Radio commentator Earl Nightingale once told the story of an angry father shoutin…

"If I sold my house and my car, had a big garage sale and gave all my money to the church, would that get me into Heaven?" I asked the children in my Sunday School class.

"NO!" the children all answered.

"If I cl…

In the summer of 1971 I had gone to Munich to study German. It was my first time in "the Fatherland," and I suppose I had half expected to find blond, blue-eyed kids yodeling on street corners, or adults heading to work in Lederhosen humming Beethoven's 9th.  Instead, blaring from every Italian Pizza Parlor, every Turkish shish kabob stall or ubiquitous McDonald's was the …

1. Only published one book.
2. It was in Hebrew.
3. It had no references.
4. He did not publish it in referenced journals.
5. Some doubt He even wrote it Himself.
6. He is not known for His cooperative work.
7. Sure, He created the world, but what has He done lately?
8. He did not get …

Years ago (1979), as a hundred thousand fans watched, Richard Petty ended his 45-race losing streak and picked up stockcar racing's biggest purse - $73,900. It all happened at the Daytona 500.

Petty's win, however, was a complete surprise. Going into the last lap, he was running 30 seconds behind t…

I have told you many stories about the Rev. Robert E. Baxter. He is a brilliant Hebrew scholar, an engaging preacher, but he is also an extraordinary investor! The secret to his success is (promise not to tell anyone) he is a contrarian. It works like this. When he reads in the paper that Coca Cola stock is soaring, he will not buy Coke because others will. He bu…

The word "humility" means literally a low estimate of self. But this does not imply self-deprecation. When you hear someone deprecating himself, usually you can put it down as a sort of counterfeit humility. Someone has said, "The true way to be humble is not to stoop until y…

A persistent judgment leveled against parents today is this: they gladly provide their children with every resource: Leaders, coaches, teachers, tutors, and youth workers. Certainly children should be happy and well-adjusted. They have everything money can buy. But they do not have the listening ear of Mom and Dad. "Too busy, later, not no…

"What do you think of the candidates?" That's what a reporter for a news magazine asked a young woman at Dartmouth University after a debate among presidential hopefuls. She didn't say a word about their positions on the issues or their skill at debate. She simply remarked, "None of them seems to have any humility."

Benjamin Franklin, the early American statesman, made a list of character qu…

When Mike Peters won the Pulitzer Prize for political cartoons (1981), he wasn't expecting the honor. He described his response by saying, "It is like you are asleep and it is 2 in the morning and you are hugging your pillow and you are in your funny pajamas and somebody bursts through the door and they come over and start shaking you and they say, 'Wake up, wake up!' And you say, 'What is it?' And they say,…

Some years ago St. Paul School of Theology in Kansas City was seeking a new president. Over one hundred candidates applied for the position. The search committee narrowed the list to five eminently qualified persons. Then somebody came up with a brilliant idea: let's send a person to the institutions where each of the five finalists is currently employed, and let's interview the janitor at each place, asking him what he thinks of the man seeking to be our president. This was done and a janitor gave such a glowing appraisal of William MacElvaney that he was selected President of St. Paul's School of Theology.

Somebody on that search committee understood, in a flash of genius, that those who live close to Christ become so secure in his love that they no longer …

There was a tribe of Indians who lived a long time ago in the state of Mississippi. They lived next to a very swift and dangerous river. The current was so strong that if somebody happened to fall in or stumbled into it they could be swept away downstream.

One day the tribe was attacked by a hostile group of settlers. They found themselves with their backs against the river. They were greatly outnumbered and their only…

Jesus and his disciples were coming to the town of Capernaum. As they entered the house where they would be staying, he asked his disciples, "What were you arguing about on the road?" But they kept quiet, says the writer of Mark's Gospel, because on the way they had argued about who was number one among them.

So, the disciples were human just like you and I are human. Who doesn't want to stand out? Some of the greatest people who have ever lived were also among the most ambitious.

It is said that Michelangelo prayed: "Lo…

A group of European theologians once visited Mother Teresa in Calcutta. She said to them, "You try to do what I am do…

John Killinger, in a sermon entitled, The Great Importance of Little Deeds, concluded by saying, "It's an exciting thought that when we die and come into the presence of God and all its fullness, it will not be our major achievements that speak for us, 'He was president of a bank. She was the first woman senator from her state. He was the author of …

Rev. John R. Ramsey tells how in one church a certain person provided him with a rose boutonniere for the lapel of his suit every Sunday. At first he really appreciated it but then it sort of became routine. Then one Sunday it became very special.

As he was leaving the Sunday Service a young boy walked up to him and said, "Sir, what are you going to do with your flower?" At first the preacher didn't know what the boy was talking about. When it sank in, he pointed to the rose on his lapel and asked the boy, "Do you mean this?"

The boy said, "Yes, sir. If you're just going to throw it away, I would like it."

The preacher smiled and told him he could have the flower and then casually asked what he was going to do with it. The boy, who was probably…

Since my name begins with "W" I know what it means to be at the end of the line. All through school I was either near or at the end, always with the Youngs and the Zimmermans. At every graduation I was in the last group to cross the stage and receive my diploma. In the classroom I always sat in the last row near the back of the room. I never knew what it meant to be first until I became a pastor. Now, I am always permitted to eat first at potluck dinners.

I must confess it's rather nice to be the first one to go through the line. You get to c…

Shortly after the turn of the century, Japan invaded, conquered, and occupied Korea. Of all of their oppressors, Japan was the most ruthless. They overwhelmed the Koreans with a brutality that would sicken the strongest of stomachs. Their crimes against women and children were inhuman. Many Koreans live today with the physical and emotional scars from the Japanese occupation.

One group singled out for concentrated oppression was the Christians. When the Japanese army overpowered Korea one of the first things they did was board up the evangelical churches and eject most foreign missionaries. It has always fascinated me how people fail to learn from history. Conquering nations have consistently felt that shutting up churches would shut down Christianity. It didn't work in Rome when the chur…

A golfer who had been playing badly went to a psychiatrist who told him to relax by playing a round of golf without a ball. "Do everything you would normally do, but use an imaginary ball," advised the psychiatrist." The golfer tried it the next day. He stepped up on the first tee, imagined he got a 260-yard drive, made a fine approach shot to the …

At long last, Laura McDermott had fulfilled her lifelong dream. All she could ever think of doing with her life since she was a kid was to be a doctor. Now no one in the McDermott family had ever been to college before, let alone medical school. Her parents, therefore, were constantly reminding her of the obstacles in her path. "Are you sure you know what you are getting into?" her parents would quiz her periodically. Laura's friends pointed to other obstacles. "Are you sure you want to put yourself through that much schooling? It's really hard work. Is it worth it?"

Laura McDermott persisted. She got through college and medical school. Laura McDermott was a doctor at last. She had lived her dream. But the dream soon turned into a nightmare. Dr. McDermott was hired to work with a group of…

What is the first thing that comes to mind when you hear this Gospel? Do you wonder if you are one of the rich people whose wealth will make it next to impossible to get into heaven? Have you ever heard this Gospel used in stewardship campaigns in which the prescribed fix or remedy for wealth is to give it to the church, ensuring that God wou…

The Board of Bethlehem Community Church gathered for its monthly meeting with solemn resolve. They were the largest, most prestigious congregation in their region, and with that honor came some serious responsibility. Every other year they hosted the Bishop's Winter Renewal Retreat for forty to fifty area pastors. Bethlehem Church's beautiful facility provided meeting rooms and meals for the specially invited clergy and guest speakers. The details were always impeccably managed. Each retreat closed with the Bishop preaching the Sunday morning sermon for the guests and congregation. Participants left feeling pampered and refreshed.

But this year the Board faced a potentially embarrassing dilemma. In the two years since the last retreat, Mae Ella Grant had joined the church.

Now, Bethlehem…

Some years ago a young man approached the foreman of a logging crew and asked for a job. "That depends," replied the foreman. "Let's see you fell this tree." The young man stepped forward and skillfully felled a great tree. Impressed, the foreman exclaimed, "Start Monday!"

Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday rolled by, and Thursday aft…

There is a story many years ago of an elementary teacher. Her name was Mrs. Thompson. And as she stood in front of her fifth grade class on the very first day of school, she told the children a lie. Like most teachers, she looked at her students and said that she loved them all the same. But that was impossible, because there in the front row, slumped in his seat, was a little boy named Teddy Stoddard.

Mrs. Thompson had watched Teddy the year before and noticed that he didn't play well with the other children, that his clothes were messy and he constantly needed a bath. And Teddy could be unpleasant. It got to the point where Mrs. Thompson would actually take delight in marking his papers with a broad red pen, making bold X's and then putting a big "F" at the top of his papers.

At the sc…

A hundred feet above the Apurimac River, near the remote village of Huinchiri, Peru there is a suspension bridge that connects the Limi-Cuzzo Road. It has been there since the 14th century. Using four miles of braided coya grass, the Inca constructed the bridge in phases. First a bowman attached a fine thread to an arrow and fired it across the gorge. A man on the other side tied a cord to the thread and fired it back across the gorge. The cord was then pulled across. One by one the Inca added thicker and thicker ropes,…

In his book, Disappointment with God, writer Philip Yancey relates a touching story from his own life. One time on a visit to his mother--who had been widowed years earlier, in the month of Philip's first birthday--they spent the afternoon together looking through a box of old photos. A certain picture of him as an eight-month-old baby caught his eye. Tattered and bent, it looked too banged up to be worth keeping, so he asked her why, with so many other better pictures of him at the same age, she had kept this one.

Yancey writes, "My mother explained to me that she had kept the photo as a memento, because during my father's illn…

This parable goes against the business mentality that dominates our lives. We have always been taught: You get out of something directly in proportion to that which you put in it. Yet, that is not what happened in Jesus' story. In our way of thinking, the laborers who came to the field late got something for nothing. This parable challenges us not to look upon the Kingdom of Go…

Years ago, when the Betty Crocker Company first began selling their cake mixes, they offered a product which only needed water. All you had to do was add water to the mix which came in the box, and you would get a perfect, delicious cake every time.

It bombed. No one bought it and the company couldn't understand why, so they commissioned a study which brought back a surprising answer. It seemed that people weren't buying the cake mix because it was too easy. They didn't want to be totally excluded from the work of preparing a cake; they wanted to feel that they were contributing something to it. So, Betty Crocker changed the formula and required the customer to add an e…

Do you feel as if you're a million years behind in one or more of your classes? Do you have trouble recalling anything when you hear the word "test"? You might do better if you tried a few simple learning techniques. When you study, what position are you in? Research shows lying down is the poorest position for learning. Sitting up is much better. Standing while learning is better still. And walking while learning is best of all, provided you're in familiar territory and don't stumble over anything. And if you are firmly gripping something while in any of these positions, they you increase the level of learning for that position. So the best position would be to walk while gripping your book. Another tip is to study in the place where you will have to recall the material. Studies show that…

Some years ago a book was written by a noted American historian entitled “When The Cheering Stopped.” It was the story of President Woodrow Wilson and the events leading up to and following WWI. When that war was over Wilson was an international hero, There was a great spirit of optimism abroad, and people actually believed that the last war had been fought and the world had been made safe for democracy.

On his first visit to Paris after the war Wilson was greeted by cheering mobs. He was actually more popular than their own heroes. The same thing was true in England and Italy. In a Vienna hospital a Red Cross worker had to tell the children that there would be no Christmas presents because of the war and the hard times. The children didn’t believe her. They said that President Wilson was…

The kingdom of heaven is like a professor who had many papers to grade. She asked her teaching assistants to start helping her early in the morning, and agreed to take them all out to dinner when the grading was finished. About mid-morning she realized she would need more help, so when she saw other graduate students standing in the hallway doing nothing, she asked them to help her, and agreed to reward them appropriately. Again at noon she found oth…

The story is told about a fellow who loved to read mystery stories but he didn't like to be kept in suspense. He would read the last chapter first. That way he could read the book in the assurance that in the end good would triumph over evil. To the villain he would silently announce, "Don't get too sure of yourself. …

At a dinner party, people were talking about people in their lives who had meant much to them.  The famous preacher, William Stidger, told the story of a Mrs. Wendt, an old school teacher who 30 years before had gone out of her way to introduce him to Tennyson.  One of the dinner party members asked Stidger, "Does Mrs. Wendt know that she made such a contribution to your life?"

That caught William Stidger…

Two passages by C. S. Lewis illustrate the author’s esxperience with God’s grace:

You must picture me alone in that room in Magdalen, night after night, feeling, whenever my mind lifted even for a second from my work, the steady, unrelented approach of Him whom I so earnestly desired not to meet. That which I greatly feared had at last come upon me. In the Trinity Term of 1929, I gave in and admitted that God was God and knelt and prayed: perhaps that night, the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England. I did not then see what is now the most shining and obvious thing, the Divine hum…

Remains Of The Day is a powerful movie starring Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson. Hopkins plays the role of the chief butler at a large estate in England. Emma Thompson plays his chief assistant. The movie is set in the years immediately preceding and succeeding World War II.

The butler is the central figure in the film. He has come by his trade naturally. His father was a butler before him. The estate, therefore, is the only home he has ever known. He knows no other life. In this world he is a man of absolute dependability. He runs the large estate staff like clockwork. He is a model of efficiency. He is also a man who seems to have no emotions whatsoever. One evening, for example, while the staff is busily serving a marvelous banquet the butler is called aside. His father, who also wor…

In his book On a Wild and Windy Mountain, Dean of the Chapel at Duke University William Willimon tells of being in New Haven, Connecticut, as a student in 1970, during the famous Black Panther trial. Perhaps you remember those days -- the 1970s? It was a turbulent time for our country -- a time of strife, discord, and agony that threatened to tear our country apart. Much of the unrest of those days came to a focus during the trial of those Black Panther leaders. It was just at that time that Willimon happened to attend a choral mass at a Catholic church near Yale University. A boy's choir was singing a great Ascension composition called "Deus Ascendit – God Has Gone Up." As he sat there listening to those young voices, Willimon found himself thinking, "How appropriate. God has gone up. Gon…

Some years ago a book was written by a noted American historian entitled "When The Cheering Stopped." It was the story of President Woodrow Wilson and the events leading up to and following WWI. When that war was over Wilson was an international hero, There was a great spirit of optimism abroad, and people actually believed that the last war had been fought and the world had been made safe for democracy.

On his first visit to Paris after the war Wilson was greeted by cheering mobs. He was actually more popular than their own heroes. The same thing was true in E…

Charles Swindoll, in his book "The Grace Awakening," tells about one of his youth workers many years ago who was a member of an ethnic church. It was Scandinavian. Being a rather forward-looking and creative young man, he decided he would show the youth group a missionary film. We're talking about a simple, safe, black-and-white religious-oriented movie documentary. That film projector hadn't been off an hour before a group of the leaders in the church called him in and asked him about what he had done. They asked, "Did you show the young people a film?" In all honesty he responded, "Well, yeah, I did." "We don't like that," they replied. Without trying to be argumentative, the youth worker reasoned, "Well, I remember that at the last missionary conference, our church showed slides "

One …

When it was built for an international exposition in the last century, the structure was called monstrous by the citizens of the city, who demanded it be torn down as soon as the exposition was over. Yet from the moment its architect first conceived it, he took pride in it and loyally defended it from those who wished to…

Ted Stallard undoubtedly qualifies as the one of "the least." Turned off by school. Very sloppy in appearance. Expressionless. Unattractive. Even his teacher, Miss Thompson, enjoyed bearing down her red pen as she placed Xs beside his many wrong answers.

If only she had studied his records more carefully. They read:

1st grade: Ted shows promise with his work and attitude, but (has) poor home situation.

2nd grade: Ted could do better. Mother seriously ill. Receives little help from home.

3rd grade: Ted is good boy but too serious. He is a slow learner. His mother died this year.

4th grade: Ted is very slow, but well-behaved. His father shows no interest whatsoever.

Christmas arrived. The children piled elaborately wrapped gifts on their teacher's desk. Ted brought one too. It was wrap…

In 1722 Count Nicholaus von Zinzendorf of Saxony founded a colony of pietist believers called "hernhut," later known as Moravians. He also traveled to America and set up communities that began to send out missionaries, first to Greenland, then to the West Indies, then beyond. By the time Zinzendorf died in 1760 some 300 missionaries, all laypersons, had gone out from the various colonies. in 1738 when some of the challenges of missionary life had become clear, Zinzendorf wrote his famous instructions, many of which sound strangely modern, despite their 18th century language. It is better to send people into the wide world than to send no one. But you should be warned about the following temptations:

1. To have even the slightest dealings with clergymen.
2. To think about your purpose in the …

In God's Smuggler, Brother Andrew tells in the first couple of chapters the story of his early life—one section of which dealt with his hell-for-leather days in the Dutch army in Indonesia. While serving in that area, fighting against Sukarno in the late 1940s he bought a young ape, a gibbon, who took to him, and Andy treated him as a pet in the barracks. He hadn't had the gibbon for many weeks before he noticed that when he touched it in some areas around the waist it seemed to hurt him. So he examined the gibbon more closely and found a raised welt that went around his waist. He carefully laid the animal down on his bed and pulled back the matte…

On Christmas Day a small manger scene sat on a table just inside the doorway to a neatly kept home. People hurried past it all day, barely noticing the tiny figures gathered around the infant tucked into golden straw. In the morning children raced by it on their way to the Christmas tree. At noon, arriving guests pushed past it, one accidentally knocking over a shepherd as he took off his winter coat.

Later in the afternoon the well-fed assembly of adults and children moved somewhat slowly by the manger again as they drifted from the dining room back i…

If it kept up like this he wasn't going to get anything done all morning. After the telephone calls, that paper-jam in the copier, and now this, he was beginning to feel that it was pointless to try.

She stepped into his office, "Sorry to interrupt you Reverend, I know you are busy, but I need to talk to you!" She went on to tell him about a problem a dear friend of hers was having, and how it would be really "nice" if the pastor could stop by for a visit sometime. Soon. He wanted to say that if people would just stop bothering him long enough to get his work done he would be glad to go out and visit, but he smiled instead and thanked her for stopping. She had gotten his attention. Four other members had stopped by in the last two days worried about the same couple. One of those worriers …

Pastor Joel D. Kline writes:

"Some years ago I read a novel by Jan de Hartog entitled Star of Peace. It's the story of a ship's captain transporting 250 Jews from Nazi Germany to Montevideo, Uruguay, the last port in the world willing to receive Jewish refugees. When the ship arrives there, however, it is soon discovered that all of the passengers' visas are forgeries, and authorities tell the captain that his only option is to return the Jews to Germany, regardless of the fate facing them there. The captain, recently converted to Christianity, cannot in good conscience do so. And so he hatches a plan to unboard the passengers by night along the coast of the U…