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I know you've seen this before. I have seen it several times and saved it, but after a computer crash several years ago, I lost it and thought it gone forever. Then I was at BJ Hoff's Grace Notes, which is now no more, and not only did I find it again, but now I know who wrote it! BJ Hoff wrote it during a time of great trial. Thank you, BJ, for bringing back a friend I thought I'd lost. Only One I've often heard your question. This message is My answer. You're concerned about the hungry in the world, the millions who are starving and in need ... and you ask Me, 'What…  ( Click for more )

The science world would have us believe that because some elements in quantum act randomly that these elements have free will. In the 1980s research scientists developed empirical evidence that our brains prepared for action before our conscience mind decided to that action, therefore humans didn’t have free will because our conscience mind was “ruled” by our brain’s preparatory activities toward a specific action. (Just Google free will and free choice and you’ll find numerous references to these studies.) Then in January 2016, a new study was published…  ( Click for more )

Take a trip with your mother... just you and her. I highly recommend it. There is nothing like it and you have memories to cherish. My mom and I took a trip to Eureka Springs, Arkansas. She is so precious and it was quite a trip, what with her breaking her ankle within the first hour of arriving at our little bungalow on the west side of Eureka Springs. The trip would have been better I were not in the thoes of menopause. That curious happening to older women is the real curse. Having babies is child's play to this insidious monster who has kidnapped my personality and makes me…  ( Click for more )

Sounds rather like an oxymoron to me since God never recognized homosexuality as right, but as an abomination in His eyes.

The fact that so many homosexuals say that you can't use the Bible in your argument against homosexuality because they don't recognize it as an authority is an indication that more and more people have bought the empty package that truth is relative to belief. Frankly, it doesn't matter whether someone believes something is true or not. Believing a falsehood never makes that falsehood a truth. By the same token, believing truth does not make that truth…  ( Click for more )

Have you read Psalm 107 lately? Ages ago, I made a startling discovery. I’m sure you did, too, when you read it last.

There is a wondrous progression in this Psalm that astounds me. From Moses leading the Children of Israel out of Egypt into the wilderness where the Israelites wandered, to the sinful living during the times of the Judges, to the exile to Babylon, to the disciples’ dangerous voyage across the Sea of Galilee when Jesus spoke to the storm and it died to glass like stillness, to the peace and abundance of the thousand years of peace. And finally,…  ( Click for more )

It seems that the media has become overly concerned about making the rules rather than reporting.

Last year, you may remember, Bruce Springsteen's bullying North Carolina because he didn't like the "new" law about men using the men's room and women using the women's room. He got astounding accolades for his stance both from his peers and from the press.

Numerous famous people have been spouting hate speech against our president. When they do, such as when Stephen Colbert used foul word-imagery comparing Trump and Putin, he got roars of approval from his audience.…  ( Click for more )

Dear Abby asked that question years ago. My immediate thought was Jesus Loves Me. What do you think it is?

Give up?

It's Happy Birthday.

Well, I sang that song to my granddaughter this week who turned three on the 11th. She's been celebrating her birthday all week long. She was so excited about her birthday party and all her little school friends coming to play on the water slide, but she still had time to come running to me and give me a huge hug hello and say, "Gigi! I'm so glad you made it! Come see... This is my friend Riley!"

Just warmed my heart…  ( Click for more )

God is very emphatic about how to get to Heaven. It’s only through His Son. There are some people who believe in Jesus as Christ and say they believe Jesus is God’s Son, but they believe He was created.

So how can they possibly get this idea from Scripture? They give lots of references such as Acts 5:31 and John 14:28 by which they assume that Jesus is not God.

When one lifts up proof texts to prove a point, one is treading on very thin ice.

Jesus said, “I and My Father are One.” (John 10:30) But, John said in the beginning was the Word…  ( Click for more )

Judge Talmadge Littlejohn, back in 2010, asked everyone in his courtroom to stand and say the Pledge of Allegiance. A civil rights attorney refused.

Does the judge have the legal right to order the Pledge said and to order Attorney Daniel Lampley to jail with criminal contempt? In a word, yes. The legal definition of chancery is a court that can order acts performed, so technically, Judge Littlejohn can.

Respect for our Flag and for our National Anthem is not mandated or constitutionalized. It is traditional. You can check out Flag Etiquette here. It is common practice…  ( Click for more )

We soon we will celebrate the 241st anniversary of thousands of lives given in sacrifice to a young America and just celebrated the memory of all our fallen defending our freedom just so we have the privilege of pledging our allegiance to the flag of the United States of America.

Shame on anyone in the United States who has lost that patriotic spark when the fireworks go off, the lump in the throat when we sing "Oh, say can you see by the dawn's early light, what so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming. Whose broad stripes and bright stars, through the…  ( Click for more )

Proverbs 20:22 Do not say, "I will recompense evil"; Wait for the LORD, and He will save you.

The wise father will not retaliate or seek revenge against friends, enemies, his wife, or his children. Waiting upon the LORD is not an easy thing to do, but God deals with each person within that person’s own special heart language. Only God builds and restores families and marriages through forgiveness which is a vertical thing, not a horizontal thing. Forgiving someone is not saying, “What you did is okay, I condone it.” Forgiving someone is saying,…  ( Click for more )

Here is an interesting thing: Being Blameless. What makes a person blameless in the eyes of God?

And in your opinion, is there any difference between sinless and blameless?

Noah, Job, Abimelech were blameless. But the Corinthians were not. Why is that?

As Christians, we have the mind of Christ, we are not carnally minded. But we do wage a war in our physical bodies against our carnal nature. And in physical bodies we are conformed to the laws of physics because God created us this way. As physical—flesh, bone and blood--we cannot enter into the presence of God.…  ( Click for more )

"Would you like to take a walk with me?" my grandfather held out his huge hand.

Eagerly, I jumped up and ran to him, my tiny fingers barely able to grip his. I was somewhere between one and two. I remember I was fascinated by the sun in the trees; and Granddad asked this question of me every day of his visit. As we would walk down the gravel road, he was very careful of the ruts, holes and rocks for us both.

I, on the other hand, walked with my face toward the sun, watching the play of light in the leaves. I had no notion where I put my feet or which direction…  ( Click for more )

Job 38 has a list of huge things that God did. Job is feeling a bit abused and a bit upset at the way things have gone for him lately. In fact Job can find no reason for the disasters that befell him, rather he found much about himself that was righteous, and outlines those things in Chapter 31. And then the three "friends" fell silent after Job's speech because Job was righteous in his own eyes (Job 32:1). Now this extolling of righteousness makes Elihu angry because Job was touting all his righteousness rather than God (Job 32:2).

We read several chapters of Elihu's…  ( Click for more )

Years ago, when I was first introduced to Guideposts, I read an article by Corrie Ten Boom who chose to go to war-scarred Germany to carry her message that forgiveness is possible. The article began:

It was in a church in Munich that I saw him, a balding heavyset man in a gray overcoat, a brown felt hat clutched between his hands. People were filing out of the basement room where I had just spoken, moving along the rows of wooden chairs to the door at the rear.

It was 1947 and I had come from Holland to defeated Germany with the message that God forgives.

It was…  ( Click for more )

Mercy. Hezekiah understood this. In his song that he wrote after God spared him from his deathly sickness, he wrote,

Behold, it was for my welfare that I had great bitterness; but in love You have delivered my life from the pit of destruction, for You have cast all my sins behind our back (Isaiah 38:17).

That’s that place in the middle of your back that you can’t reach except with a long-handled back scratcher.

We humans have trouble with our memories. I think that Satan has a field day pulling out all the files where he’s written down the terrible…  ( Click for more )

I often wonder how seriously we take that.

I am tremendously thankful that my daughter’s faith is strong and getting stronger. But she is really angry with God right now because He has allowed her father, who finally turned around with that 180-degree repentance thing and became a real father after God’s own heart, He has allowed her father to have a catastrophic stroke and basically lose almost all voluntary functions. He can blink his answers “yes” and “no” and he can barely squeeze your hand. He’s been this way since Thanksgiving…  ( Click for more )

Hebrews 10:26. Let this verse melt into your being for a moment. It says:

For if we willfully persist in sin after receiving the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins remains: only a terrifying expectation of judgment and a fierce fire which will consume God's enemies.

Insisting upon the crucifixion of Jesus a second time is woefully a sin that bears unforgiveness. Jesus offered Himself once. It was a serious struggle for Him. So serious that He sweat drops of blood. He said, "Lord, take this cup...nevertheless, not My will, but Yours."

The…  ( Click for more )

“It is finished,” Jesus said while on the cross just before He died.

The fact that all sin had to be paid for in order for it to be finished as Jesus stated on the cross comes from several different places. One is in Leviticus 16 in the Law for Atonement. Aaron was to take two he-goats, one for sacrifice and the other for confession, and then to illustrate the complete removal of the people’s sin, the scapegoat…  ( Click for more )

One has to wonder why the Romans started the practice of releasing one prisoner during Passover. Who decided this was something that should happen and when it should happen. God, of course. Men thought they were brilliant thinkers and of great influence. Little did they know that it was God’s plan all along to illustrate His perfect plan of mercy and forgiveness and justice.

The story of Barabbas was put in the Bible to explain in a physical way the Spiritual truth of forgiveness.

Barabbas was a robber, a murderer, a liar, a cheat, and profaner of God Himself.…  ( Click for more )

It was a terrifying sight. One minute the world was steady and everything in its place, the next minute the ground turned to jelly in a blender, the sky went black as ink hiding the sun, and even twelve hours later the moon looked bloody. The mountains were shaking like trees in a tornado twisting and writhing as if in pain. Then the sky snapped shut like a book.

Ever had a day like that?

This warning comes from Revelation 6:12ff. Most scholars I’ve studied say this is symbolic, especially since the previous five seals being ripped from the scroll are considered…  ( Click for more )

Today is a beautiful day, I am rejoicing... or was until my laptop that has my everything on it from Sunday School lessons to my entire work environment has suddenly become allergic to my browers--all of them. For some reason I can use my browser and then their connection to the Internet is broken. It isn't my modem, or wifi, or my Internet. Yes, I paid my bill LOL. It is something internal with my laptop that the diagnostics are recognizing. It happened to my ethernet card on my desk top and I'm thinking I'm about to lose my laptop card.

Technology is a wonderful thing. There's…  ( Click for more )

I never really liked going fishing with my Mom. Oh, I loved the fellowship with her, but she caught all the fish while I trailed my hook in the water and fed bait to the fish. One clear day in June, she had talked me into going fishing (her job) feeding the fish (my job). We were trolling along her favorite spot on Lake Bruin and something grabbed my hook. I was so startled I nearly lost my fishing rod. I pulled back then let out the line a little. It was a very strong fish. It headed out in front of the boat then turned back and shot under the boat. That manuever broke the line.…  ( Click for more )

In Genesis 22, we read the story of the sacrifice of Isaac where Moriah (mo-ree-yah) is mentioned first. The Hebrew word means seen of God. Now God said for Moses to go to "the land of Moriah" -- not Mount Moriah -- to a place He would show him. Then He tells Moses to offer up his only son as a burnt offering on one of the mountains.

Several crucial things happen in this story that happened more than 1,500 years before Jesus, God's only begotten Son, went to the cross.

When Isaac points out they had the fire and the wood, and then asks but where was the sacrifice,…  ( Click for more )