Pastor's Blog
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. (Phil 1:2) Simon, Simon, Satan has demanded permission to sift you like wheat. (Lk 22:31) How strikingly different are the intentions behind these statements. How diametrically opposed are their wills toward us. One seeks to kill, steal, and destroy. The other comes to give life…
The case of the defective lights. Recently I purchased some work lights like those pictured to the right. They were from an online discounter of products made in another country. I had to wait some 4 weeks for them to arrive. But I had been lured by the great price. When they finally did arrive, guess what! They didn’t work. So I put them on the charger. Not even the…
To fit him for the kingdom, God changed Saul’s heart (1 Sam 10:9). Why would God need to change his heart? Simply put, because the condition of Saul’s heart—just like every other human’s heart—was very grave. “The heart is deceitful; it is desperately sick,” says God. (Jer 17:9) Our hearts are hard (Ps 95:8), unclean, and defiled (Mt 15:19-20). So God did a wonderful…
Life Trajectory
On Sunday I shared that Saul’s was a “rooftop” life. The gifted young champion had a beautiful, majestic rise. All was progressing splendidly. Then came the peak, and all too soon his early promise became a flower quickly fading. His decline, degeneration, and degradation accelerated frighteningly. Till finally he met disaster and an ignominious death. How might we…
The lamp of God had not yet gone out. These words simply meant that it was still nighttime. God had directed that the lamp in the tabernacle was to be lit all night long—from evening until morning. * So when God came and called Samuel, we know it was still nighttime because “the lamp of God had not yet gone out” (1 Samuel 3:3). But perhaps those words spoke of more than…
Speak, LORD, for Your servant is listening. Utterly profound words! Profound enough, in fact, to be Samuel’s compass for the rest of his life. And from that day on he never wavered. His ears were attuned to everything the LORD said. Just as profound, but in a sad way, is the fact that those words were uttered by a man who did not listen…