Ministry > Our Daily Bread
Gossip-Free Zone
In some offices, you can get fired for gossiping. According to a 2002 survey, the average employee gossips 65 hours a year. One Chicago firm decided to become a “gossip-free zone.” They require that employees never talk badly about co-workers behind their backs. If you’re caught, you lose your job.
A ministry for people in the entertainment industry takes a refreshing alternative to gossip. They combat it with prayer. Instead of putting down famous people who get in trouble with bad choices, they encourage people to pray for them.
Desperate For Answers
A popular afternoon television program a few years ago was hosted by a self-proclaimed medium. He supposedly received messages from spirits of the dead to give to their family members in his studio audience. His readings prompted many people to believe in this occultic practice.
We live in a culture where people are desperate to know their future, and they’ll turn to psychics and mediums for answers—a practice expressly forbidden in the Scriptures.
The Richness Of Humility
She lived out spiritual humility, yet she had much on a human level to be proud of. As an author of over 70 books and a translator of many others into Afrikaans, Annalou Marais had much cause to brag—but she was more concerned about honoring Christ than advancing herself. She worked behind the scenes of the Bible conference, doing a servant’s tasks with a smiling face and a joyful heart. It would have been natural for her to desire, and even deserve, the spotlight.
Consumer Mentality
I like to read, and I enjoy buying books. But I don’t like it when publishers refer to me as a “consumer.” The word consume can mean “do away with completely” or “spend wastefully.” It brings to mind forest fires that devour acre after acre of vegetation, leaving behind only scorched remnants of trees and homes. When we read books, we don’t consume them in that sense, for they don’t cease to exist after we’ve used them. In fact, quite the opposite is true. They become a part of us; they change us.
Beautiful Feet
Recently, I met the man who introduced me to Jesus 35 years ago. Warren Wiersbe, former pastor of Moody Church in Chicago and Bible teacher for the Back to the Bible ministry, had preached the gospel at a Bible conference in 1972. It was the first time I heard the good news of God’s love for me as shown in Jesus’ death on the cross. The Spirit opened my eyes and heart that night, and I received Jesus Christ as my Savior (John 1:12).
We praise the Lord for people like Warren Wiersbe who faithfully preach the gospel and introduce others to Christ.
Communion On The Moon
Apollo 11 landed on the surface of the moon on Sunday, July 20, 1969. Most of us are familiar with Armstrong’s historic statement as he stepped onto the moon’s surface: “That’s one small step for a man; one giant leap for mankind.” But few know about the first meal eaten there.
Buzz Aldrin had brought aboard the spacecraft a tiny communion kit provided by his church. Aldrin sent a radio broadcast to earth asking listeners to contemplate the events of that day and to give thanks.
Irreverence
King Herod, dressed in his royal apparel, delivered an oration to an audience eager to win his favor. He reveled in their flattering response. “[This is] the voice of a god and not of a man!” shouted the crowd (Acts 12:22). Fear and awe of the one true God should have led him to protest, but he didn’t. For his failure to “give glory to God,” he was immediately struck by an angel of the Lord. He suffered an excruciating death because of his lack of reverence for God.
The Ascended Christ
Today is Ascension Day—a day that is often neglected. Coming 40 days after Easter, it marks the occasion when the risen Christ ascended to the Father in glory.
W. H. Griffith Thomas writes in The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia: “The ascension is not only a great fact of the New Testament, but a great factor in the life of Christ and Christians, and no complete view of Jesus Christ is possible unless the ascension and its consequences are included.”
Rescue And Response
The sign outside Dave James’ shop in Seattle, Washington, says more about getting your life repaired than it does about fixing your vacuum cleaner, but Dave is in business to do both. The top line of the sign is always the same: Free Bibles Inside. The second line changes and features thoughts such as: Surrender Your Heart for a Brand-New Start.
Our Living Hope
The morning after my mother died, I was reading the Bible and talking to the Lord about my sadness. The Bible-In-One-Year reading for that day was John 6.
When I came to verse 39, the Lord whispered comfort to my sad heart: “This is the will of the Father who sent Me, that of all He has given Me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up at the last day.” Mom’s spirit was with the Lord already, but I knew that one day she would be raised and given a new body.
Not Enough
The writer of Ecclesiastes said that pleasure, material possessions, and even great knowledge do not bring lasting satisfaction. Jesus went even further. He said that a person who possesses everything this world has to offer but doesn’t prepare for eternity is spiritually destitute. We all need more than fun, finances, and fame to be fulfilled.
Death Cannot Divide Us
Although writers and philosophers have done their best to marshal weighty arguments in favor of life after death, they have not succeeded in bringing comfort to aching, anxious, questioning hearts.
Jesus, however, does not fail to satisfy us. He brings forth no philosophical arguments. He does not try to prove the reasonableness of immortality; He simply declares it! He speaks of what He knows, and answers with the authority of heaven: “I am the resurrection and the life.
In Defense Of Life
The Jews clearly understood that God’s commandment not to kill refers to murder-the malicious taking of human life. It doesn’t forbid governments to use the death penalty or to wage war. This commandment deals solely with private morality.
Exodus 20:13 is based on the divine truth that human life is sacred and that we must protect and preserve it. Every human being bears God’s image. Even an embryo is marked with a unique identity from the moment of conception. Life is God’s most precious gift, and only He has the right to take it. Abortion, euthanasia, and physician-assisted suicide must all be viewed in the light of God’s right to our life.
The Difference Faith Makes
What if we didn’t have faith in God but accepted instead the God-denying theory of evolution? Suppose we had an atheistic view of life. Cornell University biologist William Provine declared in a public debate that if you’re a consistent Darwinian, you realize there’s no life after death, no ultimate foundation for ethics, no ultimate meaning for our existence, no free will. Life would be empty.
Door Of Humility
Over the centuries, the entrance to Bethlehem’s Church of the Nativity has twice been made smaller. The purpose in the last case was to keep marauders from entering the basilica on horseback. It’s now referred to as the “Door of Humility,” because visitors must bend down to enter.
As we age, bending our knees becomes more and more difficult and painful. In the physical realm, some people courageously undergo knee replacement surgery. To avoid years of increasingly painful joint damage, they endure several weeks of agony.
