Thinking about Life and the Lord!

The gospel writers tell us a great deal about that first Easter, but Matthew tells us something a little bit different that I believe is significant for our lives. What is significant in his story? It is these words: "Suddenly there was a violent earthquake, because an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and approached [the tomb]. He rolled back the stone and was sitting on it" (Matt. 28:2). Easter is an earthquake with a stone rolled away from the tomb and a dead person walking the streets, with an angel sitting on a now useless stone. It was at the least a major shake up. Easter is an earthquake that shook the whole world. It got everyone's attention that first Sunday morning, but has it captured much of your attention? We allow many stones to seal up our lives and to keep us from being all that God intended us to be. We get our lives sealed up with pride, greed, self-centeredness, blame, guilt, victimization, pain, hurt, and sinful practices. We allow our lives ...

The world in which we live has never been more connected. Companies are spending millions of dollars to lay millions of miles in fiber optic cables and shooting communication satellites into space just to stay connected. People all around the world share information instantly through their connection on the internet. Kids all around the world are texting each other and “tweeting” to each other information in real time on their cell phones- some even in the middle of jungles and deserts. Just today I was sitting in my office talking on my cell phone to a friend who was walking up a path with other Christian leaders in Brazil. In so many ways we are connected to each other instantaneously. While we seem to be more and more connected all over the world, as a pastor I continually meet people who actually feel more and more disconnected than ever before. They feel completely out of the loop or on the outside of life looking in. Many of these people are disconnected with family members...

It is Fall and our thoughts begin to turn toward the holidays. Recently I was preaching a revival in the northern part of the State when a little boy about 10 years old came up and said, “Hey preacher! Can I ask you a riddle?” I told him to go ahead and he said, “If April showers bring May flowers then what do May flowers bring?” I thought for a few minutes and said, “Well I don’t know. Why don’t you tell me?” The little guy laughed and said, “Pilgrims!” You know the little guy was right. The little riddle made my mind race toward Thanksgiving. Sandwiched somewhere between Halloween and Christmas is this annual Thursday holiday that is becoming more and more miniscule in the minds of people all over our country every year. Rarely do retail stores even acknowledge the occasion and the celebration of Thanksgiving. Sadly, even among God’s people there is very little thought given to Thanksgiving. For many it is a holiday that is nothing more than a day off work, a day for football, a da...

A man and his wife were eating in a restaurant in LaFayette, Louisiana. They were having an argument on how to actually pronounce the word “LaFayette.” One of them emphasized the first syllable while the other emphasized the second syllable. When the waitress came to the table she was a freshman in college. The man said to her, “Young lady, you are obviously going to school to get an education. My wife and I are having an argument. Will you very slowly tell my wife where we are?” The young college student shrugged her shoulders and said, “Sure!” She looked at the man’s wife and said, “Bur…ger…King!” I don’t think this couple had much peace, do you? Peace is something I have been thinking a lot about lately. It seems that every where you turn people are calling for peace. However, the peace they are calling for is not the kind of peace we really need. The world’s definition of peace is too limited. To the world, peace is simply the absence of conflict. This understanding of peace is ...

Join me for a life-changing adventure in the Holy Land February 21-27, 2012. I am once again leading a tour to Israel to walk where Jesus walked and to see all the sites of our faith. The cost of the trip is $3,450.00 per person which is an all inclusive cost. The price includes our stay at 5 star hotels, all meals. a luxury motorcoach, a full-time guide, all tips, and all entrance fees. You will not even be allowed to carry your own luggage. We will be seeing sites all around the Sea of Galilee, Caesarea, Tiberias, the Dead Sea, Bethlehem, and throughout Jerusalem. You will walk into the empty tomb, see the sites of the crucifixion, stand on the Mountain where Elijah prayed fire down from heaven, overlook the valley of Armegeddon, put your hands on the place of Jesus' birth, and walk through the towns and villages of Jesus' ministry.  Space for this trip is limited to the first 30 people who pay their non-refundable deposit of $300.00 pe...

Did you know that people exists? Often the people we come into contact with each day are nothing more than nameless faces we view as being available to meet some need for us or to provide us with some kind of service. The reality is that people all around us have lots of needs. You may even be someone with lots of needs. Often times the needs we have in our lives come to us without invitation and are not welcomed guests. At other times they simply occur because of the change of our situations or circumstances. Either way there are many needs people are experiencing from finances, illness, joblessness, relationships, decisions, to spiritual issues and needs. In life it sometimes seems that we have more questions than we have answers. It is at this point in our lives when we discover whether or not the faith we profess is genuine. Faith in the Lord is much more than just wishful thinking, an attitude of hope, or an experience of good will. In fact, faith is more than something you just f...

During the 1800’s in Birmingham, England, a little boy went to one of the newly formed Sunday Schools for children. The teacher taught the children that day and said, “Jesus is the light of the Lord.” Not realizing the symbolic phraseology of the teacher, the little boy came up to her after class and said, “Teacher, if this Mr. Jesus really is the light of the world, I wish He’d come and visit the street by my house. It’s awful dark where I live.” Darkness is prevalent throughout our world. The darkness of sin is in your community and in the streets of your town. While darkness surrounds many of our churches in Arkansas and across America, the light of the gospel must not be allowed to grow dim. The light of the gospel of Jesus grows dim in our churches when we forget that in our churches there is but one celebrity and His name is Jesus! Have you noticed how too many of our churches are being built on the wrong foundations? Some of our churches are making celebrities out of the w...