I gave my life to Christ some 35 years ago. Even before this happened I began to hear God speak to me. The way He thinks is so different from how I think, that from the beginning I was able to hear and to know that it was His wisdom I was hearing and to […]

“In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome this world.” John 16:33. I came across this verse through “Jesus Calling,” a daily devotional. And it startled me. It’s not a verse that is quoted often, but it is one that explains a lot about what the world is like, what we […]

Words cannot describe God. They are merely common symbols, something that we can agree on, but which never convey His true nature, His beauty, creation, love, forgiveness, mercy and mystery. The word God stands in for the mystery of His love and forgiveness, a Father to us all who just loves those He created. It […]

  Often the Bible says that we are to fear God, but does that mean to cower before him? to be afraid of his punishing ways? or does it mean to stand before him in awe and trembling at his great majesty and glory and yet to know that He loves and forgives us? To […]

“Don’t be so hard on yourself, I can bring good even out of your mistakes. Your finite mind tends to look backward, longing to undo decisions you have come to regret. This is a waste of time and energy, leading us into frustration. Instead of floundering in the past, release your mistakes to Me. Look […]

The Holy Spirit calls us in many ways: through our thoughts to follow him, to address this issue or that, to allow him to heal us, through our dreams, a friend’s suggestion of a movie to see. An idea heard two or three times in as many days. An invitation to see or hear with […]

  When my friend Don asked me recently at lunch how I was doing, I laced the fingers of my two hands together and said, “the left hand represents my mind; the right, God’s mind. I am somewhere between these two, depending on who I am listening to right now. The more I listen to […]

At the end of the Deuteronomy, in Books 28, 29 and 30, just before the Israelites are to cross the River Jordan into the Promised Land, God is laying out for the Israelites how they are to live there. Deuteronomy 28 details the results of their choices in life: if they choose to follow God, […]

We would call him a wastrel or spendthrift or a lazy man or squanderer, but Jesus called him the lost[NIV] or prodigal[NRSV or MSG] son in His parable. In some ways we all feel like that lost son(or daughter) who has “spent” our inheritance from God in bad ways; we are undeserving of God’s love […]

  “Lent leads us to the cross,” preached Rev. John Cleghorn at our church on the first Sunday in Lent. The question for us is this: is it the cross of Jesus or our own cross that Lent leads us to? Of course, the whole passion story leads us to Jesus’ death on the cross […]