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The Day of the Lord On November 21, 2017, after a week of house arrest, Robert Mugabe, age 93, resigned as president of Zimbabwe. He had held the position since the country’s independence from Great Britain in 1980. Military leaders acted to remove Mugabe from power when it became clear that he was positioning his wife, Grace Mugabe, 52,...

A Jealous God Many parents have had a version of this conversation with their children: “If you don’t clean your room, you can’t have a friend over to play,” or “If you don’t return the car with a full tank of gas, you may not borrow it next weekend.” The child does not clean her room or return the car filled with gas—and then acts shocked...

A Shepherding God Kenneth Bailey, author of The Good Shepherd, was familiar with shepherding culture. He spent seven years as a child in the south of Egypt, returned years later to serve as pastor in rural Egyptian churches, and later lived in Bethlehem “where shepherds grazed their flocks around us.” Bailey brought these personal insights...

A Certain Future Twelve thousand people in twelve cities were interviewed for IKEA’s 2016 Life at Home Report. Each person was asked this simple question: “What makes a home a home?” Despite the respondents’ different cultures, ages, and ethnicities, four common elements of home were identified: comfort, safety, belonging, and love. As we...

All Have Sinned In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s classic novel The Scarlet Letter, we meet Hester Prynne. Hester is required to wear the letter A on her chest, the flaming scarlet symbolizing her sin of adultery. But Hawthorne reminds us that perhaps the symbol should not be worn by Hester alone: “If truth were everywhere to be shown, a scarlet letter...

The Perfect Sacrifice Jesus inaugurated the Lord’s Supper, also called the Eucharist or Communion, during His last Passover meal with His disciples. Today, Christians continue to observe the Lord’s Supper as part of corporate worship. Partaking together of the bread and the cup, which represent Christ’s body and blood, reminds us of our life...

Why Blood? A classmate of Billy Sunday, hymn writer Lewis Jones (1865–1936) attended Moody Bible Institute. Upon graduation, he worked for the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA), and at a camp meeting in Maryland he wrote the words to the hymn, “There Is Power in the Blood.” Would you be free from the burden of sin? There’s power in...

The Blessing of Forgiveness After buying her morning paper, Patricia Machin returned home to learn that her husband had been killed by a careless driver. Following the accident, she wrote a letter offering forgiveness to the driver, Brian Williamson: “However bad this accident was for me, I realize it was 1,000 times worse for you.” Patricia...

Staying Angry Is it possible to stay angry forever? Two German families in a suburb of Munich installed a twelve-foot-high fence topped with barbed wire and security cameras to separate their properties. The feud, which lasted fourteen years, between the Bensch and the Kern families started because one family planted an elderberry bush too...

An Incredible Credit Credit cards have become an integral part of our modern economy. Every day, millions of Americans purchase groceries, furniture, and cars on credit. That purchase becomes a debt with a promise to pay back the lender. Maybe it should be called a “debt card”! In contrast, when you receive a credit to your account, it adds...