“You cannot fast as you do today and expect your voice to be heard on high.” (Isaiah 58:4) I once had a situation where I was convicted to approach a friend about something he was doing that was hurting his Christian witness. I was uncomfortable about the whole thought of it and consulted my pastor. His advice: “Commit one day to prayer and fasting”. Well, I certainly understood the value of prayer in such matters, but why should I fast? I had never fasted in my life for […]

“For this people’s heart has become calloused; they hardly hear with their ears, and they have closed their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts and turn, and I would heal them.” (Matthew 13:15) When I was a small child, my family watched Oral Roberts on television every week. In the early years of his ministry, Roberts conducted healing services and won notoriety nationwide for the miracles that God performed. I remember one particular Sunday morning at the end […]

“I tell you, now is the time of God’s favor, now is the day of salvation.” (2 Corinthians 6:2) Easter is my favorite holiday. It ushers in spring and renews the hope and joy that the winter season seems to steal from so many of us. I’ve always thought of Easter as a season of celebration. In fact, my former church in Georgia hosts an Easter production each year for which thousands will literally get off work early to go on one of the seven nights that the […]

“See my servant will act wisely; he will be raised and lifted up and highly exalted.” (Isaiah 52:13) Michelangelo once turned to a fellow artist and said with frustration in his voice, “Why do you keep filling gallery after gallery with endless pictures on the one theme of Christ in weakness, Christ on the cross, and most of all, Christ hanging dead”? he asked. “Why do you concentrate on the passing episode as if it were the last work, as if the curtain dropped down there on disaster […]