‘Tis the season for graduations. For the last 25 years or so, I’ve been going to graduations around this time of the year. This year is no exception. Every year I get to witness a chapter in life closing and another chapter beginning for these graduates. However, there will come a day when we will graduate […]
Ezekiel 11:19-21–And I will give them one heart, and a new spirit I will put within them. I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh, 20 that they may walk in my statutes and keep my rules and obey them. And they shall be my people, and I will be their God. One of […]
As a math teacher, when I have a student who gets a good grade on a test even though he didn’t work for it but because he “guessed” well, I get frustrated. I feel like he didn’t deserve the good grade he got. My feeling is not one of gladness for his good grade, although […]
John 10:3–To him the gatekeeper opens. The sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. I remember vividly, two weeks before I came to know Jesus Christ, I met a man at the airport while going through security who began witnessing to me. Not about Jesus, but about Islam and […]
Yesterday, we witnessed two young men commit themselves to follow Jesus by getting baptized. I can’t over-emphasize how significant an event that is! It is far more significant than any president winning the election, or a football team winning the Superbowl, or even a brand new planet starting to form! I know you think I’m exaggerating, […]
It is good to have God’s word near. If you are reading this, consider yourself blessed. Not because you are reading my devotional, but you have the word of God near you, which will protect you from being destroyed. King Josiah “discovers” the word of God in the temple that had been neglected for years. Once he reads, […]
John 6:60-When many of his disciples heard it, they said, “This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?” I realized years ago before I had children from counseling orphans, that before I told them “hard truths” they had to trust me. They had to trust that I had their best interest in mind, and truly […]
Our problem is not that we do not worship God – we do! – but that we worship other gods as well. We may worship God on Sundays but we worship money, family, and entertainment during the week. This was the problem with the Israelites. They worshipped God as only one of many gods. The Israelites secretly […]
John 4:15-16–The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.” 16 Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here.” Jesus meeting “the woman at the well” maybe one of the more famous passages in the gospels. To give you some […]
Love is a double-edged sword. When you love someone, all their joys become your joy but their sorrows become your sorrow as well. Last weekend, my heart was overjoyed as I witnessed my former youth and her family rejoice in her marriage. But this weekend, my heart was heavy when I found out that a family […]