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For the Glory of God Many of our Christian testimonies have the same elements: Someone told us about Jesus, we saw the horror of our sin and understood our need for a Savior, we cried out to Him and were saved. And we have loved and followed Him ever since. Those testimonies are true accounts of our conversion, but they are also told from...

Wanted: Bold Evangelists In the climactic scene of many crime dramas, a lone police officer confronts the villains in their hide-out. One good man against an armed and reckless gang might seem foolish, but, as the viewers know, the police officer seems confident for a good reason. He has a backup team in place, ready to help at the first...

But God Every beloved fairytale has a dramatic plot twist. The princess is trapped in the tower, the castle is under a curse, or the good guys are lost in the enchanted forest. But wait! Suddenly, the prince arrives or the spell is broken, and everything gets better. Yesterday, we saw the somber reality of our sinful condition. Today’s passage...

Jesus the Evangelist One useful technological development in recent years is the Global Positioning System, or GPS. Drivers who are directionally challenged can tell their smartphones where they would like to go, and GPS will identify their current location, orient them in the correct direction, and guide them to their goal. The man in today’s...

Prayer and Evangelism In a business-school paper, researchers demonstrated that people value products more when they participate in their construction. Titled “The ‘IKEA Effect’: When Labor Leads to Love,” the paper studied the satisfaction reported by people who purchased from the Swedish retailer IKEA, which sells inexpensive furniture...

Preaching and Evangelism One snowy Sunday, a 15-year-old boy ducked into a church to get warm. While there, he heard a sermon from Isaiah 45:22, “Look unto me and be ye saved,” and he trusted Christ that day. The boy was Charles Spurgeon; over his lifetime, he would preach to more than 10 million people and baptize more than 14,000 converts.

Jesus Will Be Satisfied The ubiquitous to-do lists on our desks and kitchen counters give us concrete goals for the day’s work. In fact, making a detailed to-do list may actually cause us to be more productive. According to a study from Wake Forest University, “When participants were allowed to make and note down concrete plans . . . [their]...

Able to Save In order to become certified as a life-guard with the American Red Cross, an applicant must take a 25-hour training course and pass two examinations. Applicants must also master and demonstrate 61 different safety skills. Only then will they be deemed competent to serve as a lifeguard. In today’s passage, Jesus declares Himself...

Yahweh: The Wooing Husband On the morning of September 11, 2001, two commercial passenger planes flew into the north and south towers of the World Trade Center. Both erupted into balls of flames upon impact, causing the towers to collapse and resulting in the deaths of thousands of people. In the last several years, a memorial has opened...

Israel: The Faulty Bow “Tell all the truth, but tell it slant— / Success in Circuit lies . . . / The Truth must dazzle gradually / Or every man be blind.” This famous poem by Emily Dickinson reminds us of the power of subtle, indirect, poetic language. When we tell the truth “slant,” it often has the capacity for greater power than if we...