The wagon creaked slowly, trundling its way through an East Texas pine forest in the summer of 1859. Overhead, the towering trees swayed in the light breeze and provided dappling shade from the oppressive sun. The twenty- six year-old, Tennessee-born-pastor, Robert Cooke Buckner (1833-1919), did not mind the heat. He and his soul-mate wife, Vienna, and their two little girls, were headed west in s...  Read More

Torrential rains and flash flooding inundated our state in recent days. People were overwhelmed by rising water and emergency responders raced to rescue people and lead them to refuge. You may not be drowning in a literal flood, but you may be terrified by an onslaught of evil people.Picture your most desperate cry for help in a moment of crisis, the words that you used to express your despair, a...  Read More

The late Billy Graham, who enjoyed remarkable effectiveness throughout his nearly eight decades of ministry, once said, “The Christian life is not a constant high. I have moments of deep discouragement. I have to go to God in prayer with tears in my eyes, and say, ‘O God forgive me,’ or ‘Help me.’” The beginning to the end of Psalm 143 is a continuous appeal to God. The psalmist’s lament signals h...  Read More

Life’s little moments often hold large and lasting implications. If ever there was a forever moment, it was found in John’s chapter 21 epilogue. We all know that a great fire often erupts from one tiny spark, but the after-cross-and-burial events had doused thoroughly any last ember of hope in the minds and hearts of Jesus’ disciples. Have I depressed you enough? I’m smiling because hope bursts fo...  Read More

The euphemism, “Back from the grave,” takes on a literal meaning in our passage today. However, that miracle is not the only meaning that we should draw from John 11! This narrative helps us to picture the reality of what we hold dear in our hearts; namely, just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, the Son, in the same way, gives life to those He chooses (cf. 5:21). The raising of La...  Read More

“I’ve put in all this effort for nothing,” sounds the cry of deep personal regret. Jesus warns His listeners in John 6 not to invest all of their energies in “bread” that will not satisfy for eternity. They had been sated the day before with the loaves and fish, so they quite naturally came back for more. There is a spiritual lesson in this scene that will challenge us to seek the true bread that ...  Read More

I ask in this devotional, “Is there ‘Christ wine’ in our gatherings?” The world was out of wine when Jesus arrived on earth. All that was being offered spiritually was cheap and did not satisfy. So, the nature of Jesus’ miracle at Cana is obvious. He had come to bring about conversion: “water to wine, sinners to saints” (cf. 2:10; “You have kept the good wine until now; EBC). The impact of the mir...  Read More

At the risk of placing a tune in your mind that you will not be able to erase all day, Steven Curtis Chapman’s song lyric, “Saddle up your horses, we’ve got a trail to blaze,” comes to my mind when I read this passage! Peter calls a hard-pressed group of believers to "saddle up" in faith amid hard times. Charles Spurgeon, the 19th century English preacher, once said, “I have now concentrated all m...  Read More

“Listen carefully” is an expression that people use to indicate that what follows carries some significance. When James wrote, “Don’t be deceived,” he employed an expression that was a “pointed” introduction to an important statement (cf. 1 Corinthians 6:9; 15:33; Galatians 6:7; EBC). If you are like me, you are familiar with this entire chapter, indeed the entire book, but you may be just a bit f...  Read More

The psalmist writes, “For the Lord takes pleasure in his people; he adorns the humble with salvation” (149:4). Micah has turned his focus in chapter five to the siege of Jerusalem and the humiliation of Judah’s king by the Assyrian king, Sennacherib (2 Kings 18:13-15). We begin to see the first rays of sunlight, however, when he stretches his prophetic vision to the Babylonian exile and the coming...  Read More

Stay inside and hide because there are bad people outside! This rhythmic first sentence may seem to be extreme, but I ask if you have read 2 Timothy 3:1-5. It appears that Paul has compiled such a wide list of people to avoid that we are left with only ourselves—and even we, too, are beginning to look a little suspect! We will soon learn that we, and much of the non-Christian world, are not in Pau...  Read More

John Flavel has said, “Christ is not sweet ’til sin be made bitter to us.” The key word in Joel’s short prophecy is judgment—namely, God’s judgment! Joel employs a locust plague that had recently occurred in Judah to warn of God’s coming judgment when He will intervene in history to vindicate His righteousness. Israel would experience the terrible nature of His wrath (2:1-11), as would the entire ...  Read More