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Christmas Grace
Why would God go to all the trouble to endure our bad choices and our flagrant sinning in order to have a relationship with us? Here is a Christmas story as told by Philip Yancey in his book “What’s So Amazing About Grace?” Yancey tells the story of a prodigal daughter who grows up in…
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Many men of science, too few men of God
In 1948, at an Armistice Celebration (Armistice was the declaration of peace at the end of World War I), it was declared Nov. 11 at 11 a.m. So 11, 11 at 11. They did that symbolically because they felt that they were at the eleventh hour. They actually felt if the war continued, the whole…
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Never satisfied
Some people are never happy. A Jewish lady’s grandson is playing in the water. She is standing on the beach not wanting to get her feet wet, when all of a sudden, a huge wave appears from nowhere and crashes directly over the spot where the boy is wading. The water recedes and the boy…
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Where are you in your daily Bible reading?
Thanksgiving in the United States was observed on various dates throughout history. The dates of Thanksgiving in the era of the Founding Fathers until the time of Lincoln had been decided by each state on various dates. The first Thanksgiving celebrated on the same date by all states was in 1863 by presidential proclamation. The…
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Man overboard
One day Hudson Taylor was traveling on a Chinese junk from Shanghai to Ningpo. He had been witnessing to a man named Peter who rejected the gospel but was under deep conviction. In the course of events, Peter fell overboard, but no one made any effort to save him. Taylor sprang to the mast, let…
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Too proud to pray
There was a woman at work when she received a phone call that her daughter was very sick with a fever. She left work and stopped by the pharmacy to get some medication for her daughter. She returned to her car to find that she had locked the keys inside the car when she went…
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Be Ye Holy
There is a story about a pastor who was building a wooden trellis to support a climbing vine. As he pounded away, he saw that a little boy was watching him. The youngster didn’t say a word, so the pastor kept on working, thinking the lad would just leave. But he didn’t. Finally the pastor…
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The baptism of Big Bob
The story of a baptism at a country Baptist church in the 1940s: It was Easter Sunday and everyone was dressed in their finest. It was a proud, puffed-up congregation that day. And they were not happy this Easter Sunday. The creek was up a little bit and running a little swift. The baptismal candidate…
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The Pastor’s Pen: We’ll stay out of the way
The call to Worship had just been pronounced starting Easter Sunday morning service in an East Texas church. The choir started its processional, singing “Up from the Grave He Arose” as they marched in perfect step down the center aisle to the front of the church. The last lady was wearing shoes with very slender…
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The Pastor’s Pen: The pearl of the greatest price
A Christian missionary in India had befriended a devoted Hindu and had explained that salvation is a gift. Then one day the Hindu told the missionary he was going to crawl many miles on his knees to Delhi as a means of earning salvation. But before he left he gave the missionary a small, heavy…
Tag: Jack Ward
