Why Give?
The director of a disaster relief agency told about a man who had a change of heart after the flood that devastated Grand Forks, North Dakota, in 1997. The man had been strongly opposed to the request of a church to build near his house, but he relented when he saw the truckloads of food and other supplies sent by Christians. He said seeing what believers did with their money "outside the walls" of the church building changed his mind.
As Good As His Word
Part of the unspoken code among the settlers of the American West was that a man always kept his word. That explains why Andrew Garcia made a 1,300-mile trek in 1879 to pay a debt. In September of the previous year he had bought supplies in Bozeman, Montana, to hunt buffalo. The 10 pack-mules, ammunition, food, and gear cost him $300 more than he had, so a merchant loaned him the rest. He promised to pay it back by January 1.
Give Credit Where It's Due
Every Sunday in many churches, people recite the Lord's Prayer, which contains this line: "Give us this day our daily bread" (Matthew 6:11). Then during the remainder of the week, most of them go out and earn money to buy their food. Secretly, they may sometimes feel like the ungrateful cartoon character who prayed before his meal and said, "Dear God, we paid for all this ourselves, so thanks for nothing."
New host
This is another host.
Our Awesome Responsibility
What activity, what confusion surrounds us day after day! And we ourselves are busily carrying out plans and projects. In the midst of all this, the Lord is also at work. He's building His church, extending His kingdom of grace and love, moving history to its God-honoring goal.
How Would You Feel?
The Ohio highway was unusually crowded. Cars came to a standstill in the night air. Many weren't sure what was happening. But people had started spreading the word that an image of Christ had been appearing nightly on a nearby soybean tank. Many observers contended that the image was nothing more than a shadow created by night lighting on the surface of a badly stained, rusty tank.
His Hand, His Heart
Sometimes God doesn't grant our prayer requests right away. After a while we begin to feel like the psalmist who said, "How long, O Lord? Will You forget me forever?" (Psalm 13:1).
Legacy Of Affliction
Lieutenant Paul Galanti, a US Navy pilot, spent 6 1/2 years as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam. The experience has given him a heightened sense of ordinary privileges that most of us take for granted. Speaking of his life today, nearly three decades after being released, Galanti says, "There's no such thing as a bad day when there's a doorknob on the inside of the door."
Going For The Gold
This may come as a surprise, but the city of gold in today's world is New York. Beneath the frantic streets of the Big Apple lies the world's largest cache of gold. Eighty feet under the business district is a vault that contains about one-fourth of the world's monetary gold reserves.
