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Blaise Pascal had a kind of born again experience the night of November 23, 1654. A brilliant scientist and intellectual, Pascal met God, as it were, face to face, and wrote what he saw and felt, as it was happening to him. He recorded on a piece of parchment, “From about half past ten in the evening…

Surgeon Paul Brand tells a story that provides a gripping picture of the work of the paraclete. He was a junior doctor in a London hospital when one day he came into the room of an eighty-one-year-old cancer patient named Mrs. Twigg. Her cancer was in her throat and, as he describes it, this “spry, courageous…

God is like a good father. Or like a good friend. Dr. Leslie Weatherhead liked to tell the story of an old Scot who was quite ill and near death. His pastor came to call on him one morning. When he entered the bedroom and sat down beside him, he noticed another chair opposite him, placed next to the…

A week after these experiences at Hope College, I went to Chicago to attend a National Day of Prayer event. Different pastors spoke on what God was doing in their communities. One of them, a pastor from Texas, had a ministry with street gangs, which in itself was amazing, because he didn’t look like…

But there may be a deeper meaning to our thirst and fatigue. John Sanford paints a picture of this in his description of an old well that stood outside the front door of a family farmhouse in New Hampshire. The water from the well was remarkably pure and cold. No matter how hot the summer or how severe…

One missionary writes that while he was serving in Paraguay, a Maka Indian by the name of Rafael would come and sit on his porch. He was inside eating, so he went out to see what Rafael wanted. When he asked, Rafael just said, “Ham, henek, met.” He didn’t get a lot out of that, even though he understood…

The president of Great Lakes Christian College says that when he was a kid playing Little League baseball, his coach had a picnic at the beginning of the season. After they’d pigged out on hot dogs and burgers, it was time for the pep talk. He says that the coach always asked them, "How many of you have…

The point is this: I saw more clearly than ever, that the first great and primary business to which I ought to attend every day was, to have my soul happy in the Lord. The first thing to be concerned about was not, how much I might serve the Lord, how I might glorify the Lord; but how I might get my…

It was not easy for Mr. Taylor, in his changeful life, to make time for prayer and Bible study, but he knew that it was vital. Well do the writers remember traveling with him month after month in northern China, by cart and wheelbarrow with the poorest of inns at night. Often with only one large room…

Matt Proctor writes: My 5-year-old, Carl, and my 3-year-old, Conrad, love it when I dress like them. After they put on jeans and a blue T-shirt, they'll come ask me to wear jeans and a blue T-shirt. When I do, they have a saying. They will survey me, survey themselves, and say, "Look, Dad—same, same."…

There’s a question mark in my mind after every Discovery Class. (By the way, if you don’t know what the Discovery class is, it’s the class that allows you to discover more about Peace Church and whether or not you want to join our church family.) That question mark is always there. Know what I’m asking…

An article in the Denver Rocky Mountain News described various web sites to which people can submit prayers. One site,Newprayer.com, says, "Simply click on the 'Pray' button and transmit your prayer to the only known location of God." The site claims "that it can send prayers via a radio transmitter…

In his book The Pressure's Off, psychologist Larry Crabb uses a story from his childhood to illustrate our need to delight in God through adversity: One Saturday afternoon, I decided I was a big boy and could use the bathroom without anyone's help. So I climbed the stairs, closed and locked the door…

A couple of weeks ago I had the pleasure of spending the weekend with my grandson. I won’t bore you with the details, but I had a blast. We played silly games. He found one of the plungers in the bathroom (It’s the one we use to unstop the drains, not the commodes, ok?) He found it in the bathroom and…

INTIMACY WITH GOD There is a subtle difference that divides the religious from the truly Christian. Something a prayer prayed by Arthur Burns reminded me of. Arthur Burns was a man of considerable gravity. In the mid twentieth century, he was the chairman of the Federal Reserve, an ambassador to West…

FALSE GODS Any affection for this world is misplaced One hundred decoys were placed on the Izu peninsula of Japan to attract endangered albatrosses and encourage them to breed. For more than two years, a 5-year-old albatross named Deko tried to woo a wooden decoy by building fancy nests and fighting…

All too often we miss what God is doing because we are either too busy doing something else or we have a better idea of what God would do. Here’s a story reminiscent of the Screwtape Letters: Satan called a worldwide convention. In his opening address to his evil angels, he said, "We can't keep the Christians…

If you were an early participant in the Internet revolution, you remember the cumbersome process of "logging on." Your computer dialed a number, your modem squeaked and squawked for a few seconds, and (hopefully) you got connected. But then, more likely than not in the early days, your connection would…