Rich Toward God
Growing up during the Great Depression, my parents knew deep hardship as children. As a result, they were thrifty adults—hard-working and grateful money stewards. At the same time, they were never greedy. They gave time, talent, and treasury to their church, charity groups, and the needy. Indeed, they handled their money wisely and gave cheerfully.
As believers in Jesus, my parents took to heart the apostle Paul’s warning: “Those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction” (1 Timothy 6:9).
Paul gave this advice in…
How Love Looks Like At Home
The indwelling Spirit and the character of Christ can…
Liberated by Jesus
“I lived with my mother so long that she moved out!” Those were the words of KC whose life before sobriety and surrender to Jesus was not pretty. He candidly admits supporting his drug habit by stealing—even from loved ones. That life is behind him now and he rehearses this by noting the years, months, and days he’s been clean. When KC and I regularly sit down to study God’s Word together, l’m looking at a changed man.
Mark 5:15 speaks of a former demon possessed individual who had also been changed. Prior to his healing, helpless, hopeless, homeless, and desperate…
Pierced Love
She’d called. She’d texted. Now Carla stood outside her brother’s gated entry, unable to rouse him to answer. Burdened with depression and fighting addiction, her brother had hidden himself away in his home, walled off from help. In a desperate attempt to penetrate his isolation, Carla gathered several of his favorite foods along with encouraging Scriptures and lowered the bundle over the fence.
But as the package left her grip, it snagged on one of the gate spikes, tearing an opening and sending its contents onto the gravel below. Her well-intended, love-filled offering spilled out in seeming waste. Would her brother…
Ancient Promises
In 1979, Dr. Gabriel Barkay and his team discovered two silver scrolls in a burial ground outside the Old City of Jerusalem. In 2004, after twenty-five years of careful research, scholars confirmed that the scrolls were the oldest biblical text in existence, having been buried in 600 bc. What I find particularly moving is what the scrolls contain—the priestly blessing that God wanted spoken over His people: “The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face shine on you” (Numbers 6:24–25).
In giving this benediction, God instructed Moses to tell Aaron and his sons how to bless the people on…
A Place of Belonging
Some years after the tragic loss of their first spouses, Robbie and Sabrina fell in love, married, and combined their two families. They built a new home and named it Havilah (a Hebrew word meaning “writhing in pain” and “to bring forth”). It signifies the making of something beautiful through pain. The couple says they didn’t build the home to forget their past but “to bring life from the ashes, to celebrate hope.” For them, “it is a place of belonging, a place to celebrate life and where we all cling to the promise of a future.”
That’s a beautiful picture of…
The Hardest Places
Geoff is a youth pastor today in the same city where he once abused heroin. God transformed both his heart and his circumstances in a breathtaking way. “I want to keep kids from making the same mistakes and suffering the pain I went through,” Geoff said. “And Jesus will help them.” Over time, God set him free from the slavery of addiction and has given him a vital ministry in spite of his past.
God has ways of bringing unexpected good out of situations where hope seems lost. Joseph was sold into slavery in Egypt and falsely accused and sent to…
God Knows Why You’re Suffering
God Knows Why You’re Suffering
A minister who learned he had cancer was displeased with God’s ways. He told a friend, “I can’t understand why God let this happen to me. I’ve served Him faithfully. I’m not nurturing a secret sin. I’ve taken care of my body. I keep my weight under control. I don’t think I deserve this.”
His protests…
God Hurts When You Hurt
God Hurts When You Hurt
The second biblical certainty from which we can draw great strength is the knowledge that God is suffering with us. He is our loving heavenly Father. He hurts when we hurt. The psalmist said, “As a father pities his children, so the Lord pities those who fear Him. For He knows our frame; He remembers that…
God Gives You Reason To Hope
God Gives You Reason To Hope
If you are a sick or suffering follower of Jesus Christ, you can look beyond your present difficulties to a bright future. As God’s child, you are destined to receive a new, glorified body and to live forever in heaven.
The apostle Paul drew comfort from his expectation of resurrection and eternal glory. After reaffirming…
