Blessing and cursing out of the same mouth? This ought not to be.

"Two men went up into the temple to pray." - Luke 18:10

What's blessed about needing to mourn? Why are there two Beatitudes about persecution?

"Woe to them that call evil good, and good evil." - Isaiah 5:20

The refrain of Psalm 24 could actually be the theme question for the entire Bible, beginning to end: Who is the King of Glory?

Odd, isn''t it, how much more readily we expect forgiveness than offer it.

Need wisdom? Ask it of God, who gives liberally to one and all.

How many Bible commands did I blithely blow off yesterday? Hmmm, this may require a calculator. 

All of us, when we look in the mirror, should see a little of Ezra and Nehemiah looking back at us.

No parable Jesus told is more lovely than the prodigal son, his brother, and their father. Look up Rembrandt's painting of it, and Nouwen's book.

"If there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things" -- Philippians 4:8

"Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy." -- Exodus 20:8

Oh to see ourselves as others see us, prayed the poet Robert Burns.

When life breaks you, the world may sympathize or merely shrug.  But it's just the moment God has been waiting for.

No point fretting about the mess our country is in, when the early Christians had it so much worse and still managed to be a shining light.

It's a jolt when you start reading the psalms as if they were your own diary or autobiography.

Maybe the Christ-followers in this country need to rethink the balance between our rights and our self-sacrifice.

Nehemiah reads like a readiness handbook for Christians in the time of Obama, Putin, Clinton, and Trump.

Throw the Apostle Paul in jail, no problem. He just rejoiced all the more.

Imagine the Lord's scathing rebuke to the heartless sentimentalists in our culture who sympathize more with a puppy in the pound than a baby in the womb.