Category: Salvation

7/1/2022 0 Comments

Inability to See

Meditation
John 8:25-27—“Who are You?” they questioned. “Precisely what I’ve been telling you from the very beginning,” Jesus told them. I have many things to say and to judge about you, but the One who sent Me is true, and what I have heard from Him—these things I tell the world.” They did not know He was speaking to them about the Father.

6/29/2022 0 Comments

Understanding Delay

I hope this is an encouraging word for someone—discouraged by delays, by the hiccups of life that seem insidious; by the time that goes too fast when you want it to be slow and too slow when you want it to be fast.

5/21/2022 0 Comments

Kingdom of God

Pastor Mike tells the story of how as a child, he and his siblings would eat through an entire large box of Kellogg’s Pep cereal to get the prize—a submarine. Mike’s goal was to get the prize; he didn’t care for the product.

4/7/2022 0 Comments

Guaranteed!

Payne lives in the United States but is from Great Britain. Payne grew up as an agnostic. When he came to the U.S., he accepted an invitation to church and heard the minister encourage people to give in support of the ministry. Payne was surprised when the pastor guaranteed that if anyone tithed and did not see God bless their efforts and consequently lost money, he would return their total gift. After the service, he went up to the pastor and said, “Let me get this straight. You are giving us a money-back guarantee if we give and do not see an increase in our finances?” The pastor replied, “I’ve been pastoring for over 30 years, and I have never lost this challenge—so yes, I’m giving you a money-back guarantee!”

3/24/2022 0 Comments

Believing Gained by Reading

Erwin introduced me to Rojan* an 80-year-old doctor born in Peru. We listened to him as he explained that there is no such thing as hell and that when he dies, he will simply decompose and return to the earth—body, spirit, and soul. There is no afterlife he said. Implied in his words were his belief that there is no God and no accountability for us in how we live. He was firm in his convictions and seemingly unconcerned of a finite life.

2/17/2022 0 Comments

Life

Satan shrewdly deceived Eve in the garden. Just eat the forbidden fruit and you will be like God and know the difference between good and evil (Genesis 3:5). The deeper implication behind his temptation was that Eve was somehow deprived. At this point in her existence, she had no knowledge of evil. What Satan did not tell Eve was that it was her relationship with God that was most important. Having her eyes opened would make her like him—a fallen creature out of God’s favor. His intent was to sever Adam and Eve’s relationship with their Creator by cunningly convincing them to disobey His command.

1/6/2022 1 Comment

Tell the Righteous!

Meditation
Isaiah 3:10-11—Tell the righteous that it will go well for them, for they will eat the fruit of their labor. Woe to the wicked—it will go badly for them, for what they have done will be done to them.

God’s word to Isaiah challenged me to study the word righteous because it is in that context that things go well for people. What I found was staggering in some ways. But before we look at the signs and fruit of righteous living we should understand 14 lessons that teach:

12/7/2021 1 Comment

A Faith of Equal Privilege

The antidote to discrimination and racism is Jesus Christ. Pastor E.V. Hill once shared his response to Black Panthers threatening his life for preaching about “that white Jesus.”
I don’t know anything about a white Christ—I know about Christ, a Savior named Jesus. I don’t know what color He is. He was born in brown Asia, He fled to black Africa, and He was in heaven before the gospel got to white Europe . . . I do know one thing: if you bow at the altar with color on your mind, and get up with color on your mind, go back again and keep going back until you no longer look at His color, but at his greatness and His power—His power to save![1]

11/24/2020 1 Comment

Thankful

It will go down in history as perhaps mankind’s most bizarre year. Never has the entire globe in unison shut down because of a virus. Restrictions in travel, work, recreation, size of gatherings etc., have ruined businesses, increased the number of suicides and deaths for those with other ailments who cannot be hospitalized, amped fear to unprecedented levels, and created a huge divide in opinion over what should or should not be done. Meanwhile political unrest, rolling waves of violence, storms and disasters add to the cacophony of 2020.

11/17/2020 0 Comments

The One Thing You Can't Do In Heaven

Mark Cahill wrote two books I highly recommend--One Thing You Can’t Do In Heaven and The Watchmen. Both books are fantastic for the topic of evangelism. I was highly convicted after reading Mark’s firsthand testimony of his consistent effort spent sharing his faith and so encouraged by the advice and wisdom he shares to make it easier for believers to present the gospel.

9/21/2020 0 Comments

Graduation

Barbara Jo was born on January 14, 1929 in Kellogg, Idaho. Trapped in a nursing home by Covid-19, depressed and unable to leave her room for months, she wasted away to a mere 75 pounds before finally reaching earth’s finish line at the age of 91. Fortunately, her life was not defined by her death.

8/23/2020 1 Comment

Marking People With Grace

Ron and Joyce York

At the age of 88, my dad is walking the final chapters of his life on earth still on fire to share the gospel with any and every person he can. Mark Cahill wrote the book One Thing You Can’t Do In Heaven and that one thing is evangelism. Dad is making sure he maximizes now what he won’t be able to do once he is home.
I’m working on writing a biography of his life and was challenged by an entry in his journal on October 10, 1983 while he was serving as the country leader for the Navigators in the Philippines.

3/16/2020 2 Comments

Corona Virus

The numbers worldwide continue to rise: 181,377 cases, 7119 deaths, 78,085 recoveries.[1] Worldwide reactions are dramatic: airline flights cancelled, large numbers of quarantined populations, countries with closed borders, bans on gatherings over 250 people, schools closed, colleges reverting to online classes, sports leagues cancelled, plummeting stock markets etc. Behold a pandemic! The cause of this chaos is a virus named “SARS-CoV-2” and the disease it causes is called “coronavirus disease 2019” (abbreviated “COVID-19”).

1/6/2020 0 Comments

I Wait For Your Salvation LORD

Meditation
Genesis 49:18—I wait for Your salvation LORD.

The Hebrew word yšû‘āh occurs 78 times in the Old Testament and means salvation (47); deliver, deliverer, deliverance (11); savior, saves, saving (10); victories, victorious, victory (8); rescue (1); and safety (1). The word is only used once in the book of Genesis by Jacob when he pronounced on his deathbed what would happen to his twelve sons. I’m not sure if his words referred to Dan who was the seventh son he was speaking to, or if they were a personal prayer before continuing his prophetic messages to his five remaining sons. But if the latter case is true, then it would appear that Jacob possessed a belief in the afterlife.

12/5/2019 0 Comments

Oscar's Vision

Oscar and Queta

Oscar, in September of 2003, had a vision where he was on the beach in a messed up condition when someone approached him, took him to the ocean, and began to cleanse him with ocean water. In the vision he stopped crying and felt an incredible peace. He asked the person helping him, “Who are you?” The person replied, “I’m God.” Oscar was a 3rd generation atheist on his mother’s side and 4th generation atheist on his father’s side. His vision began a religious quest in which he sampled Buddhism, Jehovah’s Witnesses and other religions while maintaining his heavy lifestyle of partying and heavy alcohol consumption.

7/25/2019 0 Comments

The Green Light

Harry Generaux was 18 years old when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. The U.S. Air Corps was suffering from a shortage of bomber pilots and Harry wanted to fly. He signed up for service and underwent an intensive nine-month program to fly the B-17 Flying Fortress. On November 10, 1944, Harry was assigned to fly with a new crew. His 19thmission was the first test of this band of young flyers and it would prove to be perhaps the most memorable of their military career. Their main objective was to attack and destroy key German targets. Harry navigated the plane into the 36-ship formation. Finally arriving at their destination, the attack commenced in earnest as clusters of bombs tumbled from B-17 bellies.

2/27/2019 0 Comments

Necessary Endings

Dr. Henry Cloud wrote a significant book entitled Necessary Endings. Cloud wrote, “When we fail to end things well, we are destined to repeat the mistakes that keep us from moving on.” He shares observations why pruning may be essential for an organization to move forward; why many leaders struggle to understand that endings are a natural season in life; the difference between pain with a purpose and pain for no good reason; hoping versus wishing; three kinds of people; creating urgency and motivation for change; how to handle resistance; and, many other excellent insights that best position leaders to succeed in the future.[1]

10/2/2018 0 Comments

Patience--An Operating Power

Sadie is amazing. Her body is constantly wracked in arthritic pain yet her countenance reveals mostly joy. She has more broken bones than most football players. Her abusive husband died leaving her penniless and with no insurance to handle her ever-mounting medical bills. Still, she does not complain. Her ’96 faded blue Ford Taurus won’t start so she must rely on the help of others to get around until she can find the money to pay a mechanic to fix it. Her son is addicted to meth and her daughter is in her fourth relationship with a man who is a total controller. If anyone was a candidate for bitterness it would be Sadie. Yet she is serene and confident in her faith. She consistently encourages others—an empathy distributing angel in a world of mean, selfish people. What is her secret?

10/18/2016

Water Is Life

My ranger friend Chaplain Bruce took me out prospecting not far from Pikes Peak. In our backpacks we had multiple water bottles and coconut water and we were pretty sure we would not get thirsty. What we did not count on was deviating from our plotted course or how steep some of the climb would be. By early evening, as we descended through forest, we ran out of fluids and Bruce’s legs severely cramped up. Had we gone much further the same thing would have happened to me. It is easy to get dehydrated in the dry air of Colorado. Water is life.

9/9/2016

Not Everyone is Saved

Scripture—Used in favor of Universalism
2 Thessalonians 2:3,4—This is good, and it pleases God our Savior, who wants everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.

Photo used under Creative Commons from Rachel Maxey Miles