Cinderella has nothing on Esther. This young woman will change the whole course of history! As the king scanned the bevy of beauties gathered for his appraisal at his winter palace in Shushan (Susa), one young lady stood out from the crowd. “Now the young woman pleased him, and she obtained his favor” (Est 2:9). What was […]
CHRIST STRONGER than the STRONG MAN: “When a strong man, fully armed, guards his own palace, his goods are in peace. But when a stronger than he comes upon him and overcomes him, he takes from him all his armor in which he trusted, and divides his spoils” (Lk 11:21-22). Is it true that one […]
“So we fasted and entreated our God for this, and He answered our prayer” (Ezra 8:23). What was the issue? Exposed to “the enemy” on the long journey from Babylon to Jerusalem, they humbled themselves before God “to seek from Him the right way for us and our little ones and all our possessions” (vv […]
The authors of the Epistles, writes J.B. Phillips, “had a tremendous sense of the overwhelming Moral Perfection of God. The insistence on the only safe approach to God being through Christ is due to this acute sense of the peril of a sinful being coming within range, as it were, of the blazing light and […]
Parties and drinking and divorce and beauty contests and murder plots and…God turned it to good? Seven days of partying, one drink-fueled whim, followed by one brash decision. “After these things, when the wrath of King Ahasuerus subsided, he remembered Vashti, what she had done, and what had been decreed against her” (Est 2:1). History is replete […]
CHRIST OUR FOUNDATION: “For no other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ” (1 Cor 3:11). Sir William Dobbie was the heroic governor of Malta (biblical Melita, scene of Paul’s shipwreck) when, in 1940, it was bitterly besieged. But “the most bombed spot on earth” did not fall. He […]
“And Elisha prayed, and said, ‘Lord, I pray, open his eyes that he may see.’ Then the Lord opened the eyes of the young man, and he saw. And behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire…” (2 Ki 6:17). I’ve been told that angels appear in about 100 Bible stories. I […]
Christian apologist Josh McDowell explains that the change in his life when he trusted Christ convinced his father that there was hope for him as well. McDowell writes: “After I trusted Christ, my life was changed in six to eighteen months. But my father’s life was changed right before my eyes. It was as if […]
No one to encourage you? With all the tools provided for the believer to face life’s challenges, David tells us the one he found essential when he seemed to be working solo. […]