. The first was one that many struggle with today: “Wait!” Unless we are empowered by God, all our labor and effort will be in vain. But...

True Christianity is shockingly unfamiliar to self-centered humanity living in a material world.  The vast man-made, barren landscape of a religion that labels itself Christianity is testimony to the fact that the fundamental truth at the heart of its sacred text...

Sanity is a casualty in a world that sees truth as a flimsy thing based on your point of view. The shifting sands of moral relativity inspire peak awareness summed up in the slogan, “If it feels good, do it!”  Strife is inevitable when absolute truth dies. Justice...

Some wise person has said: Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul. By that definition you can be old at 40 and young at 70! This is especially true for Christians. A church full of unenthusiastic, spiritually retired, inert members is...

In His last meeting with the disciples before returning to Heaven, Jesus gave the Apostles a series of instructions to follow. The first was one that many struggle with today: “Wait!” Unless we are empowered by God, all our labor and effort will be in vain. But...

No matter how far you have come in your walk with God and how much of your life you have surrendered to Him, there is always more that you can give and there is always more that God will ask of you.  He does not ask until you are ready, until you have the...

The Christian life, lived as the Bible teaches to live it, is the most complete and exciting life this side of heaven! That may come as a surprise to those who view Christianity as just another of the world’s many religions kept afloat by the sweat and zeal of their...

America’s founding documents are masterpieces of reason and the application of truth from the minds of men well-schooled in classical philosophy and the Christian Scriptures. The fruit of their wisdom and their labors was the growth of a nation, under God, more free...

We are not called to understand God or to explain God or to present God made pretty with frills and velvet wrapping—we must simply obey God. This obedience includes accepting the reality that everything we see, hear and touch in “this present evil world” (Galatians...

People who scarcely give God a second thought as they sleepwalk through life are quick to blame God when they suffer unexpected personal loss. Disaster is a wake-up call, and we expect God to be on the other end of the phone answering our questions: “Why is this...

The triumph of the human spirit against oppression and evil flows from the individual decisions we make, the small positive things we do, when we refuse to yield the principle of Good. Through the ages, men and women have chosen good over evil at great personal cost,...

God gave many wonderful gifts to Adam and Eve, the first humans. Among the gifts were physical life and soul life that included self-awareness and free will. The couple were also gifts to each other, and together they were given a perfect world to explore, to regulate...

I don’t have much faith. Not if we’re talking about the kind of faith that squinches its eyes, holds thumbs, takes a deep breath, empties the mind, and waits for results.  Mark Twain described this faith as “believing what you know ain’t so.” Some call it “blind...