Nine years ago, one week before Christmas, my beloved mother passed away.  Sunday morning, December 18, 2016, at 4:00 of a cold, foggy morning, the Hospice nurse confirmed what my sister and I had just witnessed:  our precious mother was gone.  For eighteen sleepless hours, we had kept vigil at her side, reading Scripture, praying, and singing hymns.  At one point when we were quoting verses about heaven, I suddenly realized that my focus was misguided.  Thinking about heaven

Have you clopped along the cobbled streets of Rothenburg ob der Tauber, one of Germany's oldest and best-preserved medieval towns, where it feels like Christmas all year? This time-capsule of days gone by, tracing back to the 10th century, was once home to a handsome nutcracker that I took back to the States with me in August of 1989. Yes, that was a long time ago. The Berlin Wall was just a couple of months away from coming down. For those of us who heard President Ronal

Introduction The story of Hannah in I Samuel is one of my favorite in the entire Bible. After years of barrenness, Hannah sees her prayer answered, and she gives her little son to the Lord, exactly as she had promised. How easy it would have been to retract her vow and to keep Samuel for herself, but Hannah not only does nothing of the kind, she presents Samuel to Eli with triumphant rejoicing. Her prayer of dedication after Samuel has been weaned (I Samuel 2:1-10) bears

It doesn't take deep thought to realize that we live in a thankless world. People we don't even know leave nasty replies to comments on blogposts and videos if we dare to express a true statement that isn't very popular. Follow the comments section on the assassination of Charlie Kirk, for example, and see the hatred spewing everywhere. Not only do we live in an angry world, we live in a world corrupted to the core with selfishness and idolatry. Just the other day at scho

Conventional wisdom would tell us that there is a significant difference between popularity and influence. Godly wisdom will tell us that popularity is to be shunned and that, when we have found ourselves popular, we can be sure our influence is short-lived. Jesus says with good reason, "Woe unto you when all men shall speak well of you! For so did their fathers treat the false prophets" (Luke 6:26). In other words, people (and their inventions) that become popular usually

The shadow of a leaf descending past my windowpane                         Shutters autumn’s sun amid the fervent afternoon.                          Rejoining fellow fallen leaves along the frostbit lawn,                         The leaf rests warmly blazoned before the year is gone.                                     We thank the Lord for fallen things—for blessings here below,                         For rain above the dismal heights not yet bedecked with snow,...

Created by Dallas Jenkins in 2017, The Chosen is a multi-season television series dramatizing the humanity of Jesus from the viewpoint of His disciples. Jenkins, in the spirit of literary license, has created 95% of the show's material to fill what he calls "gaps" in the Biblical record. The show's predominantly fictional content has not precluded its being billed as historical drama; nor has it hindered the credulity of Jenkins' fans. On the contrary, the vast majority of

Believing that the word "sinner" is not only overused but misused today in reference to God's children, and, believing that it matters whether we identify ourselves as "sinners" or as "saints," I have set out to study Scripture's use of the word "saints." The search is as easy as it is daunting, for the word "saints" is used at least 98 times in the King James Bible, but it isn't at all difficult to find the references. With Strong's Concordance and a journal in front of me

It wouldn't be too surprising to hear that Christians these days are going through an identity crisis. This crisis might not involve merely the question of who we are ourselves but also with whom we can identify anymore. The Christian landscape seems ever changing, to the point that people we thought we trusted yesterday turn out to be someone entirely different today. That respected leader lets us down, and we find out that we have no heroes left, after all. Some people'

Most of us will never know what really goes on behind the scenes during the week of Halloween. If you have ever felt more Satanic oppression during this time than at others, you are not alone. Perhaps your spirit feels a burden you cannot shake, a heaviness you cannot explain, a depression you cannot dismiss. What's really going on? My mother told of a time when she and my father experienced unusual Satanic oppression when they had a next door neighbor who was a practicin