Posts from 2023 (Page 5)

The other day as I was out walking by our pond I heard the leaves rustle aggressively near my feet. I jumped back in fright! I was only inches from a well-camouflaged water moccasin snake. Yowee! That was close! “Thank You, Lord,” I said, “for protecting me from that snake.” Only then did I realize why the snake hadn’t bitten me! He had the body of a giant bullfrog in his…

Dogged, determined, defiant disbelief.  Said the religious leaders to one another, “What shall we do with these men? For the fact that a noteworthy miracle has taken place through them is apparent to all who live in Jerusalem, and we cannot deny it” (Acts 4:16). What I think I hear them saying is, “Ok, much as we would like to, we can’t deny they performed a…

In 1873 the Colt Peacemaker revolver was developed for the US Cavalry to help tame the Wild West. Unfortunately, outlaws wielded them also. In 1948 the US Air Force put the Convair B36 bomber into service. It, too, was called the Peacemaker. It had sixteen 20mm cannons and carried 86,000 pounds of bombs… in the name of peace. What an irony that weapons of…

In Acts 3 Peter made it clear six ways from Sunday that the lame man was healed in Jesus’ name. No surprise, then, that the name of Jesus dominates the book of Acts, not to mention the rest of the New Testament. That is why in the name of Jesus we preach and pray and baptize, we serve and suffer, we ask God to do miracles, and so much more! I’ve…

During our February Retreat we met the theme of mercy over and over in the book of Jonah. When we come to the New Testament gospels we find them reverberating with the mercy of the Lord: In the epistles we are taught the theological underpinnings of God’s mercy: But what about in the book of Acts, where the word mercy is entirely absent? Did God pause His mercy…

Have you ever noticed how often the word “new” is used in advertising and promotional material? It’s a hands-down favorite of marketing professionals. And it works! It gets our attention! There is something about new that appeals to us. I think the Lord must have wired us that way. This Sunday we begin a new series at 9:30am called Experiencing God.…