Month: April 2018

Front-Porch Relief

On a particularly hot day, eight-year-old Carmine McDaniel wanted to make sure his neighborhood mail carrier stayed cool and hydrated. So he left a cooler filled with a sports drink and water bottles on their front step. The family security camera recorded the mail carrier’s reaction: “Oh man, water and Gatorade. Thank God; thank you!”

Carmine’s mom says, “Carmine feels that it’s his ‘duty’ to supply the mailman with a cool beverage even if they’re not home.”

This story warms our hearts, but it also reminds us that there is One who will “meet all of your needs,” as the apostle Paul…

“If You Had Known!”

If you had known…in this your day, the things that make for your peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. —Luke 19:42

Jesus entered Jerusalem triumphantly and the city was stirred to its very foundations, but a strange god was there– the pride of the Pharisees. It was a god that seemed religious and upright, but Jesus compared it to “whitewashed tombs which indeed appear beautiful outwardly, but inside are full of…

Our Identity Rooted In Christ

Who are you? An answer to that question might consist of your name, a family history, a description of your job, or just a picture of your face. But today on Discover the Word, we will discuss with New Testament scholar Con Campbell the freedom and power we have when our identity is rooted “In Christ.” […]

Sweet and Bitter

Some people like bitter chocolate and some prefer sweet. Ancient Mayans in Central America enjoyed chocolate as a beverage and seasoned it with chili peppers. They liked this “bitter water,” as they called it. Many years later it was introduced in Spain, but the Spaniards preferred chocolate sweet, so they added sugar and honey to counteract its natural bitterness.

Like chocolate, days can be bitter or sweet too. A seventeenth-century French monk named Brother Lawrence wrote, “If we knew how much [God] loves us, we would always be ready to receive equally . . . from His hand the sweet and…

Lessons from the Parables

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We cordially invite you and your loved ones to join us to feast on God’s Word together as Rev. Mike Raiter shares on Lessons from the Parables. Click [here] for more information.

“In Christ”

Today on Discover the Word, we welcome seminary professor Con Campbell to the table. Together, we’ll be studying Paul’s letter to the church in Ephesus to discover how an identity “In Christ” changed everything for these early church believers. Learn what this can mean for your life, too! Listen today to Discover the Word!

The Glory That’s Unsurpassed

…the Lord Jesus…has sent me that you may receive your sight… —Acts 9:17

When Paul received his sight, he also received spiritual insight into the Person of Jesus Christ. His entire life and preaching from that point on were totally consumed with nothing but Jesus Christ— “For I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified” (1 Corinthians…

Heaven Isn’t Our Final Hope

When I was a kid, my aunt told me that everyone who dies becomes an angel, is given wings and lives in a perfect place called heaven. Secular society has built up this idealistic fantasy of a place that’s floating in the clouds somewhere, where all “good” people go and spend forever in paradise.

Anonymous Kindness

When I first graduated from college, I found myself needing to adopt a strict grocery budget—twenty-five dollars a week, to be exact. One day, while entering the checkout line, I suspected the groceries I’d selected cost slightly more than my remaining money. “Just stop when we reach twenty dollars,” I told the cashier, and was able to purchase everything I’d selected but a bag of peppers.

As I was about to drive home, a man stopped by my car. “Here’s your peppers, ma’am,” he said, handing the bag to me. Before I had time to thank him, he was already walking…

Helpful or Heartless Toward Others?

It is Christ…who also makes intercession for us….the Spirit…makes intercession for the saints… —Romans 8:34, 27

Do we need any more arguments than these to become intercessors– that Christ “always lives to make intercession” (Hebrews 7:25), and that the Holy Spirit “makes intercession for the saints”? Are we living in such a relationship with others that we do the work of intercession as a result of…