Ecclesiastes 12:10

    Do you remember when you were in school, usually in the lower grade levels, when they gave out awards? Now often, almost everyone would get some kind of award. Maybe you were not the ‘Top Student’ but you could be the ‘Best Dressed’ or ‘Best Helper’ or ‘Nicest Smile’. I always felt the teacher had to make up an award for me, ‘Didn’t Burn Down The Class…Again’ or ‘Most Noticed When He Was Absent’.   Now if I asked you what was the best award to receive what would you say?  Would it be ‘Most Improved’? We might think that is not a great award but it might be the secret to success.   The biggest hindrance to success isn’t talent or smarts but it follow through. We get complacent, satisfied where we are, and stuck in our ways. But if we are seeking to improve, we will always be moving to the better. As we read in Philippians 3:13-14:  Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet; but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and re...

    Why did they decide to start the year in the middle of winter? It is not a solstice or equinox. It doesn’t really seem like a ‘new’ year.  If they had done it in springtime, that would make sense when everything is blooming back and nature is returning. But no that is months off.  The school year isn’t new, we are smack dab in the middle of it. There is no new sports season that starts, nothing is premiering,  no reason for the business world to take notice except we say it is a new year. There is no metaphorically, astronomically, and culturally significant reason for it.  Yet here we are in a New Year. However, there doesn’t have to be a reason to change, except it is time for one. We all need to move ahead, maybe by letting go of something (a sin, a struggle, a grudge) or making a fresh start (better habit, a spiritual commitment, a new walk).  Don’t let arbitrary date on a calendar make you start anew. The only day you need is today! As w...

    Is there anything more precious than a newborn baby? Is there anything more tragic than the loss of one?   That is what makes a part of the story of Jesus' birth so heartbreaking. In Matthew 2 we read about how King Herod tries to get information about the newborn king of the Jews from the wise men that came to celebrate his birth. When warned of his duplicity they flee his territory. The enraged king then orders the death of all newborn boys two and under. The massacre of innocent children was foretold by the line, “ Rachel weeping for her children; she refused to be comforted, because they are no more ”.   We must consider why these children were targeted. Simply they looked like Jesus. At least very least they fit the description Herod had of the child.   Truth be told there are still those in positions of power that target for harm those that look like Jesus. They might not really know who Jesus is but they are quick to lump together anyone ...

   In early 1865, Patrick Anderson’s farm fell on hard times. On the brink of bankruptcy, he wrote to Jordan Anderson, who had lived on the farm from age 8, asking him to return to the plantation to work. Though he shared a last name with him Patrick was not a relative to Jordan but his former owner.   The reason the farm was failing was it had lost its source of free labor when Union troops upon occupying the plantation, emancipated the slaves held therein. Now here was Patrick Anderson asking for the slave to come back to the plantation with no mention of pay.   Jordan, by then, had started a new life as a free man in Ohio and had found gainful employment. The return letter he sent back went about as you expected too. Jordan's sarcasm-laden message reminded the slave owner of the atrocities he had done and how he had ‘ shot at me twice before I left you’. He said he be willing to come back and “ forget past scores ” if Patrick would show his sincerity and...

    The worst thing you can give a man is an excuse.   In Acts 9, Ananias gets a call from the Lord. There is a man who needs to hear the gospel and Ananias is the man to do it. Now Ananias was a good man (Acts 22:12) so you expect him to do what he is commanded by God.   But when told who he is going to, Annanias has some reservations. “Have you heard about this guy and what he has done”! Of course, God has but for Ananias the rumors going around about Saul are enough reason to stay at home.   Yet notice that excuses do not matter to God even when it comes from the truth. He not only knows what Saul has done but he also knows what he will do. While his past might be a convenient excuse it was a good reason for Annanias not to follow the command.    Maybe we find ourselves in the same situation. We know God has commanded us to take the Gospel to the world. Yet we all make our excuses. Do you know about them? Have you heard what they did? Can you believ...

  Even though it is one of the most plentiful substances on the planet, water might be the strangest, at least chemically speaking. H20 makes up seventy percent of the earth and seventy percent of our brains, yet it stands apart from everything else in sixty-six different ways. For example, any other gas combined with hydrogen just produces another gas, only when combined with oxygen will it make a liquid. Nothing else is found in nature a solid and liquid and gas at the same time. Most substances shrink when they cool but water expands. Water will dissolve almost anything but unlike other solvents, it doesn’t eradicate what it dissolves. You can put your hand right through it yet water is difficult to compress, essentially making it making it bulletproof.   Yet what might make water even more unusual is that it can save you from your sins. … when God's patience waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were ...