Share the post: For 25 years, I was blessed to serve as Director of the World Methodist Evangelism Institute. Through service to the local church, I was blessed to travel the world and see our good God at work. It is good to remember the work the Lord has done. In 2001, I coordinated with Dr. H. Eddie Fox of
Share the post: Scripture Focus: But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires. Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. Galatians
Share the post: In my previous article, I made the claim that saying yes to forgiveness is the clearest claim that we are Christian. One of my heroes, Clarence Jordan, was my primary witness to that claim. Clarence was a farmer and a New Testament Greek scholar. He wrote the Cotton Patch Paraphrase of the New Testament. He speaks
Share the post: Scripture Focus: For this very reason, you must make every effort to support your faith with excellence, and excellence with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with endurance, and endurance with godliness, and godliness with mutual affection, and mutual affection with love. For if these things are yours and are increasing among you, they keep you
Share the post: Scripture Focus: We know what real love is because Jesus gave up his life for us. So we also ought to give up our lives for our brothers and sisters. If someone has enough money to live well and sees a brother or sister in need but shows no compassion—how can God’s love be in that person?
Share the Post: I’ve written two previous articles on this general theme, saying yes to forgiveness. If you have not seen those articles, you can see them here and here. I make this claim now: saying yes to forgiveness is our clearest witness to the fact that we are Christian. Here is a powerful witness. It was 1921 in the
Share the Post: Occasionally, a friend or family member will send me a piece they’ve found in the media about the “decline” of the Church. These articles, videos, podcasts, books, etc. talk about the increase in the notion of the irrelevance of the church in the lives of many in the United States and/or Europe. Usually, this is accompanied by
Share the Post: Scripture Focus: I will test you with the measuring line of justice and the plumb line of righteousness. Isaiah 28:17 (NLT) While the classical idea of justice, giving each person their due, is important, it only scratches the surface of what justice actually means. The biblical sense of justice, what we call righteousness, goes much deeper. It’s
Share the Post: In my previous article I made the claim saying yes to forgiveness is saying yes to God. I underscore that claim: We are most like Christ when we are doing what he did in his extravagant gift of love on Calvary…forgiving. I have a friend, Mary, a former Roman Catholic nun, who works as a program director
Share the Post: Scripture Focus: But this is the new covenant I will make with the people of Israel after those days,” says the Lord. “I will put my instructions deep within them, and I will write them on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. And they will not need to teach their
Christmas is the festival of Love, Joy, Peace and Hope. Christmas reminds us of God’s love and Salvation for humankind. The Indian way of celebrating Christmas is unique, colorful and full of cultural diversity. Unique Indian Christmas Celebrations and Festive Cuisine Christmas preparations begin weeks before the 25th of December. Homes are cleaned and decorated with stars, lights, and Christmas
Even with modern technology, I like the daily newspaper. I pay close attention to the front page and read the articles there that get attention. Then I turn the inner pages to see what is there. It was an inside article, but the headline caught my attention: FORMER ADDICT OFFERS HAIRCUTS TO HOMELESS PEOPLE IN LOS ANGELES. I couldn’t resist
In many churches around the world, we recently marked All Saints Sunday. It’s a Sunday that often focuses on that wonderful passage from Hebrews 12: Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for
When Nathaniel Hawthorne came home in utter despair and failure after losing his job in the Customs House, his wife responded, “Now you can write that book you have always wanted to write.” Under that kind of uplifting support, Hawthorne wrote The Scarlet Letter, one of the greatest pieces of literature the world has ever known. The truth is there
Sitting with people after their surgeries, I often hear their prescription: slow down and heal. Sometimes, it is true the best thing we can do is just trust the same old story. The reality is that we live in an age where real rewards come from capitalizing in the attention economy. Quick searches reveal dozens, even hundreds of ‘get well
My wife Angie and I have conversations all the time. But it’s not surprising that 5 minutes into the conversation, one of us will say these words, “What are you talking about?” We seem to be using the same words but they have completely different meanings. For you see, I am primarily a “thinker” and she listens as a “feeler.”
As Christians we do not emerge full-grown. Salvation is not a one -time event. To see it in its fullness, we talk about “going on to salvation.” If any doctrines within the whole compass of Christianity may be properly termed fundamental, they are doubtless these two — the doctrine of justification, and that of the new birth. The former relates
God has his eye on you. That’s what the psalmist says. Some may cower back from the question, “what is man that you are mindful of him?”(Psalm 8:4). Frightened even, thinking of God as a judge who is not going to let us get away with even the least wrong-doing. Let’s look more broadly and attentively, “what is man that
1 Afterward Jesus returned to Jerusalem for one of the Jewish holy days. 2 Inside the city, near the Sheep Gate, was the pool of Bethesda, with five covered porches. 3 Crowds of sick people—blind, lame, or paralyzed—lay on the porches. 5 One of the men lying there had been sick for thirty-eight years. 6 When Jesus saw him and
Jesus’ Example of Servanthood and Humility Jesus knew his time had come. He had loved the disciples throughout his ministry. Now, before he went to the cross, he wanted to help them comprehend the full extent of his love. John says, “Now, He loved them to the very end.” (John 13:1b NLT) “So he got up from the table, took
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