Posts from 2021 (Page 3)

Dear Friends, Are you ready?  It’s almost time. Thank you Johnny and Chachi! See you an hour earlier than usual this Sunday!  Don’t forget!  Easter has a way of sneaking up on us, doesn’t it. Unlike the Christmas season, don’t have all the cultural reminders that Easter is on the way.  There are no radio stations playing all Easter music, all the time.  There’s no mention of the coming holiday in TV ads.  Most of us haven’t done much to decorate the…

Dear Friends, I was on the phone today with a friend whose mother is in hospice care.  We talked for a few minutes about both her physical and mental health.  In her 90’s, her mind remains sharp, my friend told me, while her body continues to weaken.  I asked about the condition of her soul.   My friend said that while his mom has been in church all her life and clearly professes her faith in Jesus, she has a hard…

Dear Friends, Last week, I wrote about the sin of coveting.  About having what is described as “an immodest desire for something that doesn’t belong to you.”  As I said, coveting may not seem like a big deal to us, but that’s because we’re not thinking biblically about it.  Here are some of the reasons why God commands us not to covet. 1.  Coveting causes us to assign too much value to temporary things. Remember the parable in Luke 12 about the man who built…

Dear Friends, Does it surprise you that when God gave the Ten Commandments to Charlton Heston (you have to be of a certain age to get that), that along with commandments having no other gods before Him, not bowing to idols, and prohibitions against murder, theft, adultery and lying, He includes a commandment about coveting?  It’s the last commandment on the list.  Thou shalt not covet.  And compared to what’s come before, it may seem like God was running out of really…

Dear Friends, I sat this week with a friend whose marriage has hit an icy patch.  It’s skidding.  And he was frustrated. We talked about better communication and learning to resolve conflict more effectively.  But at some point, I said “you know what I think the core issue is, right?  If you want to see real, long term change in your marriage, you’ve got to address your relationship with God.” I thought back on our conversation later that day.  Had I been clear? …

Dear Friends, More than a decade ago, I spent a fascinating two hours talking to a World War II veteran named Ed Harrell.   That was the day I learned about the Japanese submarine that attacked and sank the USS Indianapolis in middle of the Pacific Ocean in July of 1945. More than 800 sailors died as a result of that attack.  Ed was one of the 316 men who survived, after spending four days drifting at sea. The conversation was…

Dear Friends, I wish I had a better idea of what to say today.  In this moment. Social media doesn’t help.  People who have been lobbing their 280 characters back and forth at each other for years now are tossing verbal hand grenades with renewed vigor.  Maybe it cathartic for them.  But hand grenades don’t bring healing.  Or hope.  That’s not what they’re designed to do. We are all weary.  Depleted.  No reserves left to absorb another body blow.  Between news of spiking virus…