Last Friday was my last day of full-time employment at Southwestern Baptist Seminary. It hardly seems like twenty-two years ago that I entered my first class room full of seminary students. I remember being filled with a mixture of holy boldness and absolute fear. Come to think of it, those are the same two emotions…
By the end of this week I will be officially retired from Southwestern Baptist Seminary after twenty-two years on the faculty. Since there is no biblical evidence for retirement from God’s call to ministry, I prefer to view this as a transition, not a retirement. And I have a new “life verse” to go along…
Two weeks ago I was above 7000 feet in the mountains of Glorieta, New Mexico. Last week I was near sea level in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas. Being in the Valley was “déjà vu all over again” for me. Forty years ago this month, having graduated from seminary and resigned at the small…
I’ve just returned from a week of refreshment high in the Sangre de Cristo mountains of Glorieta, New Mexico. Every time I visit Glorieta (and I’ve been doing it for more than forty years) I look at the mountains and reflect on Psalm 121:1-2 – one of the first passages of scripture I memorized as…
Don’t you hate it when a song gets stuck in your head and won’t go away? There is a Vineyard song that keeps running through my mind. “This is the air I breathe . . . This is my daily bread . . . I’m desperate for You.” When was the last time you were…
The writer of Ecclesiastes said, “Remember now your Creator in the days of your youth, before the difficult days come (Eccl. 12:1).” Yesterday we celebrated our granddaughter’s fifteenth birthday. Someone said, “Grand kids are God’s reward for not killing your teenagers.” I’m not sure about that, but I am sure that our lives have been…
Everywhere I’ve been I have discovered people to have at least one thing in common. Whether I’ve been in the over-crowded cities of the third world or the high-tech cities of North America; whether I’ve been in the great urban centers or in the open-country, rural areas; whether I have been among the very rich…
Currently I am compiling a book for America’s National Prayer Committee that includes multiple authors from various denominational backgrounds. Chapters from authors are arriving daily. I used to wonder why God chose eight or nine men (depending on who wrote Hebrews) to write the New Testament instead of just picking one and inspiring all of…
I have a younger brother of whom I am very proud. He is heavily involved in the Southern Gospel Music industry. If you log on to www.solidgospel.com on Sunday morning, you will hear him as Breakfast Bob. When Bob was young he came home from church one Sunday having memorized Eph. 4:32, “Be ye kind…
This week – with flags and fireworks, parades and picnics, back-yard cook-outs and ballgame tailgates, water sports and watermelon, patriotic church services and patriotic goose bumps – we will celebrate our nation’s birthday one more time. Make no mistake about it, I am proud to be an American. I am glad I live in a…