The first-century church needed hope. After Jesus’ death and resurrection in AD 30, the church suffered persecution from the hands of the Jewish authorities. All we need to do is to read the Book of Acts to confirm this reality. But in AD 64, some 34 years later, the primary

For those of us who have been around for a few years, or a few decades, or more than a few decades, we can’t help but notice the passing of time. For me, it seems like just yesterday when I was a boy causing my parents to question whether they

We have all been encouraged lately to wash our hands thoroughly for 20 seconds, and to do it periodically throughout the day. It’s good advice, as washing will be one of the first and easiest steps that we can do to keep ourselves from being infected and to help stop

As I mentioned last week, although there are dozens of things that we should consider “banning” from our lives, I am suggesting that we concentrate, at least for now, on just three. In my last two blogs, I focused on banning both “WORRY” and ‘HOARDING” from our lives. This week,

In response to the current virus pandemic, the word “ban” is popping up much more frequently in all our conversations. As we saw last week, “ban” is a verb that means to “stop,” “to cease,” or “to forbid.” Although there are dozens of things that we should consider “banning” from

Maybe for some, the word “ban” is a relatively new word in their vocabulary. With all the freedoms we have here in American, we seldom hear the word “ban.” But with the current spread of the COVID-19 virus, we are hearing the word much more frequently. Ban is a verb

I’m sure that we can all point to a time in our lives when fear seemed to overwhelm us. Looking back, we realize that we somehow managed to make it through, but not without a great deal of emotional “hand-wringing” and “heart-wrenching” turmoil. Fear is a natural human response to

As we have seen in our previous blogs, the initial step in defeating the devil and his schemes is to RESIST him. And, his primary weapon to steal our hopes and our joy is “the lie.” Remember what Jesus said about the devil, that he is a “…liar and the

In my last blog, we concluded by looking at the strategy that the Apostle James gives us when temptation knocks on our door. His strategy is short and simple,  “Submit to God and resist the devil” (Js. 4:7). If we are to overcome the temptation that is presented to us,

Last week, we discovered that our most intense struggles in life do not generally come from what we can see, but from what we cannot see. As we saw last week, the Apostle Paul identified this “unseen enemy” as “rulers,” “powers,” “world forces of darkness,” and as “spiritual forces of