“You shall not covet your neighbor’s house. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his manservant or maidservant, his ox or his donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.” (Exodus 20:17) It’s hard to believe that Christmas is upon us, but anyone who went shopping yesterday can tell you it’s in full bloom. Christmas is a season when we often have trouble distinguishing our wants from our needs, but that shouldn’t come as any surprise. How many times did we hear our parents say, “What do […]

“Let us come before him with thanksgiving” (Psalm 95:2) Satan has a stronghold on Thanksgiving. Have you noticed? Retail merchants don’t play it up anymore like they did when I was a kid. They skip right by Thanksgiving and go from Halloween to Christmas. In fact, most of them don’t even close on Thanksgiving Thursday, denying their own employees the opportunity to pause and reflect on the blessings of life. There’s simply too much money to be made on Christmas for them to stop and acknowledge Thanksgiving. History […]

“When words are many, sin is not absent, but he who holds his tongue is wise.” (Proverbs 10:19) My son confided in me the other day that he had become the victim of some pretty hurtful name-calling. “Mark, you need to remember that people often resort to insults in order to distract attention from their own faults,” I told him. “It’s an ego defense and you’re going to see it the rest of your life.” It’s true, but it’s not much help for a fourteen year-old with thin […]

“I guide you in the way of wisdom and lead you along straight paths. When you walk, your steps will not be hampered; when you run, you will not stumble.” (Proverbs 4:11-12) I walk at a local park just about every day. I normally try to get my walk in after work, but have taken a few morning walks recently and noticed something different about the early morning crowd. They walk slower than the evening crowd. Why? The obvious answer is that the morning crowd is older and […]