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This poem was given to me, quoted to me actually while serving an interim at the Pritchard Memorial Baptist Church in Charlotte, NC. This dear elderly lady was a resident of a local nursing home during that time (c. 1978-1979). The pastor of the church and I visited with her and when she learned that I was preparing for a career in ministry, but attended a Methodist College (Wofford, Spartanburg, SC) she was greatly concerned that I do not leave the Baptist denomination to become a Methodist

Do you remember the story of Desert Pete’s Pump? A rundown shack stood beside a seldom used trail in the California desert. Nearby was a well, the only source of water for miles around. At tin can was tied to the pump with a string. Inside was a message written on a piece of brown wrapping paper with…

HANDS! >> >> >> A basketball in my hands is worth about $19. >> A basketball in Michael Jordan's hands is worth about $33 million. >> It depends on whose hands it's in. >> >> >> A baseball in my hands is worth about $6. >> A baseball in Johan Santana's hands is worth $4.75 million. >> It depends on whose…

We are justified by faith alone, but by a faith that is not alone. John Calvin

Show me your faith without your works, and I will show you my faith by my works. James 2:18b Recommended Reading James 2:14-18 Ask the average man or woman on the street what the prerequisite for a person to go to heaven is, and the response you are likely to receive is that he or she must "be a good…

You may take a lantern that has no candle in it, and you may clean the exterior as long as you like, but it will not guide you through the darkness. There must be a candle placed within, or else it will be useless to you, cleanse it as you may. And within man’s set nature there must be put the divine…

I have heard of a church clergyman who was once waited upon by his churchwarden, after a long time of drought, and was requested to pray for rain. “Well,” said he “I will offer it, but it’s not a bit of use while the wind’s in the east, I’m sure.” There are many who have that kind of faith: they believe…

Faith is to believe what God says, to take it to be true, real, a matter of fact. Now when I believe what a man tells me, I do not say to myself, “Well, that is a piece of my creed now,” and then put it on the shelf and have done with it. A man tells me, for instance, in the middle of the night that…

I never had a better idea of believing in Jesus than I once had from a poor countryman. Speaking about faith, he said, “The old enemy has been troubling me very much lately, but I told him that he must not say anything to me about my sins. He must go to my Master, for I had transferred the whole concern…

You shall go into a wood when you please, but if you are very quiet you will not know whether there is a partridge or a pheasant or a rabbit in it. But when you begin to move about or make a noise, you very soon see the living creatures. They rise or they run. So when affliction comes into the soul and…

All our measures of distance by the eye are matters that have to be gained by habit and observation. When I first went to Switzerland, with a friend, from Lucerne we saw a mountain in the distance that we were going to climb. I pointed out a place where we should stop halfway up, and I said, “We shall…

See the blacksmith’s boy when he first tries to swing his father’s big hammer, how soon he gets tired. But ask the smith whether his arms ache. “Oh no!” he says, “I have made too many horseshoes for that.” Exercise has developed his muscles and strengthened his sinews to such an extent that the bringing…

A friend comes to you and he says, “Do you know such and such a person?” You say first, “I know there is such a person”—that is instruction. Being further asked, “But do you know him?” you answer, “Well, I know that he was a fine tall man, a soldier in the infantry, and that he went to the Crimea.” That…

The boy is not afraid of missing his way; he trusts implicitly his father’s guidance. His father’s arm will screen him from all danger, and therefore he does not so much as give it a thought. Why should he? If care is needed as to the road, it is his father’s business to see to it, and the child, therefore,…

Sometimes our faith, like our sight, is not quite clear. You do not always see, I suppose, equally well. There are many things that affect the optic nerve, and we know that in fair weather we can see a longer distance than we can in cloudy weather. I was at Newcastle some time ago, in a friend’s house,…

It was an eminent type of faith when the Hebrew father in Egypt slew the lamb and caught the warm blood in the basin, then took a bunch of hyssop and dipped it in the blood and marked the two posts of his door, and then struck a red mark across the lintel. That smearing of the door represented faith.…

Faith is like a metalworker who is about to prepare some work of fine art, such as smiths used to produce in the days of wrought iron. Faith, like a strong and vigorous smith, has love as its arm. Faith does not lift a finger without love. Faith believes and resolves, and then it proceeds to action,…

Suppose there is a fire in the upper room of a house and the people gather in the street. A child is in the upper story; how is he to escape? He cannot leap down—he would be dashed to pieces. A strong man comes beneath, and cries, “Drop into my arms.” It is a part of faith to know that the man is there;…

Occasionally one meets with an illiterate working man who will say to those whose occupation is mental, “I work hard for my living,” insinuating that the mind worker does not work at all. Yet I ask any man who is engaged in a mental pursuit whether he does not know that mental work is quite as real work—and…

The stupendous falls of Niagara have been spoken of in every part of the world. But while they are marvelous to hear of, and wonderful as a spectacle, they have been very destructive to human life when by accident any have been carried down the cataract. Some years ago, two men, a bargeman and a collier,…

A minister was one day going to preach. His attention was arrested by a woman standing at her door, who, upon seeing him, came up to him with the greatest anxiety, and said, “Oh sir, have you any keys about you? I have broken the key of my drawers, and there are some things that I must get.” He said,…