Some of the most unsettling moments in my ministry occurred throughout a two-year period when I, as a young pastor, served as an “on-call” (PRN) chaplain for the V.A. hospital in Big Spring, Texas. I made dozens of visits each week, but the most difficult encounters to process were the ones on a special unit for ALS (Lou Gehrig’s Disease) patients. What hope is there for such life circumstances? I...  Read More

George Muller, the man of great faith, once wrote, “. . .Through prayer to God, the study of the Word, and reflection, I come to a deliberate judgment according to the best of my ability. . .” the will of God. He always began by setting his heart in such a way that he had not a will of his own in regard to a given concern. He had learned that a person must be willing to do the Lord’s will regardle...  Read More

Pastor Jack Wellman writes, “The Bible mentions prayer a lot, but prayer is much more than simply repeating words or wishful thinking. Prayer is talking and listening to God. Prayer, like a conversation, can be done at any time, anywhere – because God is always with us and is always listening.” It has been said that the entire letter of Ephesians was written with an attitude of prayer! We have bef...  Read More

Lillian Hunt Trasher was born on 27 September 1887 in Jacksonville, Florida, and was reared in Georgia. Early in her life she put her faith in Jesus Christ and determined to live for Him, moving from her Roman Catholicism to a Pentecostal-Holiness tradition. She attended Bible college for a term, worked in an orphanage under the supervision of Miss Mattie Perry in North Carolina, and was soon enga...  Read More

Little Adeyemi was born in 1888 into a family who worshiped Orisa-oko, the god of harvest of the rural province of Oloisaoke, near Ogbomoso, in the Oyo State of Nigeria. The family worshiped and displayed the python snake prominently as a part of this worship and, as a child, Adeyemi was dedicated to marry a priest of Orisa-oko someday. As a young girl, she became an ambassador for the worship of ...  Read More

Christianity’s claim to be the one true path to God hinges upon the miraculous resurrection event that is recorded in Matthew 28 (cf. 1 Corinthians 15:12-19). We know indeed the significance of the resurrection for Christian salvation, but we often overlook the implications that it holds for life in the church. Hang in there with me today because this devotional will provide you with a critical el...  Read More

“We would worry less if we praised more. Thanksgiving is the enemy of discontent and dissatisfaction” (Harry Ironside). We need a praise leader to call our nation to thanksgiving! Regardless of life’s ups and downs, this person directs people to the ways that God has been near to his children despite their troubles. Psalm 124 provides us with an important pre-Thanksgiving reminder of the ways that...  Read More

Sometimes things are so broken that they need a miraculous blessing in order to restore them to wholeness. The Holy Spirit takes that which is fractured and renders it whole, whether it is a broken life or a divided church. Consider our biological lives. The health of the human body, as complex as it is, hinges upon having a heart that is able to pump oxygenated blood throughout the body. No heart...  Read More

Abraham Lincoln, the newly nominated senatorial candidate, addressed the Illinois Republican Convention on 16 June 1858 in which he warned that the nation faced “a crisis that could destroy the Union” (History). In that speech he paraphrased a New Testament passage of scripture by stating “a house divided against itself cannot stand.” Hold on to this thought because there is a profound moral point...  Read More

We hear much about "systemic" injustices in our age and many folks recoil when they hear the term. It means "something that is spread throughout, affecting a group or system, such as a body, economy, market or society as a whole." The moral issue surfaces regularly throughout the world.We see, for example, the Nigerian SARS violence and subsequent protests as people call for better governance. Peo...  Read More

Where do you turn when you are an emotional basket case, as we say? You flail about seeking any and everyone to put healing salve on your raw grief, but no one, not even God, appears to be able to comfort you. Job pours out his frustration over the unhelpful counsel and attitudes of his friends and the seemingly unmerciful actions of God. He is in physical and emotional pain, cannot figure out wha...  Read More

The life of praise should be reflective. I am not seeking to be philosophical, so please allow me to explain what I mean. Our praise should mirror what God has done for us. It becomes our poetic response to God’s self-revelation in history (WBC). I am indebted to Peter Craigie for reminding us that poetry was a form of language that was native to Israel, and it preceded the psalms (e.g. Exodus 15:...  Read More