One of my favorite hymns at Easter is, “Up from the Grave He Arose.” The chorus goes like this: "Up from the Grave He Arose with a mighty triumph o'er his foes He arose a victor from the dark domain and He lives forever, with his saints to reign.” If you are around my house at Easter, you will hear me bellowing this song at the top of my lungs--because I have reason to celebrate! Have you thought about His followers and how they felt when Jesus was placed in the tomb? They were grieving, the one they thought was the Messiah was dead. There was no rejoicing. But, they did not have to grieve because if they had listened to Jesus they would have known what was going on. Jesus had told them

In Rudyard Kipling, The Jungle Book: Mowgli, the man-cub, asks the animals what’s the most feared thing in the jungle. He’s told that when two animals meet on a narrow path that one must step aside and let the other pass. The animal that steps aside for no one would then be the most feared. Mowgli wants to know what kind of animal would that be? One tells him it’s an elephant. Another tells him it’s a lion. Finally, the wise old owl exclaims, “The most feared thing in the jungle is death. It steps aside for no one.” We find that statement to be so true. It doesn’t matter how physically strong, financially rich, fantastically popular or overwhelmingly powerful we are--death is an absolute tru

God is putting Christians and churches in situations only He can handle. Why? Because He wants us to depend on Him to take care of the problem. He wants to show His power and glory, so He can be glorified. He is saying “let Me see how much faith you really have, let me see how much you trust me?” In 2 Chronicles 20 we find the story of Jehoshaphat and Judah and an impossible situation they were in. Three nations with armies that outnumbered Judah came to attack and destroy them. This caused Jehoshaphat to be afraid. What did he do? 2 Chronicles 20:3 And Jehoshaphat feared, and set himself to seek the LORD, and proclaimed a fast throughout all Judah. What action did he take? He called a praye

This last week a great man of God Billy Graham passed away. I was watching a television special about him and I noticed throughout his ministry that large crowds came to these crusades to hear about Jesus. They came out in all types of weather. whether it was rainy, cold or sunshine. His events were held indoors, in stadiums or tents and sometimes lasted up to a month. The question came to my mind, "how many would attend this type of gathering today? I am afraid not many would. It’s interesting that we will go to a sporting event in all types of weather, but the threat of rain keeps us from going to church. One must wonder why we are no longer excited about the Lord. One of the reasons is th

One of the sevens dwarfs in the story Snow White was named Grumpy. All Grumpy did was complain. He never seemed happy, always complaining. This is sad to say but many Christians are grumpy people. When a Christian is grumpy they do not represent God very well. The scripture says, Philippians 2:14-15 Do everything without complaining or arguing, so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe. When I look at this verse it’s really simple: we are not to complain. Apparently, there was a lot of complaining and arguing going on in the Philippian church and it was setting a bad example. Pa