After finishing a major project, have you ever stood back, taken in what you have accomplished, and said to yourself, “That’s pretty good”? I’ll admit that I have on numerous occasions, especially aft...
Lord Nelson once said that all his achievements in life came down to one simple habit: he was always there a quarter of an hour early, never a quarter of an hour late.
The British mountaineer George Leigh Mallory became famous after multiple expeditions on Mount Everest. On a book tour in the U.S. in 1923, people would regularly ask him the question, “why did you wa...
Ephesians 1:11-14, Colossians 3:14, 1 John 4:7-8, John 13:34-35, Romans 13:8, Matthew 22:37-39, Galatians 5:6
Not long before his death, Martin Luther King Jr. spoke to the congregation at Atlanta’s Ebenezer Baptist Church: If any of you are around when I have to meet my day, I don’t want a long funeral. An...
Paul give us an excellent example of what looking at people from a worldly point of view looks like in Philippians chapter 3: If someone else thinks they have reasons to put confidence in the flesh, ...
People don’t rise from nothing. We do owe something to parentage and patronage. The people who stand before kings may look like they did it all themselves. But in fact they are invariably the benefici...
I love watching young boys and girls build things with Legos. Their small, creative masterpieces cannot help but reflect their image-bearing nature and remind us we were all made to make things. When ...
Preaching Commentary a brief introduction I would like to start with a rather big question. How do we know that we are, in fact, Christians? We find some direction from Jesus on this subject in Mat...
James 1:22-25, Philippians 2:3-4, Romans 12:2, Ephesians 4:22-24, Colossians 3:12-14, Galatians 5:22-23, Matthew 25:21
The kingdom of God manifests itself in the modest changes in our attitudes and in the little improvements in our behavior that no one may notice, including ourselves. These are the mighty works of God...
The kingdom is present not in grandiose accomplishments, but in showing practical love in humble ways, day after day, and in refusing to allow our failures and disappointments to hide God’s love from ...
The wonderful word master used to describe the person who is at the top of his or her craft, whatever the profession. It was a title that one could work toward and with some degree of confidence ascri...
In Jeremiah it is clear that the excellence comes from a life of faith, from being more interested in God than in self, and has almost nothing to do with comfort or esteem or achievement. Here is a pe...
Zechariah 4:10, Ecclesiastes 9:10, Matthew 25:21, Colossians 3:23-24, Luke 16:10, Psalm 90:17
That low man seeks a little thing to do, Sees it and does it: This high man, with a great thing to pursue, Dies ere he knows it. That low man goes on adding one to one, His hundred’s soon hit; This hi...
Excellence is an art won by training and habituation: we not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but rather have these because we have acted rightly; these virtues are formed in man by d...
These periods of struggling to overcome challenges are what people find to be the most enjoyable times of their lives. A person who has achieved control over psychic energy and has invested it in cons...
Relational congruence is the ability to be fundamentally the same person with the same values in every relationship, in every circumstance and especially amidst crisis. It is the internal capacity to ...
Months of struggle, of strategy, of sacrifice all paid off in a landslide victory for President Richard Nixon in 1972. On election night his aide Charles Colson was in the place he had always wanted t...
Colossians 3:23-24, Galatians 1:10, 2 Corinthians 5:9, 1 Corinthians 4:3-4, Romans 12:1, John 12:43, Matthew 6:1
A story is told of a young violinist who lived in London many years ago. He was a superb musician. He loved his music and enjoyed playing before small groups of people in the homes of friends. But he ...
Proverbs 24:27, James 1:5, Matthew 7:24-25, Proverbs 21:5, Colossians 3:16-17, Isaiah 40:3-4
In his highly insightful work, Inside Job , Stephen W. Smith provides an important analogy about the importance of spiritually preparing ourselves for the adversity and challenges that come with su...
Micah 6:8, 1 Peter 2:2, James 1:4, Galatians 5:22-23, Colossians 2:6-7, Romans 12:2
Some years back, on the Today Show, Maya Angelou was asked, with all that she had accomplished, could there be any more objectives, unfulfilled wishes, for her to pursue? Angelou said, “Oh, my, yes. I...
Matthew 17:20, Matthew 19:20, Mark 10:27, Luke 1:37, Luke 18:27, Colossians 3:23-24, 1 Corinthians 15:58, Ephesians 2:10, Philippians 4:13, Philippians 2:13
God is looking for people through whom He can do the impossible. What a pity that we plan only the things we can do by ourselves.
John Coltrane stands out as one of the giants of 20th-century jazz. His legacy is a generation of hearts touched and the light of God shining through his songs. Yet, for years, his work was haunted by...
Beautiful and Blessed Creator, Maker of Heaven and Earth, You work for reconciliation and grace, wholeness and hope. Empower us to share abundantly in your good work through creativity and co...
Considered perhaps the greatest guitarist alive, Christopher Parkening appeared to have it all. Signed to an international recording deal as a teenager, Parkening traveled across the world playing bea...
What Determines Happiness? Imagine a movie theater full of a hundred people. These hundred individuals represent the full continuum of happiness: Some are exceptionally happy, others less so, and ...
Galatians 6:10, John 13:1-17, Luke 10:25-37, Colossians 3:14, 1 Corinthians 13:4-7, Philippians 2:3-4, 1 John 4:7-8
Is life not full of opportunities for learning love? Every man and woman every day has a thousand of them. The world is not a playground; it is a schoolroom. Life is not a holiday, but an education. A...
2 Peter 3:18, Acts 9:1-19, Luke 15:11-32, Colossians 3:9-10, Romans 12:2
Though conversion may be pinpointed to a moment, salvation is a process that continues over a lifetime. I am still being saved from old ways of thinking and behaving and am coming to new understanding...
When my niece bore her first child, she invited her brother and mother to stand in the delivery room. After witnessing three hours of pushing, when the baby finally crowned, my nephew turned to his mo...