Do you ever have trouble with anger? When someone has wronged you, do you struggle to forgive them? In what is surely one of the most tender scenes in all of Scripture, Joseph “fell upon his brother Benjamin’s neck and wept . . . And he kissed all his brothers and...
Mary Lefkowitz, a professor emerita of Classical Studies at Wellesley College wrote in a New York Times Book Review: “The notion that there are many truths might seem well suited to a diverse society. But when everyone is free to define truth as he or she prefers, as...
I want us to reflect on a profound thought! God is able to reverse all of the events in our lives and bring new order to them. Is that not amazing? God can make all things NEW!! There are two words in Greek for “new”. The one word means “something that has...
We read in Matthew 9:36, “When [Jesus] saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.” When Jesus saw the crowds, He did not focus just on the disciples or his inner circle of friends, but he looked...
What is on your mind? What do you think about most often? In Philippians 4:8, the Apostle Paul exhorts us to develop a Christian thought life. Os Guinness, the English author and social critic, taught that we need to think “Christianly”. Since our thoughts form...
Our culture is filled with a multitude of organizations. Civic organizations and social clubs are numerous. Unfortunately, many see the church as one more such organization. For them the church is just another option to choose. Like the Lion’s Club or Kiwanis, it...
What are your spiritual gifts? How are you using those gifts to build up the Church? To give an illustration of the importance of using our spiritual gifts, let’s examine Nehemiah 11. In that chapter, we read the lists of the heads of families in Jerusalem (11:3-9);...
Jim Cymbala, pastor of the Brooklyn Tabernacle, states that Christianity is only as strong as the local church and that God wants to bless our churches in ways we can’t possibly imagine. It doesn’t matter whether a church is alive and growing or barely surviving on...
The church is made up of individual, local gatherings. The early disciples went out and established the church of Jesus Christ. We have frequent references through the New Testament to the various local gatherings of believers, such as the church at Jerusalem, the...
We read in the first two verses of 1 Timothy, “Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by command of God our Savior and of Christ Jesus our hope.” This verse shows us that God saves us AND calls us to serve. The word apostle reminds us that Paul was one who was sent out. ...