A Lonely Ember

A member of a certain church, who previously had been attending services
regularly, stopped going. After a few weeks, one of the elders decided to visit
him. It was a chilly evening. The elder found the man at home alone, sitting
before a blazing fire. Guessing the reason for the elder’s visit, the man welcomed
him, led him to a big chair near the fireplace and waited.
The elder made himself comfortable but said nothing. In the grave silence, he
contemplated the play of the flames around the burning logs. After some
minutes, the elder took the fire…

“It’s Just Singing”

Years ago the church we were a part of would occasionally devote a service to
hymn singing. One good, knowledgeable brother who was usually faithful to
attend the assemblies, would choose not to come then, because, as he put it, “It’s
just singing.” I have also heard people say, “Some people like to sing, but that’s
just not my personality.”
How would you answer this question: “Why should we sing in worship to God?”
A quick answer could be, “Because He has commanded it.” However there is
much more involved than that.
God created us with the capacity…

Time Flies, but You Are the Pilot

Do you ever find yourself asking the question, “where did the time go?”. As I get
older, that feels like something I find myself asking quite often. Whether it’s in a
small sense of losing track of time out on the golf course, or a larger scope of
seeing 28 years of my life pass in what felt like mere seconds. The strange thing
about time is that no matter how fast or slow it may seem, the clock still ticks at
sixty seconds per minute, sixty minutes per hour and twenty-four hours per…

Abraham: Father of Faith and Faithful Father

Out of all the men in the ancient world, why did God choose Abraham to receive
His blessings and his promises? Abraham had many remarkable traits such as
his generosity and hospitable nature, his honorable dealings with others, and his
godly attitudes and respect for the Lord. Even so, scripture reveals another
important reason that might go unnoticed: God chose Abraham because of the
kind of father he would be. In Genesis 18:19, God says of Abraham “For I have
chosen him, that he may command his children and his household after him to

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Don’t Be Like the Baboon

There are two interesting stories that concern the behavior of baboons, and each
contains a practical lesson for us humans.
Baboons love salt. This led people to invent a clever way to trap them. Some salt
is placed inside a hole with an opening barely large enough for a baboon’s hand to
squeeze through. When a baboon gets his fist full of salt he cannot retrieve it
through the opening. He will then stubbornly refuse to release his “treasure”
until he is captured.
The other story comes from a man who preached in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe)

Transformed

There’s a fantasy book series I have been reading over the past couple years called
The Stormlight Archive by Brandon Sanderson, and part of what has drawn me
into this series is how there are some powerful themes woven throughout, that
centers on this idea of transformation— or as they say in the books, becoming
“radiant.” The words of becoming “radiant,” spoken by those who swear the
“oaths” of the “Knights Radiant,” symbolize this internal and external shift from
brokenness to strength, from despair to purpose. Why I find it so fascinating is
that this journey the characters go through…

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Excuses For Sin
 
Mankind is certainly creative at coming up with ways to minimize, justify, and excuse sin. We live in a day and time when people around us are failing to take responsibility for their actions. We make excuses for what is done or not done. We believe some behavior is excused due to the environment in which we live. It is "society's fault!" People have been making excuses for centuries.
 
In Luke 14:15-24, people were invited to a feast but three men had the same attitude or spirit. They did not value…

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What is the Standard?

Christians are called out of this world. We are called to be different. We are
called to live by a higher standard.
Romans 12:1-2 says, “I beseech you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God to
present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, pleasing to God, which is your
reasonable service. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by
the renewing of your mind, in order to prove by you what is that good and
pleasing and perfect will of God.
Similarly, Ephesians 5:1 says, “Be ye therefore imitators of God, as beloved