Ecclesiastes 12:10

            Well, the time has come for me to write my last bulletin article as a minister at Northwest.  Anytime you come to the end of something, it causes you to think back and question what you have done. Have I done a good thing? Did I make any difference? Did my labor mean anything? Was it all worthwhile? These questions are often times impossible to answer.  Some results are not easily quantified.  Influence, worth and meaning are often not seen in the short term.   Solomon writes in Ecclesiastes 3:11, “ God has made everything appropriate in its time. He has also set eternity in their heart, yet so that man will not find out the work which God has done from the beginning even to the end.”   God has made us mortal but we long for eternal significance. Only thru Him can we achieve this desire. Only in the life to come can we see all the result of our works. That is why we must think about the ete...

I love a good joke.   Stay around me too long and you will probably hear a bad pun, a quick one liner, or some other quip.   At times I have been criticized for my sense of humor, but I learned without it I might not be around.   A 2005 study in the Handbook of Positive Psychology found that those who use humor to cope with stress tend to have especially healthy immune systems. It also found they are 40 percent less likely to suffer a heart attack or stroke, experience less pain during dental surgery and live four and a half years longer than average.   These results shouldn’t surprise us too much. Proverbs 17:22 tells us “ A joyful heart is good medicine, But a broken spirit dries up the bones. ” Once again the truth of the word of God proves itself. A good laugh can be the best daily pill you can take.

  You may have noticed the ever increasing number of negative ads in the upcoming election. When most people are surveyed about these ads they claim to dislike them and wish candidate would not run them. So why are candidates using them more and more? They work!    Most people are uninformed about the complicated details of most issues, so they can’t see thru the half truths and manipulation that come in candidate bashing. It is much easier to convince voters how bad others are doing than how the candidate can do it better .    That same mentality can infect the church. We can look around and see problems in other places. By   “running down” others, it makes us seem better even if we are doing nothing ! But when God looks at a churches in Asia in Revelation 2-3, those that are doing nothing are scolded as harshly are doing wrong. He tells the Church in Laodicea, “‘I know your deeds that you are neither cold nor hot; I wish that you were cold or hot. ’...

  If you ever find yourself in position of a $10,000 dollar bill you may not recognize the person depicted. His name is Salmon Chase. He was an American politician and jurist who served as U.S. Senator, the 23 rd Governor of Ohio, as the U.S. Treasury Secretary under President Abraham Lincoln and as the sixth Chief Justice of the United States.   Before all those accomplishment, Chase had seen his share of tragedy.   His father died when he was only nine years old, forcing him to live with his uncle. He suffered the loss of his first wife during the birth of their daughter. Tragedy struck again only five years later when that daughter died from scarlet fever.   He described the experience as ” one of the heaviest calamities which human experiences can know ”.   He told friends that, “ no language can describe the desolation of my heart ”.   Grief can certainly feel that way. But the Bible tells us that God still can understand us even when we can’t exp...

  If you have a computer and an email address you have probably received a message that says if you just forward a message to another person that AOL or Bill Gates or some other entity will give money to you or some other needy person . These messages have been a hoax that has been around almost as long as the internet. Billions of emails have been forwarded but never has anyone gotten any money.   So if you send it to me I will politely reply back to you and tell you about the hoax with some form of research showing the truth . I have found that this news is often not received well by the sender. Some will send me another message with a different twist on the same premise shortly thereafter. Others will not send it to me but later I will see that they sent it to someone else who then sent it to me. One person responded back to me saying, “You’re probably right but I hate to be the one to stop sending then I would feel guilty.” Even when faced with a mountain of truth peop...