CHRIST the LOVER of WHOEVER: “Whosoever believes in Him should not perish” (Jn 3:15): Mary McLeod, 15th of 17 children, was the daughter of ex-slaves so poor the children pulled the plows. When a mission school opened nearby, Sam McLeod asked God to help him select one child to go, all he could afford. Mary […]
“Now while Ezra was praying, and while he was confessing, weeping, and bowing down before the house of God, a very large assembly of men, women, and children gathered to him from Israel; for the people wept very bitterly” (Ezra 10:1). This hardly seems the path to popularity! Confessing? Don’t you lose your status and […]
D.L. Moody paid nine visits to the Civil War battlefront. One evening past midnight, he was called to visit a dying soldier. “He said, ‘I wish you to help me to die.’ ‘I would help you if I could,’ replied Moody. ‘I would take you on my shoulders and carry you into the kingdom if […]
“The ways of creation are wrapt in mystery. We may only marvel, and bow our head.” —Albert Einstein Finding his friend unable to help him in his distress, Job turns his eyes upward. He describes for us the Creator. Everything is within His purview. You cannot escape Him, even in the grave. “Sheol is naked before […]
CHRIST the OUTPOURING: “He poured out His soul unto death” (Isa 53:12). When Christ “emptied Himself” (kenoo, Php 2:7), who received the outflow of this fullness? We know the answer: “of His fullness we have all received, and grace upon grace” (Jn 1:16). If we can truly hear what Paul tells the Ephesians, we should […]
“Indeed these are the mere edges of His ways, and how small a whisper we hear of Him!” (Job 26:14). The theater of Aspendos is one of the best-preserved in the Roman world. Built from 161-169 AD in Lycia (modern Turkey), an area visited briefly by Luke and Paul as recorded in Acts 27, the […]
Charles Darwin wrote: “To suppose that the eye with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree” (Origin of Species, 1859, […]
Yes, God helps those who help themselves—to the resources He’s made available to us in Christ. We are approaching the conclusion of Round 3 of the grand debate. The following six chapters (Job 26–31) are Job’s last effort to answer his critics, make his appeal to God, and find any sense in the broken shards […]
The SON and the BREATH of GOD: Even the breath of the Lord has power in it! We know the Son was the Creator of everything (Jn 1:3). How did He do it? “By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, and all the host of them by the breath of His mouth” […]