Posts with the category “june”

In No Bad Dogs, British dog trainer Barbara Woodhouse claims that dogs understand love better than we do. She writes, “In a dog’s mind, a master or a mistress to love . . . is an absolute necessity. ....  Read More

Romans 12:9-21 is some of the most powerful exhortations of the New Testament. I use the word exhort because it’s the right word to use with these verses. Exhort is a passionate urging to do something...  Read More

There is a fundamental difference between a pole vaulter and a high jumper. A high jumper runs as fast as he can and leap as high as he can, and if he is good, he can get about seven-and-a-half feet. ...  Read More

Today’s chapter contains one of the most well-known passages that brings people to salvation. Recently I was rereading Mere Christianity by C. S. Lewis. It’s even better the second time. Lewis reminds...  Read More

We now enter three of the most difficult chapters of the entire New Testament, Romans 9–11. We are venturing into, what we call in theology, election, predestination, and the Sovereignty of God. There...  Read More

Has anybody ever said to you, “I have good news and I have bad news, which do you want to hear first?” I always say, “The bad news first.” I want to finish on a high note. So that’s what we’re going t...  Read More

The Nuremberg war-crime trials were trials of some of the most wicked men who ever lived. They were responsible for the deaths of six million Jews during the Holocaust. One of those men was Adolf Eich...  Read More

There is probably not a better chapter in the New Testament that deals with the relationship between Christians and sin than Romans 6. That relationship is—there is no relationship. You have victory b...  Read More

In today’s reading, we land on Romans 5 and see a different kind of praise. Praise that I don’t think is done in the church. It’s a new kind of praise for your repertoire....  Read More

Romans 4 is just as much a faith chapter as is Hebrews 11, which gets called the hall of faith. Romans 4 gives us a ground level look of the steps of faith of the father of faith, Abraham. Paul shows ...  Read More

Rabbi Joseph Telushkin lectures throughout the United States on the positive and negative impacts of words. He often asks audiences if they could go twenty-four hours without saying any unkind words t...  Read More

Haddon Robinson tells the story of a lumber business settlement in the West, during the American frontier days. As the town grew, the citizens wanted a church, so they built a building and called a mi...  Read More

“What about the people in other countries who have never heard the gospel? Will they go to hell?” This was a question one of our worship band members asked me. I was finishing up a late meeting at the...  Read More

In today’s reading, we look at the last chapter of Acts, chapter 28. We are going to discover real friends today—forty-three-mile friends. When talking about friendship, John Churton Collins said, “In...  Read More

Today, we’ll take a boat ride on some rough waters in Acts 27. This boat has 276 on board, most of them prisoners. The apostle Paul is below deck in shackles and on his way to Rome. At one point the m...  Read More

In today’s reading, the apostle Paul is about to make his defense before king Agrippa before leaving for Rome. It is so powerful that at the end of his speech, the king says to Paul, “In a short time ...  Read More

There are two ways to view yourself—from a photo or in a mirror. Photos are how we wished we looked. Mirrors are how we really look. One is fantasy, the other reality. We can fix our hair and our make...  Read More

Recently I read a quote about being good stewards of our time and made me sit back and really think about what I do with the time God has given me: Each new day brings us 24 hours, 1440 minutes, 86,40...  Read More

My father used to use a phrase when we were about to get spanked when we were kids—The bag is getting full. It meant that a bunch of things we did were adding up, and he couldn’t take anymore. Have yo...  Read More

The apostle Paul met Jesus on the road to Damascus in Acts 9. That was AD 34. It was an amazing story of Paul encountering the resurrected Jesus. Our chapter today is Acts 22, and we find here, thirte...  Read More

In order to talk about Acts 21 today, I have to tell you a story with a big gap. Technology has made the world a neighborhood. Because of technology, people get famous real fast today. If you have a s...  Read More

Nodding off. We have all done it. In church, a board meeting, a lecture, a conference, while someone is talking, in school on all levels. I have nodded off while praying and while others are praying. ...  Read More