David Wilkerson once said, “Love is not only something you feel, it is something you do.” The Apostle James wrote that we are not only to be hearers of the word but doers also (James 1:22). Our life goal should be to live out daily our devotion to God in the world around us. Hmm. Let me illustrate the point by way of introducing today’s Bible passage. I often teach folks about the “big moral sea” ...  Read More

The "Harvard Computers," as they were called, were a team of brilliant women who observed, charted, and processed astronomical data at the Harvard Observatory in Cambridge, Massachusetts, between 1877 and 1919. Edward Charles Pickering directed this hand-selected team until his death in 1919, and then Annie Jump Cannon became its director. From the beginning, the women were challenged to make sens...  Read More

“I do not recognize Larry Ashlock” was the humorous end result to a brief conversation I recently had with Amazon’s “Alexa,” a virtual assistant artificial intelligence (AI) technology now popular in homes and businesses. My experience indicates only one of many frequent daily interactions we all have with this type of technology.Face ID and image recognition, emails, apps, social media, Google se...  Read More

Hannah Whitall Smith (1832-1911) once said, “It is wonderful what miracles God works in wills that are utterly surrendered to Him.” The American evangelist, reformer and leader in the Holiness movement perhaps did not conceive of how significant her words were when applied to Christ’s prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane. God would soon work the miracle of salvation through Christ’s surrendered life...  Read More

Accessing many of the most beautiful and meaningful places on earth requires getting into a boat and riding there. I liken Matthew 16-19 to a boat ride on increasingly stormy seas. The ultimate goal is to reach the place of ultimate meaning. We see increased challenges and questionings of Jesus like stormy seas (19:1-12). We also see the consistency with which He communicates “who” will be brought...  Read More

Just nineteen days after President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation freed enslaved individuals during the Civil War, a child was born in a small, rugged, logging camp to William and Lerona Sherwin Helms, near Malone, upstate New York, not far from the Canadian and Vermont borders. Remarkably, that tiny son’s life was set upon a trajectory that would help millions of people to be freed f...  Read More

Economics permeates every facet of human existence, and how we use financial resources collectively holds moral implications for governments and businesses, as well as families and individuals. This first sentence undoubtedly creates a mind full of thoughts! I’ll break it down a bit to introduce a fresh challenge to the way we typically think about economic equality and our Christian responsibilit...  Read More

The Holocaust threw open wide a doorway in theological circles to question everything from the impotence of God to His very existence! Many Christians radically changed their view of God and His power in the horrific face of Nazi genocide. Jesus’ ministry begins with a great demonstration from heaven that this one was the Son of God, the one who was to come, but the reality was that the Romans wer...  Read More

Mature Christians will know that temptations provide them with crucial preparation for service to the Lord. Have you ever viewed temptations in this way? Jesus encountered temptation right on the heels of His mountain-top experience of God’s affirmation at His baptism and sets a wonderful example for us to follow (3:16-17). We will often reach crossroads where we must decide whether to pursue God’...  Read More

General Colin Powell, the former United States Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said prior to the first invasion of Iraq in 1991: “Our strategy in going after this army is very simple. First, we are going to cut it off, and then we are going to kill it.” Retributive justice certainly jolts us to moral attention, but in the case of commitment to God, it should motivate us to humility and obed...  Read More

Marjory Bankson wrote a compelling history of a small and innovative ministry that began in 1946 in Washington D. C. Engaging its community for almost eighty years, it is still strongly rooted in the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and bears fruit in the people He came to redeem. On Sunday, 5 October 1946, Gordon and Mary Cosby met with seven others to begin Church of the Savior (CoS) as "a local expressi...  Read More

Rudeness is like the common cold; it is contagious. Uncivil behavior in global culture has become highly transmissible. Whether it is a member of the United States Congress shouting “liar” at the President when he is making an address, or an actor climbing onstage and then slapping and cursing a comedian friend at an awards ceremony, or numerous social media platform videos that capture bad conduc...  Read More