Posts from January 2025
Can you do that in church???
As I have told you many times, I am a ‘Church Kid’ from the earliest of times. My father was a Baptist Pastor in Texas and that is the home and environment I grew up in. I have absolutely NO complaints about this; I was NOT scared by this; and I have positive memories from this kind of background. (I only say this because sometimes we hear those kinds of background stories in negative ways — and mine was very…
“Have Faith! Get out of the Boat!??!!??”
This sounds so much like a great quote to help us learn the lesson of how to have greater faith. As you all know I certainly do watch movies, and honestly I do like the Indiana Jones movie series. In the last of this trilogy Indiana is searching for the holy grail used by Jesus at His last supper. Indiana is to follow the ‘clues’ in order to work his way back into the room where the holy grail is…
All Who Desire to Live Godly in Christ Jesus (Part II)
Read Part I When we face persecution, it is not wrong for us to pray for them to go away. But it is likely of no use. I am not saying here that God doesn’t hear our prayers, and we should stop praying. But I am saying our persecutions will likely not go away. Persecution will stay with us, until the day Christ returns. Nothing in the way Paul wrote in the Bible suggests our persecutions will go away. As…
All Who Desire to Live Godly in Christ Jesus (Part I)
Even though the Bible does not explicitly define what is persecution, we can all spot it as we read along the Bible, can’t we? Since the days of the Old Testament, God’s people have always faced persecution. Prophets were persecuted whenever they carried messages the people didn’t want to hear. They were reviled, tortured, and killed. The persecutions did not stop in the New Testament. Stephen became the first martyr in Christianity when he was stoned, and executed, in front…
Bread that Multiplies!
When I was in college my mom gave me the starter mix for cinnamon rolls. I had three other roommates, and it became kind of fun to start with a batch of bread, and with the correct ingredients, the bread could be divided, then cooked, then eaten by the rest of us, but it wasn’t all gone. When I put back part of the bread it would just grow until we were ready to have more! I fattened up my…
Reading your Bible in 2025
Many of us like to use the first of the new year to make some pronouncements and resolutions about what we are going to do differently and improve on. Certainly, issues of exercise, health, weight control, and money on common on this list. But we often make declarations of reading our Bible more effectively in the new year. I wanted to briefly give you a little direction on this one. I can’t really tell you how to control your weight…
How Big is God to You?
I love asking this question to children. It opens up all kinds of conversations and comparisons to the size of God. As we all know, a child most often defines size that is compared to a parent. Let me give you an illustration from my life. I was working at one of the many children’s camps I’ve helped with over the years, and at this particular time it was a kid’s camp in Russia. So, I not only was…
What Child is This? – The Wise Men
Crossing the desert to seek the child Adventure stories from days of old and the trail blazers from history still fascinate me. Lewis and Clark were commissioned by President Thomas Jefferson to cross the uncharted parts of North America to the Pacific Ocean. I’m fascinated with their very young native Indian young girl guide Sacajawea that helped guide and negotiate on that land crossing. Christopher Columbus was sent by the King of Spain to try to cross the unknown and…