Posts

The Dawning of a New Day

Image
    The ball has dropped. Auld Lang Syne has been retired for another year. The fireworks have all been fired.   Another new year has dawned. It is hard to believe that it is 2026. It seems like only yesterday it was 2025 or 2015 or 2005. Another new year stretches in front of us like a new sheet of paper that has not yet been written on. It is a great time to give some thought to what you will write on that paper. Leap forward in your mind to January 1, 2027. What will you wish you would have done in 2026? What changes will you wish you made? What relationships will you wish you tried to mend? What will you wish you had done in your walk with the Lord? What Bible verses will you wish you had memorized? What kind of person will you wish you had become? Now come back to the present. The good news is that you have a new year in front of you to work on all the things you will wish you had worked on a year from now. But a year is a long time. It is easy to become ov...
Read more

Future Thanks

Another Thanksgiving Day is upon us. It’s a day of good food, family, and maybe some football. And don’t forget the thanks. It’s actually in the title. Thanksgiving is a day set aside for the purpose of giving thanks to God. We often thank the Lord for food, family, and friends. We thank Him for the many blessings that He has given to us. And we should give thanks for all those things. But sometimes giving thanks does not come so easily. Pain and suffering can choke the thanks right out of us. In those moments, we need future thanks. Future thanks is when we give God thanks for things that are not yet but will be one day. They will be because God has promised. God promised to make things new. As Christians, we can look into the future and give thanks today for the things God has promised to do one day. God has promised a new heaven and a new earth. The things that squeeze the thanks out of us today will one day be no more. God has promised. One day, God will wipe all tears from our eye...
Read more

All the Way Home

  I woke up last night with a song on my mind. I don’t know why it was on my mind, but it was. The strange thing is that it was a song that I have not heard in about 40 years. Our church youth ensemble used to sing it when I was in high school. We traveled each summer and did concerts at churches in Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas. Last night, I woke up with one of those songs stuck in my head. The song is “All the Way Home.” The version that we did was sung by a group called Truth. My rebellion I called freedom Took my birthright in its hand And I woke up in the pigpen Of a distant, alien land. On the road back home to Father I’ll not stop along the way I was born to higher purpose I’ll not waste another day Won’t be camping on the border Just in sight of what I’ve known It is all the way or nothing Yes, it’s all the way back home. The song is obviously about the prodigal son from Luke 15. In addition to the song being stuck in my mind, I also felt compe...
Read more

He Came!

  He came. He really came. The prophets said it would happen. It finally did. The long-awaited Messiah came into the world. He came as a baby born to a young Jewish virgin. He came to a little town called Bethlehem. Angels announced it. Shepherds were amazed by it. Mary marveled at it. Tiny fingers and toes. Cries from a manger. The Word became flesh and lived among us. God became man without ceasing to be God. Why? “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners” (1 Timothy 1:15). He came to die on the cross for sinners. He came to take the place of sinners. He came to redeem. He came to seek and to save. He came to reclaim. He came to save sinners. That is what we celebrate this week. That is what Christmas is really all about. It is about God sending His Son into the world to save sinners. “ For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life” (John 3:16). He was sent. And He came! Merry Chri...
Read more