The Reality of Our Present World

Tuning in online to Sunday mornings service I was struck by a question the guest speaker asked while teaching from I John 2 which warns us concerning antichrists. The question was a simple one. What is your Messiah? Not who but what. As I thought through that question it became clearer and clearer. Not only what John and today’s speaker was getting at, but how many times in my life the answer pointed to something other than Jesus. “Children, it is the last hour,…

Today, we are bombarded by strong messages about freedom and how to obtain it. Whether we’re watching TV, listening to the radio, scrolling through social media, or reading the news, the message is consistent: The heart of freedom in the world is about making our own way, living life on our terms and without constraints. Yet in order to be free as the world understands it, we must be in control—we have to be the supreme being directing our life. There’s…

Few things in life are accomplished by accident, which is why it’s important for us to set specific goals. However, in our planning, we should always seek the Lord’s guidance and not simply aim for our own earthly ambitions. Whenever a new goal comes to mind, we should consider whether it is in line with God’s will. Some topics may be scripturally clear, but many are not, so we must also examine our motives. Are we seeking to please God or ourselves? Are…

Incite – a verb -meaning to move to action: stir up: spur on: urge on – which may or may not imply initiating. This according to Merriam-Webster. We’ve heard a lot over the last week or so about numerous individuals inciting others to carry out violent acts against people and property at the US Capitol. When I contemplated that a bit, I was disturbed by one inconvenient fact. Every person is responsible for their own actions. As a kid my…

Today’s headlines are replete with stories of dethroned monarchs, religious or secular. Scripture is as well. Though the characters change, the story line remains the same: broken, unfinished, uninitiated men causing injury to the lives of others with the mishandling of power. Think of the men who have held positions of authority over you in your own story. When did they use their power to meet their own unharnessed need for validation rather than offer their strength…

According to Mark Twain, if you ever have to eat a live frog, it’s best done first thing in the morn­ing. I know this scenario is awfully unlikely, but it’s good advice nonetheless. Why eat the live frog first thing in the morning, you ask? Because you can go through the rest of your day knowing the hardest task is behind you! What to-do list items are you most tempted to procrastinate on? What goals have you had forever but not taken the first step toward?…

I read an email this morning and clicked the forward button to send it to a dear friend. He’ll love this one, I said to myself…… until I realized. He went home to be with the Lord on December 27th. My heart ached again. Not for him, he’s having a great time. But for me, I’ll miss him. The third person in my circle of either close friends or once close friends died just a couple of days ago, one succumbing to complications brought on by the.…

The Evil One lied to us about where true life was found...and we believed him. God gave us the wondrous world as our playground, and he told us to enjoy it fully and freely. Yet despite his extravagant generosity, we had to reach for the one forbidden thing. And at that moment something in our hearts shifted. We reached, and in our reaching we fell from grace. So Helen betrayed Menelaus and her native Greece, and ran off to Troy with her lover. So Edmund betrayed his…

Joseph Lister, the nineteenth-century medic, is known as ‘the father of antiseptic surgery’. Lister was disturbed by the high proportion of patients who died from post-operative infections. He became convinced that infinitesimal microbes, invisible to the naked eye, were causing the infections. He began to develop a number of antiseptic solutions with which to treat the wounds. Sure enough, the proportion of patients dying from infections decreased. In a similar,…