Historian and author, Alan Axelrod in this book, ‘Little Known Wars of Great and Lasting Impact’ writes: “Simon ben Kosba believed himself descended from the house of David… At the time of Hadrian’s decrees [Hadrian, the Roman Emperor, who reigned from 117-139 A. D]; Rabbi Akiva, who is celebrated in the Talmud as the ‘Head …
Read MoreHealthy Communication
Can you imagine a person who assumes responsibility for a nation and within a few days destroys the majority of what he is responsible for? That’s the story of Rehoboam, whose father Solomon had passed the torch of leadership to him. We discover that what we say and how we say it, can change not …
Read MoreBlue Prints for a Healthy Marriage
Four year old Suzie had just been told the story of ‘Snow White’ for the first time in her life. She could hardly wait to get home from nursery school to tell her mommy. With wide-eyed excitement, she retold the fairy tale to her mother that afternoon. After relating how Prince Charming had arrived on …
Read MoreHope in Depression
Kids have more money today than ever before. They are also exposed to more advertising than ever… As a result, children as young as 18 months can identify various name brands, and their desires influence how adults spend billions of dollars. Psychiatrist Juliet Schor, author of Born to Buy: The Commercialized Child and the New …
Read MoreParental Wisdom
“If it was going to be easy to raise kids, it never would have started with something called labor.”[i] Gary Thomas in his book, Sacred Parenting shares about an amazing couple, John and Abigail Adams. Abigail Adams lived during a time when allowing your children to travel overseas to accompany their father on an important …
Read MoreThe Path of Faith
Which road to take, which path to follow? Choices determine destinies. This is the time of year where many young people are graduating from school, and feel some pressure to make significant decisions. Which school to attend for further training, which career to pursue, which job opportunity to take. For those who are indecisive and …
Read MoreThe Spirit Filled Life
Sitting at the back of a newly opened church in Toronto in the early 1890’s, a young man heard the great missionary statesman, A. J. Gordon deliver his famous lectures on the Holy Spirit in Missions. Before the series ended the young listener, Rowland Bingham, was praying that the Spirit would call him to serve …
Read MoreThe Disciplined Life
Who are our heroes? Who are the people we look up to and try to be like? In our world today we see some young people trying to be like their favorite sports icon or maybe it’s someone they think is cool. The mentor may be a parent who they respect and are trying to …
Read MoreA Sincere Faith
John Gresham Machen was born on July 28, 1881, in Baltimore, Maryland, the second of three sons born to Arthur and Mary [known as Minnie]. …His parents were committed Christians. Minnie, with whom Gresham always had a special bond, had an especially significant influence on the boy’s upbringing. It was on her knee that he …
Read MoreSpeaking the Truth
Francis Schaeffer, tells the story of John Cage, an American composer who believes that the universe is impersonal by nature and that it originated only through pure chance. In an attempt to live consistently with his personal philosophy, Cage composed all of his music by various means of chance. He created sounds by tossing coins …
Read MoreThe Generous Life
So many people have communicated their deep appreciation for the streaming of the services into their homes. What most of you are unaware of is how this all came about just prior to this time where we could not gather and hold services in our facility. As a church leadership we had been discussing developing …
Read MoreHope Beyond The Grave
“On February 27th, 1991 Ruth Dillow was at her home in Kansas when the phone rang. It was bad news from the Pentagon. Her son, Private First-Class Clayton Carpenter, had stepped on a landmine in the Persian Gulf War and was dead. It was an awful, sickening reality to learn that her son would never …
Read MoreA REWARDING LIFE
The story of Samson is a window into the nature of how God’s purposes and callings are still accomplished despite the impact of sin in a person’s life. Samson’s background is amazing. His was a miracle birth, as he was born to a woman who was unable to have children, but God intervened. Then the …
Read MoreFreedom in Forgiveness
Author Max Lucado retells the story of human tragedy. “Rebecca Thompson fell twice from the Fremont Canyon Bridge. She died both times. The first fall broke her heart; the second broke her neck. She was only eighteen years of age when she and her eleven-year-old sister were abducted by a pair of hoodlums near a …
Read MoreThe Mounting Storm: Tension and Response
Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a German pastor and theologian before and during the Nazi regime in Germany. At first, he scoffed at the idea that Hitler would ever come to power, and then when Hitler became Chancellor of Germany, Bonhoeffer did all he could to stand up to the evil that the Nazi’s were perpetrating against …
Read MoreWisdom in Chaos: When Life Comes Crashing in!
“On October 19, 1918; D. W. Sutherland, acting mayor of the city of Kelowna, B. C. created the following public notice: “Notice is hereby given that, in order to prevent the spread of Spanish Influenza, all Schools, public and private, Churches, Theatres, Moving Picture Halls, Pool Rooms and other places of amusement, and Lodge …
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