Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Sorted by date Results 26 - 50 of 650
Easter eggs … Easter bunnies … Easter baskets … Easter bonnets … We are inundated with Easter phrases this time every year. With spring comes a sense of renewed hope and joyfulness and a consciousness of new beginnings. For Christians, this joyful weekend signifies the celebration of the physical resurrection of Christ. That belief is essential because the belief in the physical resurrection of Jesus Christ is the substance of Christianity. If Jesus Christ had not risen from t...
What is authentic Christianity? Pastor Steven Furtick wrote: “Audacious faith is the raw material that authentic Christianity is made of. It's the stuff that triggers ordinarily level-headed people like you and me to start living with unusual boldness.” The important thing is that living with boldness in faith in Jesus Christ is what others see. Otherwise people would just see us — only the surface of who we are. If our lives are not lived out in authentic faith, people see a...
One of the highlights of my childhood was our family's trip to Niagara Falls. On a winding road in Missouri on our route to New York State, Daddy noticed an advertisement for a glassblower's shop. He read the sign out loud: "Glassblowing 4 miles. Visitors welcome." So Daddy decided that this was something that we needed to see. We followed the little community's main street and the roadway signs to the glassblower's headquarters. After Daddy parked in front of the little...
One of my favorite scriptures in the Bible is Proverbs 3:6. The wise man wrote: “In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.” Paths indicate roads to travel which culminates in a journey. Perhaps the writer of Proverbs realized his human frailty in predicting the unknown direction of his own personal road in life and realized that God would guide him on that unfamiliar road. So what is the interest for us? A personal illustration will help to cla...
Sometimes Joseph is called the most Christ like character of the Old Testament. But at one time, Joseph’s young life appeared to be in shambles. How did this happen? Joseph worked as a shepherd with all his other brothers on his father Jacob’s land. One day, Jacob sent 17 year old Joseph out to check on his brothers who were watching their grazing sheep in a nearby territory. Much family baggage, emotional conflict and resentment was evident in this large family. Spe...
Susie, my sister, was recently visiting a patient at a major medical center. As she turned the corner in the hospital hall, she came directly in contact with a young girl, her mother, and another who Susie assumed was the little girl’s grandmother. All three were walking together. My sister was immediately drawn to the child. Ashley was a beautiful, curly headed little girl about the age of Susie’s own 8-year-old granddaughter. However, there was a noticeable difference. The...
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German pastor, theologian and anti-Nazi dissident was imprisoned for his faith and later hanged in the Flossenbürg concentration camp in Germany. But while in prison, he prolifically wrote about God’s love. Bonhoeffer’s statement about who God loves is one of my favorites. He wrote: “God does not love some ideal person, but rather human beings just as we are, not some ideal world, but rather the real world.” I contend Bonhoeffer’s most definitive...
The belief in God’s protection is something that is often heard in everyday conversations. We speak of about God’s protection when we think about tragedies such as car accidents or terroristic events. Many of us have expressed thanks to God for protecting our families and those we love from unexpected tragedies. But does God protect us in spiritual conflicts? We think of God’s protection when it comes to being physically hurt. Yet, just as important are those times when God p...
Are we a happy people? Some studies indicate that less than half of all Americans consider themselves happy. A Harris Poll was taken in 2017 and only 33 percent of the Americans surveyed said they were happy. In 2016, just 31 percent of Americans reported the same. I read an interesting article in the New York Times that addresses this issue of people wanting to be happy. A New York Times article reported that on Jan. 12, several days after registration opened at Yale Universi...
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Russian novelist, historian and short story writer said: “We always pay dearly for chasing after what is cheap.” Nowhere are these words truer than when thinking about the wickedness and self-scheming acts of those who are selfish and ruthless in their dealings with others. The sad truth is that wicked and spiteful actions on any level reflect the state of an individual’s heart. In addition, the end results of that scheming are shoddy, shameful, despi...
Isn’t it funny how childhood memories seem to linger through the years? One such memory is mine. It was no significant day, just another Sunday at church. The only thing that made it memorable was that I had just gotten braces put on my teeth the week before and Sunday was going to be my day to show my braces off to everyone. After Sunday school I headed to the balcony with my friends. At that time, the church was still on Eighth and Hinkle. The church was packed that day a...
Do you face the New Year with apprehension? By that I mean, do thoughts come into your mind like: What will change for me this year? What difficulties and even losses will my family face? Will I be better off or will this year hit me with setbacks, both emotionally and physically? Those questions would certainly cause anxiety while thinking about what is ahead for the New Year. But remember that we are not alone when facing the unknown times ahead. Probably several characters...
What are your declarations for the new year? Many people call them resolutions, but I say that in each of our minds, many of us will declare that we are going to do things differently for the new year. So what areas of your life do you plan on making a declaration that things will be different? I declare in my own heart that I will be more attuned to God’s will for my life. I know many times he wants to use me but because of personal hangups or time or just plain s...
This week I have been contemplating on the Christmas story and especially the three wise men and their offerings of gold, frankincense and myrrh to the Christ child in Bethlehem. Most artists’ depictions of the three wise men show them dressed in well-designed robes with ornate caps or crowns on their heads. Each man has a jeweled box or an exquisite small trunk or an elegant glass jar. These containers, one in each man’s hand, carried gold, frankincense or myrrh. When the...
Not long ago, I was looking through some old papers of my daddy’s and I found a sermon named, “What do you need this Christmas?” It seems to me that Daddy’s question still stands for all of us today. So I will pose the question a little differently: What do you really need this Christmas? The word need is one of those words that we use casually. I have thought in my lifetime that I needed many things. When I was in third grade, all the girls on my block were getting Western...
In 2002, Tim Kasser and Kennon Sheldon (2002) conducted a study called, “What Makes for a Merry Christmas?” These two researchers wanted to examine the types of activities and experiences that are associated with Christmas holiday well-being and fulfillment. They asked the 117 adults who participated in the study questions about their satisfaction, stress and emotional state during the Christmas season. The results of the study found that family and religious experiences wer...
Some folks are skeptical that Jesus is the Son of God. Some folks refuse to believe the Messiah was Jesus Christ. I was reminded of this again last week as I listened to a debate on a newscast about the celebration of Christ at Christmas. Many prophecies in the Old Testament about Jesus made hundreds of years before Jesus came are fulfilled in the New Testament. What follows are just a few examples. • Prophecy: the Messiah will come. “For to us a child is born, to us a son...
Sometimes we look at the things that happen in life as merely coincidences. But are they? The preacher Rick Warren wrote: "Is there such a thing as coincidence? The way you answer that question will affect the way you give thanks this week. If the blessing you receive is just an accident, you can be glad. But can you be grateful?" Warren makes an excellent point. If we just accept our blessings as coincidences, is there really a reason to be grateful to an almighty God? This...
I am so grateful this Thanksgiving season. Many times we have blessings in our lives and we just consider them “givens.” “Given” to me has meant ordinary things, everyday things that most of us have. Many times I have taken those for granted. But this year is different. I have decided that all I glean, all my blessings, those many things in my life no longer fit into the “given” category for me. The following is a list of 12 things I am thankful for this Thanksgivin...
When I think about blessings this thanksgiving season, I realize God’s goodness and grace toward me is more than I deserve. I am most grateful for God’s grace, it given freely by God to me, regardless of my standing in society or my bank account. Grace cannot be bought by merit and grace is not earned. Yet, I can say, even though I am so underserving, that God’s grace is sufficient each day and grace for me when it is needed. I agree with Dwight L. Moody, the great preac...
I often think about well-known Bible characters that are meaningful to me. My list would include people like Moses, Joseph, Hannah, Esther and Paul. These characters are well documented in the Bible and are referred to by many as examples of faith. In fact, we know much about these characters. They are exemplars of the faith and have been topics of countless sermons over the centuries. Yet, there are some characters in the Bible that do not share the “spotlight” that the mor...
At times I seem to get in a rut with everyday responsibilities. During those times, it feels like I am going nowhere and doing nothing. I think it happens at times to everyone. The truth is that God wants us to find joy and fulfillment in everyday life. A person may claim to have no talents and or abilities and therefore nothing to offer God. Yet, that mindset is detrimental. Dwight Moody, the great preacher, said years ago something that has stuck in my mind: “Real true f...
Wednesday marked one year since our son John Scott went home to be with the Lord. The anticipation of this milestone has weighed heavily on our hearts and minds the whole month of October. Yet, there must be something to be learned from all sadness and sorrow that is with us each day. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the Christian theologian, wrote this powerful statement: “There is meaning in every journey that is unknown to the traveler.” Our journey in regard to John Scott’s healt...
I have had a reader request I write about the following experience again. It has been 35 years ago but I can still recall the man who used to roam the streets of Clovis. Our children named him the “strange guy.” The first time we noticed him was on one of our usual trips to the grocery store. He was so peculiar, so eccentric. He held his chin high, holding his trousers up with one hand and all the while talking to himself. His outfit of mismatched clothes made quite an imp...
I visited with my cousin this past week and one of the things we talked about was our kinship to Mark Twain. According to written family records and oral family history, all my first cousins, aunts and great aunts long and adamantly maintained that the Densford side of our family (my mother’s side) is related to the famous writer. As a child, it was always a real thrill for me to tell that I was related to Twain. In grade school once we were reading some short story by T...
