There is an ancient Greek legend about a woman who comes down to the River Styx to be ferried across to the region of departed spirits. The kindly ferryman reminds her that if she drinks…
Sermon Illustrations
If anyone has hurt me or harmed me knowingly or unknowingly in thought, word, or deed, I freely forgive them. And I too ask forgiveness if I have hurt anyone or harmed anyone knowingly or…
The editors of “Life Magazine” have compiled an inspiring new collection of essays in answer to their question, “What is the meaning of life?” From more than 25 countries, 200 poets, scientists, philosophers and just…
“Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that…
“Again the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls” (Matthew 13:45). There is a story of a poor fellow who had spent years desperately searching for the meaning of life.…
“I am the gate. Whoever enters through Me will be safe...The thief comes only to steal and slaughter and destroy. I come that they might have life and have it to the full” (John 10:9,10).…
A little, four-year-old girl asked her mother to check out a popular collection of folk songs on cassette from the local library. The next day as the mother passed her daughter in the play room,…
No wonder people never go alone on a roller coaster. Like marriage, it is a trip on which one needs a strong seat-mate, someone to cling to, to clutch frantically when the long, perilous descents…
The scientific “Second Law of Thermodynamics” states that any closed system left to itself tends toward greater randomness; that is to say, it breaks down. It takes an ordered input of energy to keep anything…
Romantic love is an essential ingredient of human development. The problem arises when romantic love is projected, promoted and propagandized as the living end, the goal, the pinnacle of life’s experience. Romantic love is not…
A minister put an advertisement in the local paper for a well-rounded handyman who could fix things around the Church and help out with the routine chores. The next morning a well-dressed young man came…
There is the story of the “changed man” who was asked, ”You stopped smoking because she asked you?” ”Yes,” he answered. ”And you stopped drinking because she asked you?” ”Yes.” ”And you stopped swearing because…
“Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her” (Ephesians 5:25). After several years of marriage, the wife of a certified public accountant began to think that her…
A husband and wife, together with their young son, were invited to a neighbor’s wedding. For the little boy, it was the first opportunity to attend such an affair. As the family entered the Church,…
During her son’s campaign for the presidency, the late Lillian Carter squared off with an overly aggressive reporter. ”Your son,” the reporter said, “has been traveling the country, telling people not to vote for him…
The members of a health club were assembled for a meeting on nutrition and exercise. The dietitian leading the discussion asked each in turn to describe their daily routine. The first participant admitted to certain…
A group of well-intentioned people met to discuss ways and means of helping a friend who had been down on his luck. Knowing him to be an extremely proud person who would not accept money,…
Several years ago on NBC’s “Tonight Show” Johnny Carson read the following item from the lost and found column from a midwestern newspaper: LOST DOG-BROWN FUR, SOME MISSING DUE TO MANGE, BLIND IN ONE EYE,…
Much to the annoyance of his close neighbors, the new tenant in an apartment house had his radio on at full-volume long into the night. After enduring the situation for a week or so, the…
Dr. Victor Frankl was a famed Viennese psychoanalyst and the founder of Logotherapy. Many of his greatest insights came out of World War II experiences, when he was in a concentration camp. He was deprived…