God guarantees that the greatest good will emerge from within your darkest experience. Paul knew this to be true when he wrote the opening words of 2 Corinthians. He had encountered severe suffering, a near-death experience, and it was through this circumstance that God intervened and delivered him. “God’s intervention seemed like a resurrection in his life” (HCBC). Notice, Paul concludes that God...  Read More

Cyril Eustace Bousfield was born 30 October 1870 in Bishop's Hull, Somerset, southwest England, to a devout Anglican pastor and his wife, Rev. Christopher W. and Ellen Aldridge Bousfield. His parents valued education, so he studied hard from an early age, even learning Latin at age seven and Greek at age eleven. Cyril earned the BA and MA degrees from Christ's College, Cambridge, and was ordained ...  Read More

An enduring elementary school memory was the day I stood in a long line of my fellow students to receive the polio vaccine on a sugar cube. There was no protest because we knew the impact that the disease could make upon our young lives. Poliomyelitis is highly contagious and can affect the central nervous system, leading to paralysis. It can be life-threatening. Prior to immunization with the Sal...  Read More

“I sing praises to your name, O Lord, praises to Your name, O Lord; for Your name is great and greatly to be praised.” Most of us will be able to recall this familiar worship song simply by reading the words. If you are like me, you began to sing the chorus as soon as you recognized the words! Here is the link to sing it right now: I Sing Praises to Your Name. The tune gives us comfort and strengt...  Read More

Evangelist Anne Graham Lotz once said, “I don't want to be entertained. I don’t want visuals or musicals. I don’t want a vacation. I don’t want to quit. I don’t want sympathy. The cry of my heart is ‘Just Give Me Jesus.’” That was the Apostle Paul’s genuine heart cry, and his message was used powerfully by God to change hearts. We all do well today to learn Paul’s simple secret to being used effec...  Read More

The timeworn statement heard throughout my lifetime in ministry has been that the Christian army is the only one that shoots its wounded. Sadly, this maxim holds true in too many cases. In my mind, we need strong arms to lift up, not shove down, fellow believers who fail. We have before us today a wonderful passage that teaches us the correct way to handle moral failure in the church. The importa...  Read More

Our generation sadly searches all too often for the dead among the living. I hear folks speaking about “sightings” of everything from slain presidents to superstar entertainers on a semi-regular basis. This phenomenon indicates that most folks long for some contact with those beyond death’s pale. In direct contrast, there are those who hold no belief in existence beyond the grave and regard all su...  Read More

What does one do when those closest to him fail to recognize God’s work in his life and ministry? This was the case with Jesus’ own family and reminds us of His own words that stated the division that the Gospel would cause even in families (e.g. Matthew 12:52-53). We know this to be the fact even today. Many dedicated Christian servants suffer great rejection from their own families and friends. ...  Read More

Leonora Haseltine Whitaker was born on a farm on 26 October 1890 near Dillingham, in Buncombe County, North Carolina, the eldest of eight children. Her parents, George Mannon Whitaker and Catherine Kitty Holcombe, were prosperous and self-sufficient. Leonora and her sisters milked cows, gathered eggs, canned vegetables and fruits for the winter, cooked, baked, did the weekly laundry and seasonal c...  Read More

A political hot button was punched in recent days that intersected a perennial moral concern: poverty. The United States "Agency for International Development" (USAID), an independent federal government agency within the executive branch, became the focus of the new administration's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which has been tasked with eliminating government waste of tax dollars. ...  Read More

The immortal words of Winston Churchill, “Never give up,” encouraged Great Britain in World War II to summon a deep inner resolve to withstand the darkness and doubt they faced from an unrelenting enemy attack on their homeland. The 23rd Psalm has long been called a “song of confidence,” not from inner resolve, but from God’s sheltering care. This awareness makes all the difference in the world, b...  Read More

Sometimes the Lord permits us to see “just over the hilltop” to know our future. A growing chain of circumstances seems to be challenging the contemporary church to recognize to understand more clearly how to live faithfully in challenging times. We know the Spirit “blows where He wills” (John 3:8), which means we may not always know immediately the direction our lives are headed. However, we may ...  Read More