Well, it’s the new year. We made it around the sun again. The inhabitants of Earth make the full circuit once every year—365.25 days, or 365 days and 6 hours (which explains why we observe Leap Year and add a day every four years). If you are 45 years old, you have made 45 trips […]

Believers suffer for the benefit of other suffering believers.  Paul told the Corinthians that the affliction he and his team experienced in Asia was so difficult that “we despaired of life itself. Indeed we felt that we had received the sentence of death” (2 Cor 1:8b-9a). God had a purpose, though: “But that was to […]

Perhaps you have heard the gospel before. But you have not yet come to Jesus or believed in him to save you. What can you do? First, hear the gospel again and be sure you understand who Jesus is, what he has done to deliver sinners, and how you must respond to be rescued. Speak […]

Ishmael must stay awake. He sits at the gate to the entrance of the Bushbaby Lodge in Uganda. Whenever anyone departs or arrives, he opens the gate. He must stay awake because he never knows when anyone will arrive. They could come in the evening, or at midnight, or when the rooster crows, or in […]

Consider the words of Psalm 130:3-4.  3 If you, O LORD, should mark Iniquities,       O LORD, who could stand? 4 But with you there is forgiveness,       that you may be feared. Three important truths stand out in this short passage: First, everyone is guilty of sin and worthy of […]

You may be grieving the death of a fellow believer who was close to you. It might be a dear family member or cherished friend. Whether in the distant past or more recently, they passed away, and you began the natural grieving process. God does not want you, as a follower of Christ, to grieve […]

Has God answered prayer in your life recently? Do you have any specific stories to tell about God’s faithfulness? And be honest: do you almost always take the “safe” option in life? John and Betty Stam served with China Inland Mission (founded by Hudson Taylor in 1865), first as single people, and then as a […]

“I felt like a load of guilt just left me,” reported a friend who had just come to Christ in the hospital chapel. He had gone there in confusion and anguish over his wife’s illness, but also because of his wife’s pleas. He didn’t know what to do. For the first time in his life, […]

A single individual’s salvation is part of a much bigger story about God’s activity in eternity past to save sinners. Paul wrote, “He chose us in him before the foundation of the world” (Eph 1:4a). A believer can say, “God knew me and chose me freely and unconditionally before he ever created anything — before […]