It’s different when the images that you see on the TV are not from a small schoolhouse in Pennsylvania or a campus in Colorado but are from minutes down the road. They are somehow more shocking. As I am listening to the radio and watching the coverage on TV, I am saddened by the immediate calling for stricter gun laws and the installation of metal detectors as being the answer for the wickedness that transpired on the Virginia Tech campus. The answer is not found in legislation or in technology. The answer is Jesus Christ, and Him crucified, slain for our transgression and raised for our justification. Anything less stops short of the true need. May God be glorifed and Christ be made known, even in the midst of this trouble…especially in the midst of this trouble.

One writer has called it, Christ’s “magnificent obsession,” and I would say that he is correct. All of His life, Jesus lived in the shadow of the cross. Especially in the last three years of his ministry, everything that Jesus did led inexorably to the destiny of the cross. In you mind’s eye, envision the last few days that led up to the crucifixion of Jesus. Read More »

We live in an age that is well supplied with impersonators, pitch men and con artists. I once heard of a farmer whose horses kept slobbering over everything. He saw an advertisement in a farm magazine offering a cure for this for a fee of $20. He scraped together the money and wrote in, asking for the secret. In return he received a very thin envelope containing a single sheet of paper, on which were written the words, “Teach your horses to spit.” We laugh at that kind of simple-minded deceit, but deceit is no laughing matter when it involves matters of the utmost importance.
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If I were to ask you to describe your relationship to God, how would you describe it? What words would you use? What picture would you create? I think if we were honest, many of us would have to describe the Lord as more of an acquaintance rather than a deep and abiding friend. It is an incontrovertible fact that some Christians seem to experience a much closer intimacy, a much closer relationship with God than others. They appear to enjoy a reverent familiarity with Him that is foreign to some of us. Is it a matter of favoritism or whim on the part of God or do such people qualify in some way for that close friendship with God?
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