Does this verse kind of give you the shivers? I realize participation trophies are a big things—everyone gets rewarded whether they win or not. On one hand, that seems kind; no one is left out. But on the other hand, there’s no real benefit to scoring the most points or…
HYMN DAY! “Children of the Heavenly Father” was originally written in Swedish by Caroline/Karolina Sandell-Berg, who was known as the “Fanny Crosby of Sweden.” After losing her beloved father in a drowning accident, she wrote hymns to cope with her heartache, and many of her 650 hymns were used in…
If you chop off a branch and toss it aside, it will wither and die. Without being attached to the life-giving vine, it can’t survive. Once we’ve received Jesus as Savior and committed ourselves to Him, trying to live like the world becomes a frustrating, sad, lonely existence. To experience…
I’ve never grown grapes, but we have a peach tree in our backyard. In the Spring, when leaves start to appear, we trim off the branches that have died over the winter. The tree is healthier without those dead portions. Then we watch for the blossoms. The little tree is…
Jesus’s choice to lay down His life at Calvary was in direct obedience to God the Father. He had the ability to resist. God’s power was His power because the Father and the Son are one. If He’d wanted to, He could have squashed those soldiers with a flick of…
The ruler of the world was coming to claim Jesus’s physical body. The ruler of world thought he’d won when Jesus released His last breath. The ruler of the world was wrong. Yes, Jesus would go to the cross, but not because of anything the ruler of the world said…
HYMN DAY! John Henry Yates, a shoe salesman in New York in 1855, wrote this wonderful hymn, “Faith is the Victory.” A glorious victory that overcomes the world! That is our faith. 1 Encamped along the hills of light, Ye Christian soldiers, rise And press the battle ere the night…
We can only imagine what it was like to walk alongside Jesus on a dusty road, to listen to Him share from His heart and see Him reach out in compassion to the lost and hurting souls He encountered. What joy it must have been to truly know Him in…
We can’t expect the world to live as Jesus instructs. The lost march to a different drum…their own. Often those who resist accepting Christ do so because they don’t like being told something they’re doing is wrong. When we try to share Jesus’s instructions, some are quick to say, “Who…
Loving Jesus brings so many blessings. I can still hear my mom’s voice in my head as she shared with me during her last days, “I love Jesus so much.” She did, and it showed in the way she treated others, the way she spoke to others, the way she…
