don’t be cruel
Have you noticed how difficult it is for elected officials to break bad news to their citizens? Numerous countries are drowning in debt, yet most leaders refuse to raise taxes or cut benefits. Figuring that bankruptcy will be the next government’s problem, they happily kick the crisis down the road.
These leaders act like the false prophets in Jerusalem. God…
message from hell
Lately, many voices have arisen trying to discredit, distort, and pervert the truth contained in God's Word about a place called hell. Don't you find it strange that suddenly so many voices are coming out with their argument against the Bible concerning this subject? These "instructors" seem convinced that their personal belief is correct in the face of truth that…
the effects
This was a tough week. Someone I know was accused of a crime so brutal I can’t describe it. Waves of disbelief, disgust, and sadness have swept over me. I grieve the loss of life for the victim and what he went through prior to his death. I grieve for the families involved. I grieve the potential loss of a…
embrace the cross
If desperate situations call for extreme measures, then extreme measures are a sign that we are in a desperate situation. If a police car flashed its lights behind me, my wife might say in her disapproving voice, “What did you do?” If my car were surrounded by police and a TV news helicopter hovered overhead, my wife’s tone would likely…
patience, man
After church one Sunday, our family pulled up to the drive-up window of a local fast-food restaurant. We inched up to the microphone and waited. After a lengthy pause, a voice told us it would be just another minute. I felt a surge of irritation. When my husband finally placed our order, the voice vanished again. “Helloooo?” we called. The voice…
age of grace
The world’s oldest person, a 115-year-old American woman named Gertrude Baines, died in September 2009. According to the Gerontology Research Group (GRG), the leading authority on “supercentenarians,” the world’s oldest living person now is Kama Chinen, a 114-year-old Japanese woman. The oldest verified person in history was Jeanne Calment who died in 1997 at the age of 122 years and…
alarmed
Crouched on the floor amid rows of lockers, the young students lowered their heads to their knees. Barely bothering to kneel, the older students followed the minimal requirement without giving the warning any serious thought. Although they were glad to miss class, the tornado drill was little more than an inconvenience affecting their comfort and rumpling their clothing. In their…
how are you?
How do you respond to the greeting, “How are you?” Most of us simply reply, “Fine. How are you?” Others develop trademark comebacks, such as “Better than I deserve.” I know of one fellow who answers, “I’m just the Lord’s prostitute.”
What?! This provocative reply is an inappropriate response to an innocuous greeting—too much information!—but it does make an important…
be silent
Recently a friend said to me, “I used to fear how people perceived me. Then I discovered that Satan’s deviousness is something even greater to fear. Later, however, I learned that to fall under God’s wrath is to be feared the most.”
Zephaniah describes the day when God’s anger will be poured out as “a day of terrible distress and…
none of my business?
When we first read the book of Obadiah, it’s easy to regard its contents as little more than a prophetic tirade in which God’s wrath is directed toward Israel’s enemies. We see His wrath and the reality that evil does not go unpunished. But the book has far more to say than simply those two truths.
Some other key points…
the love song of God
It’s Saturday afternoon at Birkenhead Point, a small park on the Parramatta River in Sydney, Australia. Parents play with their toddlers, seagulls fight over fish-and-chip wrappers, and my wife and I sit listening—our ears attuned to the couple.
They are maybe late-40s. She sits quietly, enraptured, gazing into his eyes. He leans casually on his left arm . . .…
what we wear
I once knew a guy who liked to say, “The clothes make the man.” He dressed impeccably and enjoyed strutting into meetings in his fine-tailored trappings. Sadly, his personal and professional life later unraveled—revealing a very tattered and torn character within.
In Revelation 19, we see two drastically different styles of dress. In preparation for the wedding of the Lamb,…
