We don’t always understand why God does what He does such as, why to those who live rightly He allows bad things to happen to them or worse yet, He gives something that is hard to bear.  In his book, The Contemplative Pastor, Eugene H. Peterson shares about Ruthie and Dave, a deeply spiritual Chr...

The other day when Santy and I were babysitting our grandchildren, I happened to hear the conversation that took place between our eldest and youngest grandchildren.  Apparently the youngest got a hold of a toy that the eldest wanted.  Instead of taking it by force, the eldest, then, said ...

How do we measure godliness?  What is the chief characteristic of godly people? It is not by how much we know the Bible or how many Bible verses we memorize.  It is not by how long we can fast and pray; and it is not by how eloquent we preach.  We measure godliness by how […]...

One of the great preachers the world has ever known is Charles Haddon Spurgeon of England, who was known to preach directly from the Bible.  One Sunday morning he began his message by saying this, “Some have found fault with me, contending that I am too old-fashioned.  I am always quotin...

A couple of days before I left Indonesia for America, my mother threw a farewell party for me.  Present among the guests were two missionaries. After giving his message, my pastor turned to the missionaries and asked if they had a message for me.  One of them, who happened to be a Baptist ...

We all know that money or prosperity is powerful, so powerful that Jesus equated it with Mammon, a prosperity god, and warned His disciples that they could not serve God and Money (Matt 6:24).  It wouldn’t work!  They could only serve one or the other.  C. S. Lewis explains, “Pros...

Firstly, thank you for your prayers for my mother and me.  By the grace of God, she can now walk with assistance.  If God’s willing, she will be on her way to full recovery.  And by the grace of God my trip went well, too; I was healthy and able to accomplish what I had […]...

2 possible results of challenging times Why do bad things happen to good people? Well, keep in mind, bad things happen to all people. Depending upon where we are in our relationship with God, it’s during those times that we typically either move closer to God, or further away from God. Keeping the...

In his devotional, Victorious Living, E. Stanley Jones quotes the words of someone who said that in the field of music, “pauses are music in the making.” We know that songs have pauses; we can’t sing from beginning to end without pauses. But pauses are not only for us to take a breath; it is [...

These past several weeks have been difficult for us as a church. We have lost three dear members: Tante Gwie, Tante Agnes, and Tante Daisy. We know that they are now in their True Home, but we still miss them. You see, death is always personal because each person is always somebody’s mother or fat...