To What End?

Dozens of Cadbury eggs, packs of Peeps, jelly beans by the pound, mounds of synthetic grass, colorful plastic eggs and disposable wicker baskets — those are the essential ingredients for a proper Easter celebration. Once amply saturated with sugary goodness, we...

Motivation

A friend of ours is currently going through a very painful, ugly and mean divorce. The story isn’t anything unique or new. One day, her spouse woke up and decided that he didn’t want to be married any longer. Maybe it was the younger, slimmer, more...

Forget Duty

“…If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.” — John 15:5 (NIV) Matthew 11 begins with John the Baptist in prison. By offending Herod Antipas, the governor over Galilee and Perea, John knew in...

The Homecoming

In the late 1800s, Horatio Spafford lost just about everything as a result of the Great Fire of Chicago. Shortly thereafter, Spafford decided to take his family on a vacation to England. He was delayed on business at the last moment, but Spafford sent his wife and...

Hiding and Sweating

Subsequent to Adam and Eve’s rebellious assertion of independence in Eden’s garden, their immediate response was a shameful awareness of their nakedness. Then came the pathetic attempt at covering themselves by sewing fig leaves together. (I don’t...

Divine Surplus

For the most part, the 12 disciples were a mess. Jesus never recruited religious rockstars. In fact, he called the religious leaders of his day “hypocrites,” “whitewashed tombs,” and “children of hell.” But, throughout Jesus’...