Make Your Reservation
As early as 1995, reservations were being made in fashionable hotels and resorts for celebrating New Year's Eve 1999. According to writer Calvin McDowell in The New York Times, the London Savoy had by then been twice overbooked. Although the charge for the evening was $1,000, the Rainbow Room in New York City had a waiting list. So did the Waldorf-Astoria. Reservations were hard to get.
Real Peace
Rock guitarist Jimi Hendrix led a promiscuous life, indulging in drugs and behaving outrageously on and off the stage.
When Trouble Strikes
Dave Dravecky had pitched with remarkable success for the San Diego Padres and the San Francisco Giants baseball teams. But his pitching arm developed an unusual soreness. Medical tests identified the problem —cancer. Surgery and months of rehabilitation followed.
Astonished Joy!
Do you sometimes wonder what heaven will be like? All of us do, I suppose. I confess, however, that the nearer I come to the end of earth's journey the more often I indulge in "sanctified curiosity" about the home Jesus has promised to believers. What will be my reaction when I cross the river and enter into glory?
Faith Now, Sight Later
Do you see dramatic evidence of God at work in your life, or is your life rather quiet and routine? Catherine Booth, who with her husband William organized the Salvation Army, stressed the need for being content to walk by faith. In her final illness she talked to a friend about the difference between faith and sight.
Find Your Own Calcutta
"Find your own Calcutta." That was the response Mother Teresa sent to a woman who wanted to join her in ministering to one of India's most crowded cities.
Not Losers But Winners
In the earliest days of the Christian church, martyrs laid down their lives rather than deny their faith in Christ. And even in our own generation, thousands of believers have suffered imprisonment, persecution, and death. In fact, more people have perished for their commitment to Jesus in the last hundred years than in all previous centuries put together.
The Book To Treasure
Joseph Brodsky won the Nobel Prize for Literature and was a US Poet Laureate. He proposed that books of American poetry be placed next to Gideon Bibles in motel rooms. "Poetry," he reasoned, "is perhaps the only insurance we've got against the vulgarity of the human heart." Before Brodsky's death in 1996, many books had already been distributed to hotels and hospitals.
What God Do We Believe In?
For more than 50 years, the Gallup organization has been surveying the religious beliefs of the American people. Here are some of their findings: In 1947, 93% professed faith in God, 73% expected an afterlife, 90% affirmed that they pray, and 41% attended some kind of church service frequently. In 1997, the survey findings were virtually the same, except that professed faith in God went up to 96%.
