It may be my “duty” to do things that please my wife, but duty does not drive me. Love motivates me to be and do all I can to make her happy. I delight when I do something that she particularly likes. She blesses me with her reaction.

If you serve God as fire insurance to avoid hell, or because God is like a little pet that just brings you (notice the you here) pleasure or warm fuzzies or because you want to put up a show for those in your congregation, well, you’ve missed it. Read more…

Yesterday I was reminded again of the great and socially encouraged sin of the church – gossip.

I have never added a motive onto my definition of gossip; that I leave for slander or defamation. Loose tongues speaking negatively or suggestively about someone who is not present is gossip.

“If a person thinks that he is religious but can’t control his tongue, he is fooling himself. That person’s religion is worthless” (James 1:26 God’s Word).

James 3:5-10 goes to great length to describe the horror of a loose tongue and gossip: Read more…

[Sometimes the old artists cannot be improved upon. May you be blessed by this devotional as I was.]

November 21
Morning Verse
“Don’t give God’s Holy Spirit any reason to be upset with you.” Ephesians 4:30 (God’s Word) Read more…

In the “Toronto Sun” on Tuesday November 20, 2012 an article appears about littering. It’s one of those issues that belong to the earth world, but since I’m here it makes a difference.

We constantly pick up garbage from our yard where the wind (which blows wherever it wants to) deposits it. Some of it is throw-away trash. Some blows out of garbage pails where the garbage wasn’t properly kept.

I remember when I first came upon the computer programming term GIGO, “garbage in – garbage out”. If you enter errors or useless data into a computer you get the same junk out.

Does litter indicate a condition of the soul? Read more…

Remember, Saul, who later changed his name to Paul to indicate his changed life, persecuted the followers of Jesus. Something that gets glossed over all the time is that he did so under the watchful eye of the religious institution. Even more, the religious leaders wrote a letter of authority so that Saul could go to other countries to persecute believers.

Saul even authorized, on at least one occasion, the murder of a believer (Stephen). Stephen’s crime was, well, that he didn’t believe the right thing. Stephen was not convicted of a criminal offense, a social abuse or failure to live up to his potential. The only “crime” Saul accused him of was believing in Jesus Christ as Saviour. Read more…