Thoughts from Your Pastor
I’ve been reading in 1 and 2 Samuel and particularly taking note of the life of David. In so many ways David was “the man after God’s own heart”. One wonders why this moniker is placed on a man who had so many deficiencies in his spiritual life. After all, he committed adultery with Bathsheba. …
Continue reading "A Great Sinner"
Across the street from the church there is a city park called Greenmead. It is Livonia’s much smaller version of The Henry Ford’s Greenfield Village where historical homes, factories, and shops are put on display. I often do a prayer walk over there either early in the morning or late at night during the gloaming …
Samuel, the great prophet and Judge of Israel was “retiring” after long years of leading Israel in godliness (1 Samuel 12). Because the nations around them had kings, Israel wanted one, thus supplanting Samuel and relegating him to “prophet emeritus”. 1 Samuel 12 is his “farewell address” as the longtime head of the nation. He …
Hey, don’t you hate it when you forget something important? I’ve never forgotten my wife’s birthday, Mother’s Day, or our anniversary (I think). I don’t know. Maybe I have forgotten that I have forgotten some of those dates 🙂 But I have forgotten important things. At least twice in my ministry I have forgotten appointments …
Affliction is a charged word. It probably can be said that every life endures some affliction from very mild to severe. Western Christians know little or nothing of the affliction of persecution, or poverty, or starvation, or lack of medical care, or lack of clean water to drink. Yet, many believers in other parts of …
Every language has what is called “idioms”. Idioms are a grouping of words that by common usage in a culture have a meaning not deducible from those of the individual words used in the phrase. For example, “rain cats and dogs” cannot be deduced as seeing literal cats and dogs falling from the sky but …
Sometimes a false concept of a pastor is entertained by many church members. It is thought many times, that pastors are “spiritual supermen”. They have it all together. Since they preach high moral and functional standards, they must themselves have pretty much “mastered” those standards and functions. It is true that there are high qualifications …
Generally speaking, we are impatient as a people. This seems to be especially acute in America. We are not used to having to wait a long time in a line. If it takes more than five minutes to get to the checkout cashier at the grocery store, we get irritated. We think our food ought …
Making plans is a big, big part of our lives. Making plans is a good, natural, and necessary part of a life purposefully lived. We make little plans and we make big plans. On any given day we certainly have our normal routine during our present time of life and the routine stays much the …
As I look over the past two decades of my life I realize that so much has happened. So much has changed. In my family we have gone from all our kids being at home and in the midst of child rearing to now being empty nesters with four of our kids married, five grands, …
