Contributed by Tyler Edwards on Apr 16, 2009
When I was in high school I was a very lazy person. I was a walking, talking illustration of what sloth looks like. Classes didnt challenge me. I found I could get good grades whether I paid attention or not, so I chose the latter. I spent a greater portion of most of my classes drooling on the
...read more
Tags:
Denomination:
*other
Contributed by Tyler Edwards on Apr 16, 2009
THE TEMPER OF ANDREW KEHOE
Andrew Kehoe was born in 1872. His mother died when he was young and his father remarried. It was reported that Kehoe did not get along very well with this stepmother. Kehoe lived on a farm just outside the village of Bath, Michigan. The community was known as the Bath
...read more
Tags:
Denomination:
*other
Contributed by Tyler Edwards on Apr 15, 2009
based on 1 rating
| 2,641 views
STUPID IDEA
As far as stupid ideas go, this was one of my better moments. I stayed after church one Tuesday night with a number of other kids in the youth group. We were just hanging out and talking for a bit. We were a pretty wild youth group to begin with, but if you know anything about young
...read more
Tags:
Denomination:
*other
Contributed by Johnny Wilson on Mar 30, 2009
DOVES AND DIRECTION
God’s people in the northern kingdom were acting like a dove, quite senseless and flitting back and forth between Assyria and Egypt as their protector—in spite of the fact that Yahweh, God of Armies ("Lord of Hosts") wanted to be their shield and defender. This is a powerful
...read more
Tags:
Denomination:
*other
Contributed by Johnny Wilson on Mar 30, 2009
VICTORY HILL
Remember, our plotting is unfinished, but God’s training and strength-conditioning is already there for us. I want to talk about this chastising, sometimes translated as punishing, and which I have translated as "training." I have something in mind. The Hebrew verb means to provide
...read more
Tags:
Denomination:
*other
Contributed by Johnny Wilson on Mar 30, 2009
The tannur (oven) did need to be hot in order to bake the bread, but if there was too much heat when the dough was supposed to be rising, it would kill the yeast and stop the process. I get it. Wailam, my wife, laughed at me when I made a cake and forgot to put any baking powder in it. It ended up
...read more
Tags:
Denomination:
*other
Contributed by Johnny Wilson on Mar 30, 2009
When we are no longer alert as God’s watchmen, we have a tendency to be insensitive to all the dangers around us.
I can’t help but be reminded of a frightening experience we had when my eldest son was working the late shift at a bakery. He came home dead tired one night and I was already asleep.
...read more
Tags:
Denomination:
*other
Contributed by Johnny Wilson on Mar 30, 2009
It’s sort of like the fable that evangelist D. L. Moody used to tell. It seems there were two eagles. One of the eagles won every race and the other eagle was jealous. One day, the jealous eagle overheard a hunter say, “I’d bring down that eagle if I had decent fletching on my arrows.” The eagle
...read more
Tags:
Denomination:
*other
Contributed by Johnny Wilson on Mar 23, 2009
THERE'S ALWAYS MOUNTAINS
In the Broadway musical, The Scarlet Pimpernel, the 18th century (fictional) hero encourages his followers by reminding them of David vs. Goliath. The song goes:
"David walked into the valley
With a stone clutched in his hand
He was only a boy
But he knew someone must
...read more
Tags:
Denomination:
*other
Contributed by Johnny Wilson on Mar 23, 2009
FAITH: REASON AT REST
The late Manley Beasley defined faith as a "reason at rest with God." To me, that's powerful, but it hits me even harder when I remember that he went on to say, "Faith is dependency upon God, and this God-dependency only begins when self-dependency ends." And what do we see
...read more
Tags:
Denomination:
*other
Contributed by Johnny Wilson on Mar 16, 2009
SIN KEYED OUT BY JESUS
What is this idea of "covering" or "hiding" sin? It means that there are circumstances where God will refuse to see our sin. I like to picture that as being like the technique used in video and film. It’s called the chromakey technique and requires filming in front of a blue
...read more
Tags:
Denomination:
*other
Contributed by Johnny Wilson on Mar 16, 2009
based on 2 ratings
| 2,857 views
FORGIVEN, FORGIVEN, FORGIVEN...
I once read a marvelous story about a country doctor in Scotland who had a very poor practice. Although his patients would pay him in eggs, chickens, vegetables at harvest, and meat at slaughtering time, his huge ledger book would contain many names, symptoms,
...read more
Tags:
Denomination:
*other
Contributed by Johnny Wilson on Mar 7, 2009
based on 4 ratings
| 3,469 views
HIDE AND SEEK WITH GOD
This week I have been hammered by the immensity of what it means to "abandon," "forsake," or "leave alone" the omnipresent God, God who is everywhere. How is that possible? It is ONLY possible if God allows us to leave, allows us to turn our back upon God Himself.
Yes, it
...read more
Tags:
Denomination:
*other
Contributed by Johnny Wilson on Mar 7, 2009
CONFESSION: SIN HURTS GOD
If you’re part of a big family, you probably remember those times when a little nephew would come up and slug his older uncles. The nephew’s mother probably chided him, but I can almost hear the uncle say, "No! That’s all right. The kid’s got to flex his muscles once in a
...read more
Tags:
Denomination:
*other
Contributed by Bruce Ball on Mar 6, 2009
based on 1 rating
| 1,688 views
We talk a lot about serving and worshiping Jesus. But to be able to serve Him, or worship Him, we must know exactly who He is and what He offers. Here is the Jesus I know:
···· Jesus is Christ. He is the living Son of the living God.
···· He is the First and Last, the Beginning and the
...read more
Tags:
Denomination:
*other
Contributed by Johnny Wilson on Mar 2, 2009
SHORT-TERM SOLUTIONS
In Chicago’s elevated train stations, they hung phony owls from the ceilings of some of the stations to discourage the pigeons. I can remember seeing pigeons right up next to the owls, blithely ignoring them. Now, there are wire spikes everywhere the pigeons might roost up
...read more
Tags:
Denomination:
*other
Contributed by Johnny Wilson on Mar 2, 2009
IDOLATRY IS LIKE POISONING
More than 25 years ago (1982), seven residents of the Greater Chicago area made an assumption that proved fatal. They all took a dose of Extra Strength Tylenol® that had been laced with potassium cyanide. What they thought was medicine proved to be poison. This crime,
...read more
Tags:
Denomination:
*other
Contributed by Johnny Wilson on Mar 2, 2009
LOOK UP
I love those scenes in action films, comics, or cartoons where you have one set of bad guys pursuing the hero from one end of a tunnel or corridor and another set of bad guys is converging from the other side. You know the hero is in between them, but when the groups of pursuers meet in
...read more
Tags:
Denomination:
*other
Contributed by Johnny Wilson on Feb 27, 2009
"Give the Bible to the people, unadulterated, pure, unaltered, unexplained, uncheapened, and then see it work through the whole nature. It is very difficult indeed for a man or for a boy who knows the Scriptures ever to get away from it. It follows him like the memory of his mother. It haunts him
...read more
Tags:
Denomination:
*other
Contributed by Johnny Wilson on Feb 27, 2009
I am reminded of Herman Melville’s description of the pulpit in Moby Dick. It’s actually a description of a real pulpit in the Whaler’s Chapel that a Jewish friend went out of his way to show me in New Bedford, Massachusetts. It reads:
Its paneled front was in the likeness of a ship’s bluff bows,
...read more
Tags:
Denomination:
*other