Pathway Weeklies

C. S. Lewis once remarked that he had discovered why the Lord would not utter an answer. It was because, “You are yourself the answer.” Perhaps you wonder, like me, what was it that Abraham knew of God that led him to trust Him to fulfill His promise of an heir in his old age, or that he would become the father of many nations? He possibly knew by experience what the poet Ralph Waldo Emerson would...

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” ...

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...

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...

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...

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’...

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...

“Faith that does not doubt is dead faith.” Few, if any, believers have never experienced doubts about God’s presence or answers to prayer. Some of my greatest heroes of the faith experienced doubt. Names like Sara, Gideon, Elijah, Jonah, Zacharias, and John the Baptist come to mind as women and men whose faith was shaped, in part, by their doubts! We live in a current age that is shrouded in doubt...

C. S. Lewis once wrote, “Some people probably think of the Resurrection as a desperate last moment expedient to save the Hero from a situation which had got out of the Author’s control.” Not so! Jesus took careful time between the resurrection and His ascension to clearly show that the resurrection was not a last-minute event; instead, it was about how the scriptures had been fulfilled (Luke 24:25...

Watchman Nee once said, “The Christian journey, from start to finish, is a journey of faith.” Our culture often glorifies human fearlessness, but God’s people know that His faithfulness provides the lasting victory. Children’s Sunday School stories often provide for us the remarkable account of Caleb the octogenarian dynamo (14:6-14). He stood at life’s end reaching ever onward and upward to claim...