His mother died of cancer when Jack (as C. S. was nicknamed) was nine, and he and his brother Warnie were sent away to a brutal boarding school. When he finally escaped to begin his studies at Oxford University he was dispatched to the bloody battlefields of the First World War where his friend Paddy Moore died in the final months of the conflict.
Read moreYet, despite having millions of the redeemed of all the ages with Him at His side night and day, Jesus, on a night long ago, stepped down from that place and onto this Earth because there was at least one lost soul left that He wanted to have with Him (see John 17:24). That one lost soul is you and He left not ninety-nine but countless millions to make sure that you, if you want, can forever be with Him, healed, restored and reconciled to be what He always meant for you to be.
Read moreYet, despite having millions of the redeemed of all the ages with Him at His side night and day, Jesus, on a night long ago, stepped down from that place and onto this Earth because there was at least one lost soul left that He wanted to have with Him (see John 17:24). That one lost soul is you and He left not ninety-nine but countless millions to make sure that you, if you want, can forever be with Him, healed, restored and reconciled to be what He always meant for you to be.
Read moreYet, despite having millions of the redeemed of all the ages with Him at His side night and day, Jesus, on a night long ago, stepped down from that place and onto this Earth because there was at least one lost soul left that He wanted to have with Him (see John 17:24). That one lost soul is you and He left not ninety-nine but countless millions to make sure that you, if you want, can forever be with Him, healed, restored and reconciled to be what He always meant for you to be.
Read moreYears ago, a Boston television station ran an editorial that stated the message of Christmas was "peace on earth among men of good will."
I replied that though this translation of the angelic message in Luke 2 is possible, context demands it be translated "peace on earth goodwill toward men" or "peace on earth among men on whom His favor rests."
To their credit, I responded to them and they corrected their mistake. But why is this distinction important?
Read moreHere, too, is the place for us to build a grand suspension bridge, by which, through faith, we ourselves may cross from this side to the other of the stormy river of time....At his first advent, we adore him with gratitude, rejoicing in 'God with us', as making himself to be our near kinsman. We gather with grateful boldness around the infant in the manger, and behold our God. But in the second advent we are struck with a solemn reverence, a trembling awe.
Read moreOn October 9 the main rescue shaft broke through to where the miners were trapped. Some 69 days after their ordeal began, the first miner, Florence Avalos, was pulled to the surface in a specially designed steel cage winched up through the rescue shaft. "We always knew we would be rescued." Mario Sepulveda, the second miner rescued said shortly after he emerged. "We never lost faith."
Read moreThere was little he could do except pray and wield a powerful pen. There was a helplessness in his situation that he recognized as a parallel to Advent, Christians' time of waiting for redemption in Christ. 'Life in a prison cell may well be compared to Advent,' Bonhoeffer wrote his best friend Eberhard Bethge, as the holidays approached in 1943.
Read moreJeff Brumley in the Florida Times-Union (August 15, 2010) wrote an article on those who keep their faith separate from being part of a church. He quoted Jeff Sturgeon who grew up Methodist and converted to Catholicism before quitting it all in the early 1970s. He believed he could get the spiritual sustenance he needed solely through a one-on-one relationship with Jesus Christ.
Read moreWe know that life is not perfect in this world, and can never be so. Utopia is a false dream. Political attempts at utopian social engineering are bound to fail. Ideological blueprints may work in theory but never seem to succeed in human experience. There are too many variables to consider, too many unintended consequences to solve. One man's program becomes another's burden. One gains at the other's expense.
Read more