Sharing Your Testimony

A time-honored, effective method of evangelism is your personal testimony. Just telling about your spiritual pilgrimage. The skeptic may deny your doctrine or attack your church, but he cannot honestly ignore the fact that your life has been cleaned up and revolutionized.

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It’s a Church

A birth is always exciting. Yes, always. Whether it is your baby or someone else’s, those first cries never fail to make our hearts flutter. Family ties are strengthened as new life extends the roots. Everybody moves in closer and smiles approvingly. What power little babies possess!

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Memories

When I was deep in the redwoods some time ago, I lay back and looked up. I mean really up. It was one of those clear summer nights when you could see forever. So starry it was scary. The vastI had just completed a manuscript on Philippians, and my heart was full of joy. Not only because I was through (isn’t that a wonderful word?) but because joy, the theme of the inspired letter I had spent weeks studying, had rubbed off. It was as if Paul and I had shared the same room and written at the same desk.ness of the heavens eloquently told the glory of God. No words could adequately frame the awesomeness of that moment. One of my mentors used to say, “Wonder is involuntary praise.” That night, it happened to me.

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Witnessing

Various methods are employed to communicate the good news of Christ to the lost. Take the Eager-Beaver Approach, for example. “The more scalps, the better.” This numerical approach is decision-centered, and little (if any) effort is directed toward follow-up or discipleship or cultivating a relationship.

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Them Bones, Them Bones

Duffy Daugherty, a colorful Michigan State football coach in years past, used to say that you needed only three bones to journey successfully through life: a wishbone, to dream on . . . a backbone, for strength and courage to get through the tough times . . . and a funny bone, to laugh at life along the way. Not bad advice.

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Going Fishing

Billy Wilder, the great movie producer, openly admitted: “I have a vast and terrible desire never to bore an audience.” With tacit agreement Jack Parr once declared: “The greatest sin is to be dull.”

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Three Timely Lessons for God’s Servants

In recent posts, I have written about God’s servants feeling used and unappreciated, experiencing undeserved disrespect and resentment, and having hidden greed—a desire to be rewarded. From these very real and common perils, there emerge at least three timely lessons for all of us to remember.

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Scrisoare din Corint

În timp ce Pavel cutreiera prin orașul-port Corint, simțurile lui erau invadate de aromele condimentelor exotice, în timp ce la urechile lui ajungeau frânturi din conversații în alte limbi. Mai mult ca sigur că Pavel dăduse și peste diverși oameni și diverse practici: de la marinari mai bădărani și negustori meticuloși până la bogați închinători […]

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Un copac ce oferă adăpost

Cu puțin înainte de moartea lui, Samuel Taylor Coleridge a scris „Youth and Age” („Tinerețea și vârsta”) în care reflecta asupra anilor săi trecuți și asupra puterii pe care o avea în anii tinereții. Pentru mine, rândul cel mai emoționant din această carte neobișnuită este următoarea afirmație: „Prietenia este ca un copac ce oferă adăpost…” […]

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