"Come and share your master's happiness!" (Matt 25:23 NIV) My oldest son loves to smile. In almost every picture of him from infancy to the present day, he has a huge smile on his face. He doesn’t just smile for the camera either. I notice that he also smiles at...
I have been learning all my life. Or I presume that is how I got to be so smart. Oh yeah! I started out in Kindergarten at the age of five in a school in South St. Louis, MO. I really learned a lot in Kindergarten. First I learned how to get a vaccination. Ouch!! Then...
"Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me." (Psalm 51:12) Years ago, I went to a conference in Los Angeles. One of the speakers was H.B. London, who is known nationally as being a pastor to pastors in crisis. He spent over...
"The LORD your God is with you, he is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing." (Zeph.3:17 NIV) As Lyn Chaffart says in one of her devotionals, "The point is, we are God’s children, and...
"Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience." (Col 3:12-13 NIV) Spring has definitely sprung here in the mountains of my home. As I walked in my yard this morning I heard a...
Let me start by saying that I DO NOT celebrate Halloween. I don't put up pictures of ghosts or goblins and I don't hand out candy to the "Trick or Treat - ers". We have all seen pictures of black cats, though, with bowed back, tail in the air and every hair sticking...
"To Timothy, my dearly beloved son ..." (2 Tim. 1:2) This opening address to Timothy reminded me very much of the words I use to address a birthday or personal greetings card. It is direct but personal and using the word 'To' evokes to my mind affection from either a...
"And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, 10 so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ, 11 filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through...
"This is how we know what real love is: Jesus gave his life for us. So we should give our lives for our brothers and sisters. Suppose someone has enough to live and sees a brother or sister in need, but does not help. Then God's love is not living in that...
"I am coming to you now, but I say these things while I am still in the world, so that they may have the full measure of my joy within them." (John 17:13 NIV) I misplaced my joy this morning. I woke up to find it missing like a set of lost keys. I started...