Body

Newsletters

  • How to Get What You Want

    A Timely Message on a Timeless Biblical Truth

    Not long ago I was invited to a lavish lunch in a spacious New York City apartment.  It was a beautiful home, 20 floors up with a wide balcony and a great view of the city.  The woman who hosted the event put on a great feast, with luscious vegetables, salads, and pork loin. 

  • Behold the Tenderness of Jesus

    I once conducted a funeral service for a young man from our church who died of cancer. When I arrived for the service, I was told the young man’s mother was the only surviving member of a family of five. Her husband had died three years earlier and her two other sons had also died. This was her fourth funeral and the third son she’d had to bury.

  • Satan is Out to Destroy You

    “Cast not away therefore your confidence, which hath great recompense of reward” (Hebrews 10:35). If you are a Christian, you are in a fierce war. In fact, you’re in a life and death battle for your faith. Satan is determined to shipwreck and destroy the faith of all of God’s elect. And the stronger your faith, the greater will be his attack against it.

  • The Only Hope In The Coming Storm

    God promised the prophet Zechariah that in the last days he would be a protective wall of fire around his people: “For I, saith the Lord, will be unto her a wall of fire round about” (Zechariah 2:5).

    Isaiah also testifies to this: “For thou hast been a…shadow from the heat, when the blast of the terrible ones is as a storm against the wall” (Isaiah 25:4). “There shall be a tabernacle for a shadow in the daytime from the heat, and for a place of refuge, and for a covert from storm and from rain” (4:6).

  • Man’s Hour of Darkness is God’s Hour of Power

    In John 2, Jesus and his disciples were invited to a marriage supper in Cana. Evidently, the Lord’s family received the invitation, too, because Jesus’ mother was there. Mary came up to him with a request: “The hosts have run out of wine.”
    Jesus’ response to his mother seems a bit strange. He told her, “My hour is not yet come.”
    What was this “hour” Jesus was referring to? He wasn’t talking about the moment of darkness he would face three years later, before his crucifixion. At that time Jesus did say, “My hour has come.”

  • The Healing Power of Afflictions

    All of us know what afflictions are. They’re those times of trouble and stress that keep us up at night. They can be so painful and debilitating that we lose sleep because of the anguish and anxiety.

    Yet, as painful as afflictions are, God uses them to achieve his purposes in our lives. David writes, “Many are the afflictions of the righteous” (Psalm 34:19). Moreover, Scripture makes clear God can use afflictions to heal sinners as well as saints.

  • The Path to the Throne

    According to Paul, we who believe in Jesus have been raised up from spiritual death and are seated with him in a heavenly realm. “Even when we were dead in sins, [God] hath quickened us together with Christ…and hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus” (Ephesians 2:5-6).

  • Full-Time Ministry

    In the early years of the church, a great persecution took place. During that awful period, the apostle John was taken prisoner and sent to Rome. The Roman emperor at that time (either Nero or Diocletian) banished John to the Isle of Patmos. This island was a small, desolate, uninhabited place. Its only populace was a few prisoners who'd been banished there to live out their days. Like them, John was sent to Patmos to die.

  • Hindrances to Prevailing Prayer

    Throughout the Bible, God's people are commanded to pray at all times. We're to pray when we're low, in good times and bad. And we're to pray in all seasons -- periods of joy and health, as well as sickness or depression; seasons of rest and prosperity, as well as sadness or grief. No matter what our sitiuation or condition, we're to pray without ceasing.