As a committed Southern Baptist, president Jimmy Carter was often questioned by reporters on a variety of moral issues. One day, a reporter asked, “How would you feel if you were told that your daught...
A soul without a center is like a house built over a sinkhole. “How collapsed you are my soul , and how you sigh over me.” On the other hand, the soul comes alive when it is centered on God. “Let...
Prayer of Adoration Father God … our Abba: You seek us with relentless love – coming after us in Your Son, Jesus. When we are in the pits – You draws us up and out; When we are broken – You fix u...
In the old American South (and in many places in the American North) a European American who invited an African American as a guest to an expensive restaurant in a white section of town would subject ...
Psalm 8:1, Isaiah 6:1-8, Luke 19:1-10, John 8:1-11, Micah 7:18-19
Prayer of Adoration Lord, our Lord – How excellent is your name in all the earth. Because of who you are – we praise You. Because of what you’ve done – we thank You. You are a Father to the fathe...
One day the fair was in town and a father of five children decided it was a good opportunity to give his wife a break. When they arrived, the father, who was quite the shot, knew instantly what game h...
During his time as commander in the Roman army, Caesar Augustus (who would become the first Roman Emperor) had to relieve a soldier from duty for bad behavior. The man begged to remain in military ser...
Commenting on Ephesians 1:3-6, M. Robert Mulholland describes just how powerful it can be personally, when we recognize that we were chosen by God, especially for children who are the result of an unp...
“You can know a thing to death and be for all purposes completely ignorant of it. A man can know his father, or his son, and there might still be nothing between them but loyalty and love and mutual i...
“Abba” is only a little word, and yet contains everything. It is not the mouth but the heart’s affection which speaks like this. Even if I am oppressed with anguish and terror on every side, and seem ...
Acts 2:1-4 , Psalm 103:12-13, 1 Peter 5:6-7, James 1:5, 1 John 3:1
Pastor: By grace, through Jesus, God calls us His children so that we might become more like Him, setting our hope on His grace, and living as holy people who fear the Lord and love one another. Whe...
Risk, Salvation, and the Fullness of Time Pharaoh’s daughter took a huge risk to raise and protect the child of a Hebrew slave, a child who should have been killed because of her father’s decree. Tha...
Children are God’s gifts to immature people to help them grow up. They are also God’s gifts to help parents go deep with God. . . . Parenting is not for anything. It is not a contract with God in whic...
Preaching Commentary Risk, Salvation, and the Fullness of Time Pharaoh’s daughter took a huge risk to raise and protect the child of a Hebrew slave, a child who should have been killed because of h...
Ernest Hemingway grasped some of the difficulty that characterizes relationships between fathers and sons in his short story, The Capital of the World . The story revolves around a father and his t...
“Let me say for now that we knew once the Creation was broken, true fathering would be much more lacking than mothering. Don't misunderstand me, both are needed- but an emphasis on fathering is ne...
The salmon nearly leaped onto their hooks! That was a far cry from the previous day, when the four anglers couldn’t even snag their lines in the rocks. Disappointed but not discouraged, they had clim...
A young man won admission to college. Instead of writing a letter of congratulations, his father penned this note: Now it is a good thing to put this business very plainly before you. Do not think I...
Why do we imagine God to be so unmoved by our heart-felt attempts at obedience? He is, after all, our heavenly Father. What sort of father looks at his daughter’s homemade birthday card and complains ...
With what confidence would anyone address God as ‘Father’? Who would break forth into such rashness as to claim for himself the honour of a son of God unless we had been adopted as children of grace i...
There is no better exercise for strengthening the heart than reaching down and lifting people up. Think about it; most of your best friends are those who encourage you. You don’t have many strong rela...
At the time I was oblivious to the fact that a young person’s relationship with his father can greatly color his attitude toward God. I wasn’t aware that many well-known atheists through history — inc...
John 1:12-13, Romans 8:14-16, Galatians 4:4-7, 1 John 3:1, 2 Corinthians 6:18, Isaiah 64:8
If you want to judge how well a person understands Christianity, find out how much he makes of the thought of being God’s child, and having God as his Father. If this is not the thought that prompts a...
Brett Favre was a driven man. He explained to USA Today that his father’s message that he was never good enough drove him to become one of the best quarterbacks in NFL history…His dad had also been hi...
A blind father, proud of his son who played Rugby at its namesake school, would listen intently to the roar of the crowd and the cheers for the winning team. Though he never saw his son in action, he ...
No human father has ever shown greater tenderness or consideration or sacrificial love or deep affection for his children than God has for us. Everything that God carefully measures out and allows to ...