News report: “There is an obvious target being placed upon Christians, and the thugs behind the attacks are not satisfied with anything short of murder. Extreme persecution and violence is the order of the day. Just the other day a Christian was beheaded, and so now the question is, ‘What will Christians do?’” The above paragraph (notice the quotation marks) could have…

It is such an unpleasant topic–death. Who wants to talk about it? Who wants to think about it? But, the reality is that the one thing that every person on earth has in common is that one day they will die. For those who do not believe in absolutes, guess what? Death is an absolute! It is absolutely going to happen! Every…

It sure can be easy to let the circumstances of life and the things happening around us to get us down and dejected. What else is going to go wrong in this country? What else is going to happen to the cost of living? What else is going to trouble my family and my friends? Rather than focusing on “all the bad…

Living in a fast-paced, self-gratifying world, it is not always easy or automatic to be kindhearted and to show kindness toward others, but that is exactly what the Lord expects of us. The love that is to characterize, motivate and permeate the Christian life “is kind” (1 Cor. 13:4). We are to “put  on…kindness” (Col. 3:12), being instructed to “be kind to…

Ah, the Super Bowl! It’s less about the actual 60 minutes of playing time and more about the hype leading up to the game! (Or, so it would seem.) In the days between the conference championship games and the actual Super Bowl, you would think that Jesus was coming again, as much hype as they throw at you. And, then, when the…

Here are some questions to which we do not have answers: How old was Hannah when she gave birth to Samuel? How often had Hannah prayed to have a son? How often, in the “year by year” that she went to the house of the Lord, did she beg the Lord for a son? Was it possible that Hannah was soon going…

You have certainly heard numerous justifications offered from various people for why they do what they do: “It’s what my dad/mom always taught me to do”; “It’s what felt right at the moment”; “It’s what my husband/wife told me to do”; “I have a right to be happy and do what I want”; etc. You, no doubt, have heard some real whoppers…

So, what is THE characteristic that makes a Christian stand out from everyone else? Above everything else, what is THE one piece of evidence by which a person could be identified as a Christian? Is it his devotion to sound doctrine  and pure, unadulterated truth? Is it his ability to quote Scripture upon Scripture? Is it her faithful, uncompromising attendance at every…