How Much Did It Cost?

Merry Christmas to you and those you love! How much did it cost you this year? Do you know? Or, maybe you’re one of those “last-minute” shoppers who won’t know til the credit card bill comes. By the time you read this, the packages may have been opened, and the celebration may have been completed. I hope you will look back on this Christmas with warm memories of the good times you spent with family and friends. Cecelia and I had a wonderful celebration earlier this month with our two […]

Jesus

The name “Jesus” is probably on the lips and in the thoughts of millions of people more at this time of year than at any other. Christmas is near. The word “Christmas” is a combination of two words: “Christ” and “mass,” first used in Old English around 1038 A.D. Although the holiday isn’t named after Jesus, per se, “Christmas” certainly represents what he came to accomplish in God’s plan to save lost humanity. Want to know more about the history of Christmas? https://www.whychristmas.com/customs/25th Let’s spend the remainder of our time […]

The Christmas Promise

One of my fantasies while growing up on the farm was to have a pony. This would make a perfect Christmas gift and would further my ambition to become a cowboy like some of my childhood movie heroes. The pony I wanted was advertised in a mail-order catalog and would be shipped to my house for only $599.00. Looking back on this, I now realize $599.00 was a small fortune to my parents, who were living paycheck to paycheck. My pleading for the slightest hint of a promise was dismissed […]

Gratitude

What do you do when you are having a bad day? Maybe you’re having a bad week or even worse, a bad year. What I have to say to you may not immediately change your circumstances, but it can change your attitude, leading you to a better way of thinking and acting. Better thinking and acting will help you address your problems more positively, rather than giving in to the temptation of victimhood. I’m about one month away from my eighty-first birthday. I’ve made many trips around the sun on […]

The Making of a Great Leader

Are great leaders born or made? I think it is likely some of both. Great leaders are gifted with certain personality traits and develop important skills through failure and perseverance. People do not become great leaders by winning every game or closing every deal. Those who win most of their games and close most of the deals will likely tell you they have learned more about leadership by losing than by winning. Accepting loss and disappointment as a valuable teacher is indispensable to the wisdom they bring to their leadership […]

God’s Unsearchable Ways

Who can understand the mind of God? We know He is good. We also know He allows bad things to happen to good people. Scripture reminds us to trust that He is working in everything, good and bad, to accomplish His plan. The Lord, speaking through Isaiah 55:8-9, reminds us of the vast expanse between the way we think and act and the way God thinks and acts. “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways. As the heavens are higher than the earth, so […]

God Works to Keep His Promise

Today, we come to the second chapter of Exodus to discover what God will do to keep His plan moving forward. Perhaps we should remind ourselves of what that plan is and some of the things that have brought us to where we are at the close of the first chapter of Exodus. It is beneficial to recall what God’s plan entails, as the entire Bible is somehow related to what God intended to do regarding mankind’s fall in the Garden of Eden. You can review the basic details of […]

Our Sovereign God

Our God is amazing! We have seen in the magnificent book of Genesis how He has worked in all kinds of human dilemmas and tangled messes to provide the Savior who was alluded to in the confrontation with Satan in the Garden of Eden. He chose Abraham to begin the Jewish nation through which Jesus would eventually come. The Old and New Testaments are a wonderful treasure, documenting God’s work and the future that awaits all who put their trust in Him. My research on these blogs about God’s promises […]

God’s Enduring Promise (Continued)

What guarantee do we have that God will keep His promises to us? We can trust God to keep His word because of who He is. His character is pure, without flaw or fault. He doesn’t make promises without a commitment to keep them. He never forgets. God’s promises endure even when the persons to whom He made them have passed from the scene. This has been demonstrated throughout the book of Genesis, and it continues through Exodus and the entire Bible. God’s promises endure; nothing can or will happen […]

God’s Enduring Promise

Today, we continue our trek through the Bible, examining God’s great promise to provide our Savior. In the book of Genesis, we see how God fulfilled His word to bolster faith and confidence in Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph, enabling them to carry out His plan. In the closing chapters of Genesis, we see the passing of Jacob in Egypt at the age of 147, followed by Joseph at the age of 110. All seventy members of Jacob’s family who migrated to Egypt during the famine have died. This is […]