Get ready to start a journey…a journey through the pages of the Bible and the pages of your life.
Have you ever messed up? I mean really messed up. Fallen hard? Failed? Quit? Turned your back and walked the other way? Hurt someone you love? Would you like a second chance? Check out this story about Peter’s meeting with Jesus after denying the Lord three times.
Paul conceded that a “thorn was given [him] in the flesh.” We don’t know what it was, but he described it as “a messenger of Satan” sent to afflict him. Paul had been given a vision of heaven. He didn’t write a book about it or go on the talk show circuit.
What will it all mean at the end of the day?
Pat Slowey on success in business, intimacy with God, and the emotions of living with Stage 4 cancer.
Have you ever visited Washington, DC, our nation’s capital? If you have, you would have seen the Washington Monument. You can’t miss the memorial to our country’s first president. When you see this obelisk, you will notice something unusual. About a third of the way up the outside of this structure, you will observe a definite change in the color of the stones used to build it.
William Borden was a young man who had a passion to make an impact for Jesus. When God called him to ministry in China, he never hesitated. Borden was from a wealthy and privileged family and graduated from Yale University and Princeton Seminary. His friends thought he was crazy to waste his life overseas. But Borden heeded the call and headed for China, never looking back.
Just as some players love the game and some love the things that go with the game, so there are people willing to follow Jesus wherever through whatever. And there are those who love the idea of being called followers of Jesus without the commitment. Check out today’s passage.
Contentment. Where does it come from? There is no one better to ask than the apostle Paul. He was familiar with life’s extremes with challenging circumstances.
A massive block of white marble, twenty feet long from an old Roman quarry, was transported by oxen-drawn carts to the Mediterranean Sea, then carried on barges pulled by oxen up the Arno River to Florence, Italy. On the morning of September 13, 1501, Michelangelo began his work. Almost four years later, on June 8, 1504, it was completed. From that solid rock, Michelangelo envisioned and chiseled a masterpiece, the statue of David, that still stands in Florence today.
At one time, I was an enemy of God. My back was turned on him, and I was headed in a different direction. I wanted to be the one in charge of my life and refused to acknowledge God’s authority. I wasn’t an atheist. I believed that God existed, but he was distant, and I was content to keep it that way.
We can get settled in this life of ours. We describe our activities with words of permanence. We get married and “settle down.” We become “established” in our careers. We “build” a house. We acquire stuff—some cool stuff—that we appreciate and enjoy…sometimes a little too much.
Jason McClain on how one phone call changes your life, loving through illness, dealing with grief, and life as a single dad.