Biblical Counseling

When I was a boy I remember having a close call with a snake. My friends and I were running along the shore of a pond and I was stopping from time to time to hurl sticks into the water. As I was frolicking along, I reached down to pick up a sizable one that…

A film was produced a while back about Joan of Arc, the second patron of France. My daughter became interested in her and did some research. Living from 1412-1431, Joan of Arc became famous for her faith, visions, national loyalty, military heroism, and execution. In 1920 she was canonized–declared a “saint”.[1] The papal act of…

A while back my wife and I registered to vote in our regional election. In order to get on the voters’ list we needed to bring with us two proofs of identity. After showing them our driver’s license and health card, we were deemed eligible to exercise our right as citizens. Similarly, we need to…

An athletic coach advised his team, “the main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing!” In sports the main thing is sticking to the game plan to win. In the Christian life we need also to continually refocus on the basics. In discipleship we discover that the main thing is not a…

Dr. Jack R. Taylor recorded a message entitled “The Strength of Weakness.” It is an honest, insightful exposition of the passage that was instrumental in launching Grace Notes 1998. God relplied to Paul’s earnest prayer to remove his “thorn in the flesh”: “And He said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for My…

An employee at a video rental store recalled the following incident: “I mentioned to a customer that her son already had a film out. ‘What film’? she asked. Realizing that it came from the adult section, and too embarrassed to tell her the title, I mumbled, ‘Uh … I’m not sure.’ ‘That’s all right,’ she…

One phrase that is often used to describe the process of allowing Christ to live His life through us is “The Exchanged Life”. It was a phrase used in chapter 14 of the devotional biography, Hudson Taylor’s Spiritual Secret. The great missionary to China, who had been frustrated in his attempts to live the abundant…

My last attempt to grow some vegetables was not a successful one. I planted some tomato plants and did some weeding and watering when I “got around to it.” When harvest time came, I had nothing to show for my healf-hearted gesture at veggie-growing. I heard about another fellow who is tomato-challenged. He confessed, “I’m…

A frustrated gardener quipped, I’m not much of a gardener. Once I took a seed catalog and started out the door. ‘Where are you going with that?’ my wife asked. ‘I’m going to show it to my tomatoes,’ I explained.” This reminds me that we need more than an ideal; we need an activated life.…

The story is told that President Calvin Coolidge invited some people from his hometown to dinner at the White House. Since they did not know how to behave at such an occasion, they thought the best policy would be just to do what the President did. The time came for serving coffee. The President poured…