What is heaven going be like? Inquiring minds want to know. Don’t you want to know? What will it look like? Who will be there? What will it feel like? Smell like? Taste like? You long for a glimpse of the glory, a sneak preview, something to…
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The Presence
When we are bereft of dear ones, it is a tremendous shock. For a time we are stunned. Not everyone, can feel at once their continuing companionship. We should not for that reason despair. An adjustment must take place in our lives, reaching deep into our habits, emotions and thoughts. …
On October 31st in the year 1517, a 34 year-old Augustinian monk walked up to the castle church door in Wittenberg and posted 95 theses penned in Latin for the purpose of theological debate. Martin Luther wanted to talk. He wanted to know why the teaching of his church did not square with…
An old English proverb says, “A fool may ask more questions in an hour than a wise man can answer in seven years.” There are good questions, foolish questions, trick questions.
The religious types had been lobbing questions to Jesus, one after the other, trying to trap Him with His own words. …
Many are invited to the party; few bother to show up. Many are died for; few actually trust that fact. Many have a place at the heavenly banquet; few take their seat at the table. We already have a sense of that: Many are on the church’s roles; few bother to…
April 15. Most of us despise that day with a religious passion, the day we ante up to the IRS who has been picking our pockets and chiseling away at our paychecks all year long. Taxes. We hate them. Especially taxes on income. To tax the fruit’s of a person’s…
Another Sunday, another parable, another vineyard. Deadbeat day-laborers, snooty sons, and now wicked, murderous tenant farmers. The outrage of God’s amazing grace continues. Remember that Jesus is still talking to the religious types - the chief priests and the elders of the people. He’s been building up for this one.…
“What do you think?” You ought to get a bit nervous when Jesus asks that kind of question. The divine Physician has his stethoscope right over your heart and is listening for faith and unbelief. The parables are tricky enough. Worse still are a question and a parable. So what…
Unforgiveness is cancer of the soul. It's a spiritual prison, holding in solitary confinement the one who refuses to let go, to leave things be, to forgive. If hell is the no-place where sins are bound for eternity, then unforgiveness is hell on earth, a foretaste of the fast to come. From…
On New Year's Day in the year 2000, if someone had told you that within the next five years you would witness the toppling of the twin towers of the World Trade Center by Islamic terrorists using hijacked commercial airplanes, the death of over a quarter of a million people by a tsunami, and the…