T OGETHER—what a wonderful word! Webster defines it, “with each other, in company, with united action and cooperation.”The people of Israel had stopped working together for God. Their sense of togetherness and sacrifice was gone. Then, God spoke to them: ...
D O YOU KNOW PEOPLE in whom you sense the sweet Spirit of God in the first minutes of conversation? Gerry and Barb Dupuis fit that description. They are vocational clinical chaplains whose testimony conveys the tranquility they find in ...
I NTERCESSORY PRAYER is the bridge between lostness and salvation. Some believe that anyone can come to Christ anytime—no intercessory bridge is necessary. Reject Christ today, accept Him tomorrow. The sinner decides. We increasingly feel our intervention is inappropriate, our ...
W WE ARE AT A MOMENT in this nation where common sense seems to be gasping for its last breath. • A major USA news network announces that parents are raising “theybies” to let kids decide their gender. • In ...
W HAT ARE YOU DOING with your hands? Our hands are among the most used parts of our bodies. We probably don’t realize how dependent on them we are since most daily tasks are engaged without much thought. But their ...
I N CASE YOU haven’t noticed, the world has changed. As I write this article, I’m sitting in a coffee shop sipping on a $6 skinny vanilla latte, extra hot, because that’s what the cool hip pastors do these days. ...
I N JESUS’ PARABLE of the Good Samaritan, apparently there were no signs like “Danger: Thieves Ahead” posted along the Jericho road, but the dangers of this trail were well known. Yet, the Jewish man in the parable undertook the ...
R EPROBATION, as a Christian doctrine, is when a sinner’s heart is so hardened they feel no remorse for what is vile and unnatural. The English word reprobate comes from the Latin reprobatus (“reproved” or “condemned”), which is the opposite ...
How did you become a Christian? In 1969, Ruth Anderson and Kathy Stafford knocked on our door. They were two ladies involved in the bus ministry, and they asked my sister and me if we would like to go to ...
B AAL. He appears throughout Scripture, in one form or another, 130 times, and is the constant enemy of God’s people. Something about Baal intrigued God’s people, and he was a constant thorn in their side. For one reason or ...
T HERE IS BEAUTY and power in the ability to express eternal truths in a way that is familiar and common. However, what is familiar to one person may be foreign to another; and what is common to some may ...
J AMES JESUS ANGLETON, the founding director of the CIA, once called espionage a “wilderness of mirrors.” If that is true of spy work, it is no less true of Christian race relations today. During June 2020, many major U.S. ...
F ROM COMPETITIVE SHOWS such as American Idol and Survivor to life-under-the-lens shows such as Hoarders, there are hundreds of reality programs on television. The problem with such programming is, for the majority of us, this is not reality. Most ...
I WAS BROKEN. I remember the very moment I started to come to the end of myself. I say “started” because the journey through the most sorrow-filled and spiritually dry season of my life began in this moment in 1994. ...
O N THE ROLLING HILLS overlooking the Sea of Galilee and the little village of Capernaum, Jesus stood among a growing crowd and delivered His greatest message. Probably taking no more than 20 minutes, Jesus delivered His “Sermon on the ...
O UR WORLD IS increasingly uncomfortable with objective truth. Relativism and subjectivity attempt to redefine ourselves and our surroundings on the basis of our fallen viewpoints. Yet science is stubbornly objective. It doesn’t matter whether or not you feel it—the ...
R ECENTLY, MORE THAN 60 Evangelical leaders released a statement addressing artificial intelligence. The Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC) spent nine months working on “Artificial Intelligence: An Evangelical Statement of Principles”—a document designed to equip the ...
T HESE SIX THINGS doth the Lord hate; yea, seven are an abomination to him” (Proverbs 6:16). God does not discriminate between evils, but in Proverbs 6:16-19, He points out seven prevalent evils. Let’s consider these sins’ awful effects. • ...
I T HAD BEEN a long, exhausting night for Peter. He and six of his fellow disciples had fished all night, but hadn’t caught even one fish. As they steered their boat toward the shore, Jesus was watching. He directed ...
I N TODAY’S SOCIETY, an ungodly presence is coming against the Church. In many ways it reminds me of the system spawned by Nebuchadnezzar in ancient Babylon. This evil king “removed the treasures from the temple of the Lord and ...
I LIVE WITHIN a few miles of Charlottesville, Virginia—a quiet college town which became the focus of international attention in August 2017. The words “Remember Charlottesville” conjure images of torch-bearing Neo-Nazis, violent street conflicts, and hatred personified. What happened in ...
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T hese are unprecedented times! Since March 2020, people around the world have been glued to developing current events. It began with the COVID-19 pandemic and its impact upon the world and questions about the future. Then, the attention in ...
H ow many doors have closed to you since COVID-19 commenced crumpling calendars? This summer across our denomination, mission trips, youth camps, Vacation Bible Schools, camp meetings, and the International General Assembly could not happen. Personally, I’m counting four months ...
“I t just happened that I was in the right place when God chose to start it,” the Reverend A. V. Childers recalled in a 1978 interview about the founding of the Church of God Children’s Home in Concord, North ...
I t was late afternoon when I arrived at my destination—a quiet old cemetery on the outskirts of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. I walked up a small hill to a stone pyramid about six feet high. Each of the four sides had ...
O ur world has changed in the past few months. Who would have ever believed thousands of congregations across the U.S. would be closed in a matter of days? Who would have believed school semesters would be suspended and major ...
I semi-reluctantly opened the front door of the building where I worked after having been on vacation. I had no idea I was about to receive a heartfelt reception. I had only stepped a couple feet inside when a particular ...
H ave you met the church police? These people think they can look at others (who are not in their little group) and discover their shortcomings, sins, and failures. Amazingly, they never seem to perceive any sin in their own ...
T he easiest way to kill a dragon is to smash it while it is still inside its egg. If you can kill it in its gestation period, you will never have to battle a monster—and you might enjoy some ...
W hile driving through Murphy, North Carolina, a couple of weeks ago, I saw this billboard: TOLERANCE IS THE HIGHEST FORM OF EDUCATION. Adorning the bottom of that sign was the “coexist” symbol, which pictures the idea that Islam, Hinduism, ...
“When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned.” On December 21, 1966, I married Vince, a firefighter in the Air Force. I was 18; he was 21. Soon afterward, an unexplained sadness and a smoldering anger began ...
Danny Byrd is an ordained Church of God bishop and full-time evangelist/missionary based in Eastern North Carolina. Is there any particular message the Lord is laying on your heart these days? I love to preach the fundamental doctrines of the ...
L OVE: Perhaps the most powerful word, in any language, in any culture, at any time. We’ve written poems, ballads, and secular and sacred music declaring its worth. If we as Christians allow love to be wrongly defined by pop ...
I n summer 2015, my wife and I were speaking at a youth camp when the Lord began to stir our hearts. We had been serving in co-vocational ministry for 12 years, but now Krista and I were sensing the ...
A t its heart, prayer is worship. At its edge, prayer is mission. In between, God meets our needs. Sadly, our needs are front and center in prayer. We fail to appreciate prayer as worship and see its centering capacity. ...
A FEW YEARS AGO, I found myself at a bit of a standstill with my life. I am a stay-at-home mom of two wonderful children, which I find to be a consuming job. All I had time for was being ...
B OTH OF THE BOYS had enjoyed every minute of swimming, fishing, and building sandcastles; but, as every parent of elementary-age boys knows, the beach is a stressful place. If I had said, “That’s far enough!” once, I’d said it ...
1967: The year of Israel’s “Six-Day War,” the first Super Bowl, and the Apollo 1 disaster. Overshadowing everything was the continuing and escalating hostilities in Southeast Asia. Hundreds of thousands died in Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War. Death, destruction, ...
“Let’s build a campfire around five important truths: God creates, God is other, God redeems, God sees, and God inhabits.” ...
Leaders who see the power of connecting generations—choosing to live with the tension it brings and do the hard work of leading through it—will set their churches up to fulfill the Great Commission with greater effectiveness. ...
The United States of America is at a crossroads. Will we be guided by a view of Scripture or by the value system of secularism? ...
This season you’re in may puzzle you, but it does not bewilder God. ...
God’s miraculous intervention for the Robinson family ...
The church is a place for the weary, the broken, and the hurting...but is it a place for those in recovery? ...
Despite Apostasies, Christ Is Building His Church ...
Behind the beautiful illusion of pleasure, there is a snake-coiled and ready to strike. ...
“At the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth” (Phil. 2:10 NASB). ...
My mother came face-to-face with a life-changing decision that, for anyone, would have been an overwhelming weight to bear. ...
Many preachers don't want anyone to stir up controversy, so they are silent about our country's moral decline. ...
God proved Himself to me that day with a jar of peanut butter and a bag of sugar. He is ever faithful. ...
Next Sunday, as you stand to worship in the spirit and your praise becomes “the throne” . . . just imagine! ...
How do we make an all-out effort to aggressively and evangelistically target groups of people who have not heard the name of Jesus? ...
A blending of the ancient and new is taking place, calling for spiritual discernment. ...
Recuperación después de las tormentas Irma y María que golpeó Puerto Rico, septiembre de 2017 ...
N O RECUERDO el lugar ni el momento, en que por primera vez leí esta frase: «Los momentos duros no duran, las personas duras sí.» Las frustraciones y los malos tiempos que se experimentan en el liderazgo a veces nos ...
Charlatans, false prophets, abusers, and dividers are Satan’s messengers. ...
“T he more things change, the more they stay the same.” That bit of wisdom was first offered in the 19th century by a French writer, but it rings true when I think of Lee University in 2018, looking back ...
According to God, sex with anyone who is not your husband or your wife is sin, whether that happens before marriage, during marriage, or after marriage. ...
“I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me” (John 14:6 NKJV) ...
How in the world did we depart so far from the transforming power of the gospel of Jesus? ...
“Because lawlessness will increase so much, the love of many will grow cold” (Matthew 24:12 NET). ...
No matter their physical appearance, Jesus saw every woman as a human being in need of divine grace and compassion. ...
Why are terrorism, religious extremism, and moral corruption increasing exponentially? ...
Government is a mirror that clearly reflects the image of those who stand closest to it. ...
Is It at Risk? How Should Christians Respond? ...
Americans are more tolerant of porn use than ever—even while research is confirming that it’s worse than we thought. ...
"Even to your old age and gray hairs I am he . . . " (Isaiah 46:4) ...
We must not remove ourselves from the struggling loved ones God has placed in our lives. ...
More than 30 years after the first patients were diagnosed with AIDS, we face ongoing challenges. ...
Today, Satan and his fallen angels war against God's people. ...
Unquestionably, the power of evil is present in our society. ...
When marriages improve, churches and communities improve. ...
I learned early in life that “color is only skin-deep.” ...