Birthdays are usually about gifts and gains and growth. They can also be about losses. Shortly after Jesus’ twelfth birthday, his parents took Him to Jerusalem and lost Him. In the midst of the return caravan, they discovered Him missing and hurried back to Jerusalem to look for Him. They found Him in the Temple,…
Have you ever noticed in the life of Jesus that mountain revelations were often followed by valley applications? No sooner had Jesus ended his spectacular sermon on the mount than, coming down, He was confronted by a leper (Matthew 8:1). Truth taught on the mountain, had to be applied. Later, the almost unbelievable experience of…
In what ways do you try to please God? Perhaps you try to please God through worship, or maybe Bible study, or even acts of ministry. Some seek to please God through prayer, or giving, or simply being obedient. Beware lest you select incorrect methods. Nadab and Abihu displeased God by offering a “profane fire…
I was never very good at mathematics and I have embarrassing academic transcripts to prove it. Last week I discovered mathematical praying. I’m not sure it will improve my mathematical skills, but it sure enhanced my prayer life. I was in the final stages of preparing to speak to a group of students who were…
What do you do when you are having a difficult day? Whenever I think I’m having an especially tough time, I read Job. I find some measure of comfort in the fact that whatever my circumstances, Job had it worse. If you stay with Job to the end, you’ll find an amazing fact. One of…
There are some things we simply cannot live without. They are so simple they amaze the intellects among us. In John 4:10, Jesus offers Himself as “living water” and two chapters later, in John 6:35, He describes Himself as, “the bread of life.” Bread and water are the very basic, most essential, everyday necessities of…
What a coincidence – at least for me. Yesterday was both Mother’s Day and the Global Day of Prayer. Among many things my mother taught me was the need to pray for the world and those who had been called by God to minister cross-culturally. Her missionary heart led her to be a prayer warrior…
The danger of spiritual role modeling is that the mentored often become like the mentor and stop there, rather than moving beyond to be like Jesus. Paul understood that concept and even though he instructed, “Brethren, I urge you to become like me” (Gal. 4:12) he also pointed them ultimately to Jesus. Spiritual mentoring can…
I’ve recently been out of the country, in an urban area where owning and operating a motor vehicle is cost prohibitive for many. Going only where public transportation can take them, their geographical world is small. They speak often of their “small footprint” a reference to the limited area of space they normally cover day…
Thomas Wolfe wrote a classic book entitled, You Can’t Go Home Again. The idea is that things change. If you are away and return, it is never the same. The Hebrew children spent forty futile years trying to go home again. Their experience, recorded in Numbers, is summarized with the cry, “Let us select a…