CAPTAIN ROBERT RUSSELL considers how we cultivate a deeper intimacy with God . . . “In Ruth Barton’s book, ‘Sacred Rhythms: Arranging our Lives for Spiritual Transformation’ she explains that the human soul gets to the point when it is ready for a new way to pray – one that allows for a new intimacy with [...]
CADET LAURA VAN SCHAICK writes about her journey with the Bible and 1st Doctrine of the Salvation Army … A popular song that debuted on Christian radio in 2003 entitled “Everything To Me” describes the relationship that many who grew up in a Christian home, have with the Bible. It speaks of someone who “[grows] [...]
In his book, “How to Believe Again” Helmut Thielicke reflects on the story of the Canaanite woman who displayed tremendous faith (Matthew 15:21-28) “Jesus never told any of his disciples, “Great is your faith.” And yet they had left everything for his sake. He had said it to only one other person, and that was [...]
Jesus amazed his listeners in explaining deep spiritual truths by using common things and situations around him to illustrate a point: sheep, goats, coins, candles, salt, cities, sand, grain, wine, water, bread, family relationships, farming, fishing, storms, birth, death and a multitude of other metaphors. Life Lessons from Chess [...]
“Father, Into Thy hands I commend my spirit” “Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep; If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take.” Do you remember your childhood and praying those words before you went to sleep? Hebrew children were [...]
“It Is Finished” In his now famous speech, “Yes We Can” Senator (now President) Barach Obama spoke these words…”We are hungry for change and we are ready to believe again.” In November 2008 that hunger for change and desire to believe in something greater saw the United States of America elect its first African American [...]
After this, when Jesus knew that all was now finished, he said (in order to fulfill the scripture), “I am thirsty.” A jar full of sour wine was standing there. So they put a sponge full of the wine on a branch of hyssop and held it to his mouth. John 19:28-29 (NRSV) Surely the [...]
“My God, My God, why have You forsaken me?” It was the most gut-wrenching cry of loneliness in history, and it came not from a prisoner or a widow or a patient – it came from a hill, from a cross, from a Messiah. In Matthew 27:45-46 we read “Now from the sixth hour darkness [...]
John 19: 25,26 NIV “Near the cross of Jesus stood his mother, his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary of Magdala. When Jesus saw his mother there, and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to his mother, “Dear woman, here is your son,” and to the disciple, “Here is [...]
“He replied, ‘Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise’.” (Luke 23:43) Paradise! I’m not sure what kind of images are evoked by this word for you, but the biblical world helps us. Genesis sets humanity in a garden, and John of Patmos refers to it as “the paradise of God” [...]
Saturday, January 15, 2011
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